SCO – Pakistan Deceiving China on the Afghan Front

The reason as to why Shahbaz Shareef was brought into office by the Americans via the Pakistani military was to execute America’s cunning plan to lure China into the Afghan quagmire and open another front for Russia on her Central Asian lebensraum. This would compliment the entrapment of Russia in Ukraine and the moves to agitate China into invading Taiwan in addition to her regional encirclement and aggressive development of India to contain China’s regional expansion.

Hence, at the landmark Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) conference billed essentially as a Chinese – Russian platform to balance American hegemony, Sharif cajoled China with re-iterations of Pakistan’s friendship and supporting China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan. Similarly, warm words were exchanged with Putin and his offer for Pakistan to consider pipelines for LNG were seriously given consideration.

However, Sharif seized the opportunity to execute the cunning American plan by raising the Afghan issue in comments, which were not scripted.  Sharif called for the SCO members in light of global challenges to increase co-operation on fighting terrorism and warned against abandoning Afghanistan again stating;

“Pakistan is a neighbouring country of Afghanistan, and peace in Afghanistan will ensure peace in Pakistan…it will be a big mistake if we ignore Afghanistan this time around” (Dawn 17/09/22)

The trust built between the Sharif’s and China, due to the previous failed American policy of pushing the economic expansion of China in Asia as a way to keep her away from militarizing the South China sea, which in Pakistan was CPEC and the work the Shareef’s had done with China meant that Shabaz had to be brought into power as Imran Khan’s relationship with the Chinese had become fraught, with an aggressive stalling of CPEC.

In order to execute the plan, with the help of Pakistan, the American’s instituted a strategic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which firstly released her soldiers and treasure and secondly through an agreement with the Taliban, abandoned the Afghan government allowing the Taliban to come into power knowing full well that it would soon become a magnet for jihadi movements and through American manipulation and Pakistan assistance, a haven for the anti-China movements such as the TTP, the BLA and the East Turkistan Movement, which form a threat to China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the form of CPEC in Pakistan and the Muslim Xinxiang region, hence endangering China’s sovereignty, security and regional dominance. Hence, if Afghanistan becomes a hub for such “terrorist” movements, China would have no option but to be pulled into Afghanistan to eliminate the threat, as would Russia as it would have the potential to de-stabilize the restive Central Asian countries and open up a second front after Ukraine.

Pakistan and the Taliban are central to this American policy, which unlike the American planning of India as an openly hostile act, are to be used deceptively by using Pakistan’s close relationship with China to mask Pakistan’s treachery and subservience to the American plan.

Hence the rolling back of CPEC through stalling and fomenting militant attacks against Chinese citizens and commercial interests in Pakistan like the ones in Karachi earlier on in the year whilst at the same time expressing solidarity with the Chinese, constitutes a key part of the plan to lure China and potentially Russia into Afghanistan under the rubric of fighting terrorism and not leaving Afghanistan unattended as was the case after the removal of the Taliban post 9/11.

The secretive talks between the Pakistani military and the TTP through the Taliban, alongside the continuing attacks against army personnel and the recent history of conflict between the Pakistani state and the TTP (fomented by the Americans), provides an umbrella for Pakistan and a smokescreen for China, that Pakistan too is the victim of terrorism. 

With the Americans having fomented terrorism inside Pakistan through the TTP via its hub in the US consulate in Islamabad in order to keep Pakistan away from focusing on India, and instead become occupied internally on terrorism, the Americans are again developing a surge of terrorism from Northern Pakistan into Afghanistan.

The recent killing of Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zwahiri by American drones highlights this issue effectively. The timing of the killing is critical as it has stirred the hornets nest in Afghanistan and pitted the Taliban under whose custody Zwahiri was allegedly being kept, against other movements, such as the TTP and ISIS-K suspicious of Taliban’s co-operation with the Americans.

It remains to be seen whether or not China and Russia will take the bait put out by Shareef and the Americans. Suspicions were already raised by China after the attack in Karachi leading to direct Chinese involvement and according to the South China Morning Post on 13/09/22 stating that although not expressing it publicly, “China was alarmed that Zwahiri was in Kabul”. A fact which the Americans knew and can now use to flare up the situation further by claiming that the Taliban have reneged on their agreement not to harbor “terrorists’.

In this manner the American’s aim to maintain chaos in Afghanistan and provide the magnet and base for jihadists to attack Chinese and Russian interests with a view to sucking them into the quagmire.  Pakistan’s subservience is key.

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