LAC: With Taliban eyeing Xinjiang, China may climb down in Ladakh

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: A day after urging the resurgent Taliban to make a “clean break” with all terrorist forces and return to the mainstream of Afghanistan’s politics, China has hinted to India that it is ready for a “mutually acceptable solution to the issues that require urgent treatment through negotiations”.

No, this is not a change of heart on part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but a drastic change in the geopolitical situation to put on hold its expansionist objectives. With the US-led 36-nation troops withdrawing from Afghanistan by September 2021, the Taliban Islamists are suddenly back with a bang. And this time they will fight not against Russia.

After two decades, they are backed again by America and threaten both Pakistan and China! Pakistan is no longer their citadel but a target. A new battlefield has opened for them: China’s restive Xinjiang province where the Uyghur Muslims are waiting to be ‘liberated’ from China! Clearly, America is now ready to unleash the Taliban against China.

This is what dreads China. And its “all-weather ally”, Pakistan, which now finds the boot on the other leg. Islamabad is making soft, conciliatory statements to claim the Taliban was its ‘natural ally’ while Pakistani media are full of lamentations about how the Taliban is breathing down their neck. America hopes the Taliban can pin down both Beijing and Islamabad.

For China and Pakistan, his is a pincer movement in which they are getting encircled by a coalition of forces, including the Taliban. They are also apprehensive of India’s possible attempts to regain the Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK), and the Taliban’s role in it.

This change in the ground situation, and military equations, have forced China to rethink its escapades against India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) where, despite its verbal assurances, the stalemate continues as nearly 60,000 soldiers each of the two rival Asian nations are in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontational mode, primarily in Eastern Ladakh.

Already, hundreds of Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)  terrorists from Xinjiang are allegedly being trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan. As soon the Taliban come to rule Kabul, they could launch them to attack Chinese installations in Xinjiang to liberate it from Beijing’s clutches. In other words, America could unleash the Taliban on Xinjiang.

That was why, on Tuesday, China urged the Taliban to renounce terrorism.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li told his Indian counterpart Dr. S. Jaishankar in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, that Beijing is ready for a “mutually acceptable solution”.

His statement came after India’s tough stand. New Delhi firmly conveyed to Beijing that the prolongation of the existing situation in Eastern Ladakh was visibly impacting the bilateral ties in a “negative manner”. Any unilateral change in the status quo along the LAC was “not acceptable” to India and that the overall ties can only develop after full restoration of peace and tranquillity in Eastern Ladakh.

While has China moved its troops from Galwan Valley and Pangong Tso, the disengagement has not been completed from other friction points like Hot Springs, Gogra, and Depsang in Eastern Ladakh. It may still try to dig in for long.

That this is only a tactic, not a change of heart became clear in what he said the next: “China’s strategic judgment on China-India relations remains unchanged.”

So, the verbal acrobatics and diplomatic ‘exchanges’ will continue until the Taliban take control of Kabul and begin to attack Xinjiang.