China role in Afghanistan to face organised crime cartels, rampant corruption
- With the departure of the US and its allies there is speculation China can step in to help rebuild the war-torn country
- But Chinese investors are likely to run into the same corruption problems as their American predecessors
However, if China – as Afghanistan’s wealthiest and most powerful neighbour – sees opportunity as the US exits, reports by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) make for sobering reading.
SIGAR warned for years that corruption and crime networks were poisoning efforts to establish an Afghan national government, not least because the heads of the crime cartels were often part of the government, siphoning off billions of dollars in aid and undermining public support in the process.
“We found that corruption cut across all aspects of the reconstruction effort, jeopardising progress made in security, rule of law, governance, and economic growth,” one SIGAR report said as long as five years ago. US reconstruction programmes risked failure due to “systemic corruption”, it said.
Chinese commentators say Beijing has learned important lessons from US actions in Afghanistan and would not be taking the same approach.
“The biggest difference between the US and China is that we don’t interfere in domestic politics of other countries,” said Liu Zongyi, secretary general of the Centre for China and South Asia Cooperation at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. “If China invests in Afghanistan in the near future it will focus on the people’s livelihood and humanitarian aid.”
