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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

China ‘willing’ to work with US on Afghanistan, but calls for easing of other pressures

  • In a flurry of diplomatic calls, Washington’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken secured Beijing’s support for cooperation, but not at any price
  • Blinken has also spoken to Russia’s foreign minister and discussions have also been held between Moscow and Beijing

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The fall of Kabul on Monday prompted a flurry of diplomatic phone calls between the US, China and Russia about what follows the Taliban’s success in Afghanistan. Photo: AFP
Wendy WuandSarah Zheng
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken picked up the phone on Monday to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for a discussion on how the two countries could work together to achieve a “soft landing” for Afghanistan. He was told Beijing was willing, but Washington would need to step back the pressure on its greatest rival, according to China’s state media.
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Wang earlier had spoken to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, with both sides agreeing that Beijing and Moscow should step up their communication and coordination over the Afghanistan situation.

In a flurry of diplomatic phone calls, Blinken also spoke to Lavrov, as well as Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, the European Union’s high representative Josep Borrell and foreign ministers from Pakistan, Britain and Turkey, in the aftermath of the chaotic fall of the Afghan government as the Taliban took over Kabul and the presidential palace on Monday.

While the US State Department provided few details of the Wang-Blinken discussion, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said Beijing had called for Washington to “play a constructive role” and take part in the peaceful reconstruction of the war-torn country.

“China is willing to communicate and dialogue with the US to push for a soft landing of the Afghanistan problem, preventing new civil war or humanitarian disaster in the country, to avoid it from [becoming] a breeding ground and shelter for terrorism, and encouraging Afghanistan to set up an inclusive political framework in line with the Afghanistan situation,” Wang said.

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan on Monday, putting an end to two decades of US support for the Afghan government. President Joe Biden gave a speech defending the US military withdrawal after a chaotic evacuation of its diplomats which drew comparisons to the defeated retreat from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975.

03:24

At least 7 people killed at Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans try to flee Taliban: US officials

At least 7 people killed at Kabul airport as thousands of Afghans try to flee Taliban: US officials

In his remarks, Biden said it was wrong for US troops to bear the cost in Afghanistan, and that one or several more years of a US military presence there would not have made a difference in mounting a resistance to the Taliban.

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