The hasty and tumultuous U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s subsequent military victory have occasioned more than a little gloating from China. According to Chinese state media, the U.S. withdrawal marked “the last dusk of empire.” China’s Foreign Ministry declared that the experience of the war in Afghanistan should teach Washington a lesson in “reckless military adventures.” And some in Beijing even claimed that China would succeed where the United States had failed. “Afghanistan has long been considered a graveyard for conquerors—Alexander the Great, the British Empire, the Soviet Union and now the United States. Now China enters—armed not with bombs but construction blueprints, and a chance to prove the curse can be broken,” Zhou Bo, a retired senior officer in the People’s Liberation Army, opined in The New York Times.
Beijing’s triumphalism has stoked fears in the United States that China will capitalize on the shifting strategic landscape in Central Asia. As John Bolton, who served as national security adviser to President Donald Trump, warned last month, “China and Russia, our main global adversaries, are already seeking to reap advantages.”
