China can join coalition forces in Afghanistan

[Exarch]

about a week old, but this jsut in:

China can join coalition forces in Afghanistan’
LAHORE: The Chinese forces can join coalition forces in Afghanistan, a private TV channel quoted British PM Gordon Brown as saying on Friday.

According to the channel, Brown told New York’s Council on Foreign Relations that China sending troops in Afghanistan was a possibility. He said he believes nations not currently involved in fighting will likely join the mission, adding all nations see Afghanistan as a frontline in the fight against terrorism. daily times monitor

source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...11-2008_pg1_10

guess the cavalry's arrived, wasnt the US calling for more nations to help out in afghanistan (like germany?)

[roy34543]

I cant understand what would give anyone the notion that china would actually send troops. Let alone well...care. though noone would deny them if they sent troops.

[Chukada1]

I cant understand what would give anyone the notion that china would actually send troops. Let alone well...care. though noone would deny them if they sent troops.

Combat training.

[Mikelus Trento]

Combat training.

That, and also having different militaries working together creates better tolerance and respect among them.

[Каие]

The only thing we need in Afghanistan is more NATO commitment and seriousness and some Russians and Arabs. Too bad they are too bitter.

[Treize]

Fighting there clients????
Na..

[Exarch]

china as part of the SCO would consider a stable afghanistan as vital to its security; the 2 countries do share a border if i'm not mistaken
<consults map>

EDIT: they share a thin corridor

[roy34543]

doesnt the border have those god-awful mountains though? .

[Erik]

doesnt the border have those god-awful mountains though? .

Didn't the silk road go through there?

[ShockBlast]

about a week old, but this jsut in:


source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...11-2008_pg1_10

guess the cavalry's arrived, wasnt the US calling for more nations to help out in afghanistan (like germany?)

Germany has troops there.Germany's constitution forbids attacking other nations.
The irony, anyone is pushing for Bundeswehr troops at the cost of breacking the German constitution.

[Carach]

Germany has troops there.Germany's constitution forbids attacking other nations.
The irony, anyone is pushing for Bundeswehr troops at the cost of breacking the German constitution.

u mean the troops that arent allowed out after dark?

rofl.

peacekeeping and nation building is different to attacking. thats part of the reason why japan can also send stuff across the world without arguably breaking their constitution.

[Farnan]

Also, it has the following advantages for China:

1) Improve their world image
2) A stable Afghanistan is a likely trade partner
3) Borders with the SCO means an unstable Afghanistan will cause trouble for its allies.
4) A natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan will benefit their allies.

[communist]

Also, it has the following advantages for China:

1) Improve their world image
2) A stable Afghanistan is a likely trade partner
3) Borders with the SCO means an unstable Afghanistan will cause trouble for its allies.
4) A natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan will benefit their allies.

1) Media will spin it to have chinese killing civilians, whilst the the "coalition" will retreat at full speed leaving chinese with the mess. Think pre-olympic media storm and think american rep in iraq. even good things will get spined to bad things
2) yes
3) yes
4) yes

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are in neutral relations with China. Should China go into agressive mode, its also going to draw AQ and Taliban as hostiles whilst west stabs China in the back(thats what happend in the last few hundread years). At the same time, China might lose the trust of her ally Pakistan.

Therefore china have interest in a stable Afgan, but sending in troops is not in her interests.

[shadyrome]

Will china even join..? I think nato + sco should join together, Just image the mighty army of this!

[The King Of Peasants]

Just image the mighty army of this!

Not really as that alliance only happens very rarely.

[Farnan]

China rejects sending troops to Afghanistan

By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN – 4 days ago

BEIJING (AP) — China said Tuesday it would not send any troops to Afghanistan — rejecting recent speculation that Beijing might support the international coalition there.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told New York's Council on Foreign Relations on Friday that China could send troops because there was a global consensus that Afghanistan is the "the front line" in the battle against terrorism.

"I think we've got to, we've got to look at that as a possibility for the future," Brown said in answer to an audience question on the possibility of a Chinese deployment.

However, in a statement seen Tuesday on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Web site, spokesman Qin Gang said there had been no change to Beijing's approach to Afghanistan.

The issue of China sending troops to Afghanistan "simply doesn't exist," Qin said.

As one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members, China has grown increasingly active in the body's peacekeeping efforts, having deployed more than 10,000 troops, mainly from engineering companies, to U.N. missions from Cambodia to Haiti to Sudan.

In contrast, the 41-nation coalition helping maintain Afghan security operates under NATO command. Britain has 8,000 troops in Afghanistan, mainly in the violent southern province of Helmand. The U.S. has a total of around 32,000 troops in the country.

In the face of an increasingly deadly insurgency, NATO has called for additional forces — a demand supported by U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

China might seem like a natural to send troops to Afghanistan because the countries share a narrow border tucked deep into the Karakorum Mountains. Beijing helped ferry arms to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s and says it is threatened by radical independence groups among its Uighur Turkic Muslim minority whom it says are trained and commanded from outside its borders.

In his statement, Qin also said China remained committed to supporting Afghanistan's peace, stability, and development — a reference to Chinese aid to the country that ranges from building hospitals to donating computers for government offices.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...BifaQD94HCU800

Speculation over...

We could have wished though.

Is Beijing, which is famously allergic to intervention, about to get involved in Afghanistan? It sounds crazy, yet there are intriguing signs. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently floated the notion at a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations, calling it a "possibility for the future."

Chinese Foreign Ministry official Qin Gang quickly rebuffed the notion last week, saying that except for United Nations' peacekeeping operations, "China never sends troops abroad," and that "media reports about China sending troops to participate in Afghanistan are groundless."

Yet the idea of greater Chinese involvement is not as outlandish as it might seem. To be sure, Beijing would balk at sending soldiers to a mission under Western command, like the NATO-run Afghan force. But the People's Liberation Army has become increasingly active in U.N. peacekeeping efforts in recent years. Beijing has deployed 10,000 troops—mainly from engineering units—to U.N. missions in Sudan and other war-torn parts of Africa, as well as to Cambodia and Haiti. If the U.N. Security Council, on which China has a permanent seat, decided to send peacekeepers to Afghanistan, "China would take it into serious consideration," said foreign-policy analyst Gao Heng from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "China would do it if the task were perfectly justifiable—but would not take part under NATO."

Strategically, there are good reasons why China might want to play a role in Afghanistan, with which it shares a small, mountainous frontier. Beijing is battling its own Islamic extremists in the area, and it's extremely concerned about escalating violence in Pakistan, a close ally. Back in the 1980s, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prodded nervous Chinese authorities to join up with American, Pakistani and Saudi intelligence agencies to launch an ambitious covert operation to train, fund and arm anti-Soviet Afghan freedom fighters, or mujahedin. In a classic strange-bedfellows arrangement, Chinese authorities provided light weapons and other assistance to joint anti-Russian efforts based in the Afghan-Pakistani border area.

Of course, now, as then, Beijing wouldn't want to be seen publicly as meddling in Kabul's internal affairs. But Chinese covert ops or peacekeeping troops under the United Nations can't be ruled out, given Beijing's growing jitters over the instability on its Central Asian flank.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/170320

Newsweek's take...

[shadyrome]

Maybe china don't want talibans blowing up cars and buses in there city...

[Caelius]

Exarch, you must've been more naive than I thought if you really believed China was going to deploy troops outside its borders in such a way.

[Barbarian Nobility]

I find it weird that China DOESN't have troops in Afghanistan given the link between the Taleban, global terrorism and subversive sub-national groups operating within Chinese borders like say, UIGHUR seperatist groups?

They do say the best defence is offence.

[karahan]

I find it weird that China DOESN't have troops in Afghanistan given the link between the Taleban, global terrorism and subversive sub-national groups operating within Chinese borders like say, UIGHUR seperatist groups?

They do say the best defence is offence.

Uighur "separatists'" = Terrorist Taliban. What can I say, you got to love the Chinese governments propaganda (every Uighur is a filthy terrorist if you listen to the Chinese government).

China won’t go in to Afghanistan simply because the loss could be greater than the profit, seeing that Afghanistan is a absolute mess that (even with the Taliban wiped out) isn’t going to be fixed in a long time.