NEWLY-appointed Chinese envoy to Afghanistan Wang Yu has urged the United States to regard Afghanistan as a place for cooperation, rather than gaming. In a detailed statement on Tuesday, he hoped that all stakeholders of peace in Afghanistan including the United States will adopt a cooperative attitude to achieve the desired results.
The observation of Mr. Wang Yu are not hollow words but reflective of China’s goodwill for people of Afghanistan as their country has become a battle ground of conflicting interests for several decades. China has all along pursued a policy of non-intervention and cooperation as far as Afghanistan is concerned and this approach is bearing fruit as the conflicting parties in the country today have greater trust in the ability of Beijing to broker peace and become a genuine guarantor. China did not become part of the coalition to interfere in the internal affairs of that country and instead signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighbourly Relations with Kabul in 2006. As against the policy of intervention and interference, China prefers to engage countries in developmental pursuits through projects like One Belt, One Road and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Beijing has declared its preference to have Afghanistan as partner in CPEC for mutual prosperity and regional progress, peace and stability. China is one of the biggest foreign investors in Afghanistan and the Logar Aynak, copper extraction project, for instance, is the biggest foreign investment in the country so far. China has also been making sincere attempts to promote peaceful settlement of the longstanding conflict in that country. In view of the unique goodwill that China has in Afghanistan, analysts believe Beijing can help remove ambiguities in peace process and as a neutral partner can revive the talks with a renewed spirit.
