CPEC Corridor: On Afghanistan, Pakistan will Find it Much Harder to Play a Double Game with China

Posted by AsiaViews | Jan 2, 2018 | 0 |

The Hindustan Times

28 Dec 2017
India should give a guarded welcome to this initiative. It has been in India’s strategic interest to help Afghanistan reduce its dependency on Pakistan and give it more resources to tackle the Taliban. Both of these will be enhanced by Chinese investment.

China has taken a diplomatic bull by the horns by hosting a foreign ministers’ trilateral with Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is seeking solutions to two problems. One, to get Kabul and Islamabad on the same page on almost any issue. That this is difficult should not be a surprise given that Pakistan is supporting an insurgency, the Taliban, to overthrow the Afghan government. In most cases, this would be a weak basis for cooperation. The other is to build cross-border infrastructure in Afghanistan. The Afghan landscape is littered with wonderful-sounding connectivity projects which have never gone beyond the drawing board. One only has to recall the Lapis Lazuli corridor, Five Nations Railway and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

India should cautiously welcome this initiative. It has been an overriding Indian strategic interest to help Afghanistan reduce its dependency on Pakistan and give it more resources to tackle the Taliban. Both of these would be enhanced by Chinese investment. Despite Beijing’s closeness to Islamabad, the track record of China in Afghanistan has been one of promoting regional stability rather than hewing blindly to Pakistan’s line. It is forgotten that India once used China to persuade Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. Beijing has repeatedly sought to promote regional understanding on Afghanistan. It proposed India-Afghanistan-Pakistan talks in 2006. Since then it has hosted a variety of talks that have included Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Taliban and the United States. Afghanistan is a regular part of the agenda of Russia-India-China meetings. Notably, none of these efforts have borne any success.

Similarly, Afghanistan has been an essential part of the Belt-Road Initiative almost since its inception and Kabul publicly welcomed the idea of joining the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) last year. But building infrastructure in Afghanistan is easier said than done. India’s only requirement, endorsed by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he came to Delhi last, is that such an arrangement also incorporate trade and transit from India to Afghanistan. This is something that Pakistan has long opposed. Kabul will also be advised to ensure that any debt arising from these Chinese projects be kept on Beijing’s books.

Islamabad was vague about what it thought of China helping rebuild Afghanistan. After all, security for such projects would have to be guaranteed by Pakistan, the primary external supporter of the Taliban. When the US had proposed a similar plan, Islamabad undermined it It will find it much harder to play that double game with its “all-weather friend”, China.

(source:http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorials/cpec-corridor-on-afghanistan-pakistan-will-find-it-much-harder-to-play-a-double-game-with-china/story-2jzVTGe1CdCQZfGLpao4EL.html)

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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

“It’s important that the government see these children as victims” says Dyah. “They deserve a chance to be children again.”

CPEC Corridor: On Afghanistan, Pakistan will Find it Much Harder to Play a Double Game with China