China Is ‘Our Main Partner,’ Says Taliban Spokesperson

[Achilles]

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid speaks during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 17, 2021. (Stringer/Reuters)

AFGHANISTAN
China Is ‘Our Main Partner,’ Says Taliban Spokesperson


By Eva Fu
September 2, 2021 Updated: September 3, 2021
biggersmaller Print


A Taliban spokesperson has praised Beijing as a “main partner” and financer as the group moves to build a national governance and develop Afghanistan’s economy.
“China is our main partner and represents for us a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity because it is willing to invest and rebuild our country,” Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid told the Italian newspaper la Repubblica on Sept. 1.
Mujahid made the remarks as the militant group, which took over Afghanistan in dramatic fashion last month, celebrated the final withdrawal of American troops from the country, putting an end to a 20-year-long conflict.
But money has become a pressing concern for the Taliban after the United States blocked the group from accessing billions of Afghan assets held in U.S. bank accounts, while the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have each suspended funding to Afghanistan.
With cash running short, the Taliban appears to place its bet on Beijing, which in recent days have signaled readiness to build ties with the group—although it has yet to formally recognize the Taliban regime.
Mujahid said the Taliban was “very keen” on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a billion-dollar infrastructure project championed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that aims to expand the regime’s economic and political clout worldwide. While Afghanistan is a formal member of BRI, no projects have started under the plan.
The spokesperson also referenced China’s currently dormant investment in a copper mine development project in the country. “We also have rich copper mines that, thanks to the Chinese, will be able to come back to life and be modernized,” Mujahid said.
China, he added, “is our gateway to markets around the world.”
Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar (L) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pose for a photo during their meeting in Tianjin, China, on July 28, 2021. (Li Ran/Xinhua via AP)The Taliban expressed further enthusiasm for BRI involvement in a call with assistant Chinese foreign minister Wu Jianghao on Sept. 2.
In the call, Abdul Salam Hanafi, a senior member in the Taliban negotiating team, called China “Afghanistan’s trustworthy friend,” according to a readout from the Chinese foreign ministry.
Hanafi expressed a wish to “actively support and participate” in the BRI project that he said will “contribute to the region’s prosperity.”
To foster Afghanistan-China friendship, Hanafi vowed that the Taliban “will absolutely not allow any forces to threaten Chinese interests,” an implicit reference to Uyghur militants who Beijing fear may launch assaults into Xinjiang, a region bordering Afghanistan where Beijing has locked up to more than 1 million ethnic Muslim minorities in internment camps.
The Chinese regime has pledged assistance to the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. In a Wednesday press briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin described the Taliban’s control of the country as a “new page in its history,” and said Beijing will “continue to provide utmost assistance to Afghanistan for an early realization of peace and reconstruction.”
The Taliban has promised to form an “inclusive government” and give amnesty to those who have fought against them or worked for the now overthrown Afghan government. But such promises have been met with skepticism both inside the country and among the greater Afghanistan diaspora.
Afghan families gather to receive food distributed by an Islamabad-based Christian organization on the outskirts of Chaman, a town in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, on the border with Afghanistan, on Aug. 31, 2021. Dozens of Afghan families have crossed into Pakistan through the southwestern Chaman border a day after the U.S. wrapped up its 20-year military presence in the Taliban-controlled country. (AP Photo)An Afghan evacuee who worked for the government before the Taliban’s takeover found out since his escape a large group of Taliban members visited his home to demand information on his whereabouts. He told The Epoch Times that three Afghans he knew were detained and tortured by Taliban members for three days, and were released only after signing a document saying they would not leave the country nor reveal their detention and torture to the public.
In recent weeks, Beijing has leveraged the Afghanistan crisis for propaganda to discredit the United States. Its English-language media CGTN recently called for Washington to “come to terms with the Taliban,” “work with us,” and drop sanctions.
While some analysts argue that the Chinese regime has much to gain in the country by filling the void left by the United States, questions remain on whether it can maintain a workable relationship with the Taliban, whose cooperation will likely depend on the Chinese funding.
Taliban forces stand guard at the entrance gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport a day after U.S. troops’ withdrawal in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug.31, 2021. (Stringer/Reuters)“If the CCP is unwilling or unable to provide the expected finances in time, or if China does anything that does not please the Taliban, then the Taliban will very fast bite the Chinese hands that feed them,” Frank Lehberger, a senior research fellow with India-based Usanas Foundation, previously told The Epoch Times.
Beijing, meanwhile, is grappling with the possibility of a spillover of militancy in the region around Afghanistan, where it is already facing a rise in violence directed at Chinese workers of BRI projects.
Two recent suicide bombings targeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan killed at least nine who worked on the BRI project in Pakistan.
“China thinks that it can control the Taliban,” but its victory is inspiring other insurgent groups, such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan terrorist group, which is “very much opposed to China,” Gordon Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China,” said during a recent Epoch TV webinar.
“We can see the entire region go up in flames, in which case, China would be very much a target,” Chang added.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-...n_3979181.html

[Ivan88]

Afghanis are armed, Chinese are armed, and how does America compare?

Daniel Shays was a farmer and fought in the revolutionary war.
He became involved in exercising the new found Right of American Men to regulate their public
Servants. They did not secure their Right to use the Armory of Massachusetts before regulating their public servants. .

The Richman raised a private army and invaded Massachusetts using “generals” named Washington and Lincoln,
shooting down American Men of Massachusetts regulating their public servants.

Alexander Hamilton and others argued for abolishing the Articles of Confederation, and replacing it with
A central federal system with diminished states rights.

Henry Knox, first U.S. Secretary of War, wrote to George Washington in 1786: of the Men regulating public servants:
“ Their creed is that the property of the United States has been protected from the confiscations of Britain by
the joint exertions of all, and therefore ought to be the common property of all…
Our government must be braced, changed, or altered to secure Our lives and property.”
They are animals, so, we must have a government proper and adequate for them.

Even Legendary patriot Samuel Adams, called for the execution of the “rebellious farmers.”

“Shays’ name was often mentioned in attacks by the Federalists against critics of the Constitution,
who were referred to as “Shaysites.”” {Histroy.com Editors]

Another Lincoln later waged war against the Southern States for withdrawing from the corrupt federal Constitution system.

Most Americans, agreeing to be regulated, worship that Constitution and defend their “right” to bear arms for defense
by writing letters & financing organizations to lobby a Congress greedy for plunder,
and well bribed, blackmailed & extorted by the Rich man.

Now compare that with a fellow who said, and applied this Principle:
“Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.”
That fellow, Mao Zedong, managed to take almost all of China and Kept it.

Americans, while calling Daniel Shays a rebel, and “agreeing to be regulated” themselves,
can only write letters and beg.
Americans are out gunned, can’t even buy ammunition,
and liable to have their weapons confiscated and themselves imprisoned or killed.