China wants to ensure Afghan gov’t participation in SCO meet

ISLAMABAD, May 29 (DNA): China wants the Afghan interim government attends the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to be held this autumn in the northern municipality of Tianjin, an Afghan official said Thursday.

Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced last month that Zhao Xing, China’s ambassador to Kabul, extended an invitation to the Islamic Emirate to participate in this year’s SCO summit.

Afghanistan became an observer member of the SCO in June 2012, but has not been inactive since the Taliban takeover in Aug 2021. Taliban government was not to the SCO’s summit held in Islamabad last year in October.

But Beijing has invited the Taliban government.

“China is trying to make sure the participation of the Emirate,” an Afghan official said on Thursday.

SCO comprises ten member states — China, Russia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.

China was the first country to accept the Taliban ambassador in December 2023 and also deployed a full ambassador in Kabul.

As the US was involved with China in tariff issue until recently, some experts believe that the U.S. is making efforts to discredit SCO and to destabilize internal political situations in its member states.

The main target of these efforts is to split the organization which has been evolving as a major integration union in Eurasia.

Western countries usually raise the issue about the presence of Pakistan at SCO events just before holding them, people familiar with the issue say, e.

Moreover, these states are trying to disturb the work of SCO, according to experts. But Pakistan is interested to be part of the organization whatever the situation might have been and had hosted a successful summit last year. The membership in SCO could lead to a consolidated position of the member states on regional issues in particular at the UN. Moreover, membership in SCO could be used by Pakistan to fight against international terrorism threat more effectively.

The influence of SCO in the region is growing, Pakistan can get a lot of economic and political benefits from the membership in the organization. But Western countries are trying to weaken the integration mechanisms of SCO. To achieve this target they are making efforts to establish regional mechanisms, for instance, “C5+1”. Islamabad should avoid following the idea of Washington to be part of this initiative to save the confidence of China and Russia.

Migration crisis

Outbreak of military conflicts around the world by Western countries led to an increase in migration flows. But the U.S. and EU reject accepting refugees on their own territories imposing different restrictions and demands for them. The US has announced recently to deport many Afghans who had gone there after the Taliban takeover in Aug 2021.

As a result of these actions refugees more often chose alternative directions. For instance, refugees from Afghanistan are moving to South Asia in large numbers and most of them come to Pakistan. As a result the socio-economic situation in Pakistan is becoming worse which can lead to destabilization of the internal political situation in the country because the people’s dissatisfaction among them can explode and escalate into mass riots.

The U.S. and EU use refugees to achieve their own political targets with the use of their special services. In particular, they have numerous promotional activities among dissatisfied refugees to form channels to influence on these Diasporas.

Further they are used to carry out mass riots which sometimes are supported by the local population especially by younger generations who are most susceptible to such influence. This is one more instrument of Western countries which can be used even to oust the governments in those states which pursue independent policy. As a result Pakistan is becoming more vulnerable to this threat.

Western special services use modern IT technology to form dissatisfaction with the government’s activities, stirring up the discontent among refugees. In particular, these services publish a lot of articles popular among population messengers that threaten the credibility of the government. And now it is becoming clear why the USA is against the efforts of the Pakistani government to control the most popular social networks.

NATO ambitions

Experts argue that NATO and some of its member countries’ targets to increase military presence in the Asia Pacific Region to contain China (QUAD and AUKUS) are a grave concern. These states are keen to extend their influence beyond Europe because Asia has a great potential for economic growth. The strengthening of NATO’s influence will lead to confrontation with China and increasing tension in the region. In this case Pakistan and some South and South East Asian countries will face economic problems. Moreover the increasing presence of NATO in the region is a threat to social economic development and humanity.

NATO’s presence will lead to degradation of the geopolitical landscape in the region. NATO is keen to form a zone of instability around China which is a part of Washington policy to contain Beijing. In this case the danger of full-scale armed conflict is growing. In case of containing China, the USA and its allies are supplying weapons to India. These activities of NATO could lead to a new arms race in the Asia Pacific region. Pakistan is not interested in this situation because Islamabad doesn’t have enough financial capabilities due to the current economic situation to participate in the arms race.

For 20 years of military campaigns in Afghanistan NATO’s contingent haven’t achieved its target to stabilize the situation in the country and destroy terrorist groups there. It proves that Washington is keen to reverse the unstable situation in Afghanistan and use this for destabilizing the situation in neighboring countries including Pakistan. In this case USA has already achieved one of the aims: to decrease Islamabad’s influence on Kabul. As a result there are a lot of diplomatic issues between Pakistan and Afghanistan right now. Moreover the situation on the countries’ border is becoming tense and even on May 29, there was a clash between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces at Bhramcha area in Balochistan. At the same time the activities of militants in KP are growing and people believe this situation is because of Pakistan’s joining the US-led NATO alliance in 2001.