Chinese checkers with Pakistan and the Taliban

As the international affairs spotlight oscillates between the wildings of President Donald Trump's administration and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin, a recent visit by China's foreign minister Wang Yi to Kabul has gone under the radar for both its relevance and a conundrum that Xi Jinping's Beijing has found itself in.

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The Chinese minister landed in Kabul for the first time since 2022 for the sixth China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers' Dialogue on August 20. This mechanism between the three countries was resumed to largely promote interests of the duopoly of China and Pakistan in Afghanistan following the chaotic US military withdrawal in August 2021 following the closure of a 20-year-long military campaign, which only ended up replacing the old Taliban with a new one. However, for China, along with Russia and Iran, making sure western military presence in the region does not return remains a core security aim. Pakistan, on the other hand, can play spoiler by allowing Washington limited basing despite Beijing and Islamabad having a self-declared all-weather strategic bilateral.

The broader issue for China is that it has taken up the responsibility, whether by design or compulsion, to be the conduit between the Taliban, Pakistan army, and the State's powerful clandestine agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).