China wakes up to border threat issues after Afghanistan falls to Taliban

Beijing [China], August 18 : China has expressed concern over its border security in the wake of Taliban overtaking Afghanistan, with one scholar pointing out the terrorist outfit's reach closer to home.
More than 400 "separatists" in China's northwest Xinjiang region had been trained in light and heavy weapons and explosive devices in Taliban training camps, according to Wang Yaning, a lecturer at the Chinese Armed Police Force Academy who published a paper in the school's journal in 2002, the Washington Post reported.
"The Taliban provides arms support for Xinjiang separatist forces," she wrote.
Washington Post further said that these "long-standing" concerns are now at the forefront for China, as it adapts to the reality of Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
China's fears of terrorism in Xinjiang prompted one of the most costly and criticised policies of President Xi Jinping's tenure. In 2017, China began a sweeping crackdown in Xinjiang, which shares land borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other minorities said to be suspected of Islamist radicalisation were thrown into detention camps without trials, including women and the elderly, Washington Post said.
Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Sunday when President Ashraf Ghani fled and the insurgents walked into Kabul with no opposition.
However, China said that it is willing to develop "friendly relations" with the terrorist outfit, but the overtures pose more risk than it offers opportunity.
Post the fall of Kabul, there has been much talk about how China could seize the moment to fill the vacuum left behind by the US and expand its presence and influence there, reported CNN.
The arguments intensified following the high-profile meeting between Taliban leaders and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last month, where Wang declared the Taliban would "play an important role in the process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan."
But for China, a neighbor of Afghanistan with substantial investment in the region, the security challenges posed by the abrupt return of the Taliban are far more pressing than any strategic interests down the road, reported CNN.
"China does not tend to perceive Afghanistan through the prism of opportunities; it is almost entirely about managing threats," said Andrew Small, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, in an interview with the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Security risks are not bound to China's borders. In recent years, China has invested heavily in Central Asia through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for trade and infrastructure program.
A spillover effect of the Taliban's rise to power on Islamist militants could potentially threaten Chinese economic and strategic interests in the wider region, reported CNN.
That security threat was underscored last month when nine Chinese workers were killed in a suicide bombing in Pakistan -- one of the deadliest attacks on overseas Chinese nationals in recent years.