As Taliban advances China lays groundwork to accept an awkward reality

BEIJING: A series of photos published last month by Chinese state media of Foreign Minister Wang Yi standing shoulder to shoulder with a visiting Taliban official decked out in a traditional tunic and turban raised eyebrows on the country's social media.

Since then, China's propaganda machinery has quietly begun preparing its people to accept an increasingly likely scenario that Beijing might have to recognise the Taliban, the hardline Islamist movement that is rapidly gaining territory in Afghanistan, as a legitimate regime.

"Even if they can't control the whole country, they would still be a significant force to reckon with," an influential social media commentator known to be familiar with China's foreign policy thinking wrote on Thursday.

The commentator, who goes by the pen name Niutanqin, or "Zither-Playing Cow", made the remarks on his WeChat channel.

On Friday, the Global Times, a major state-backed tabloid, published an interview with the leader of an Afghan opposition party who said "the transitional government must include the Taliban".

The Taliban's momentum as United States forces withdraw is awkward for China, which has blamed religious extremism as a destabilising force in its western Xinjiang region and has long worried that Taliban-controlled territory would be used to harbour separatist forces.

But China also hews to a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

It has also drastically tightened security in Xinjiang, hardening its borders and putting what United Nations experts and rights groups estimate were at least 1 million ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in detention centres that China describes as vocational training facilities to help stamp out extremism and separatism.

Last month's meeting in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin followed a similar visit by a Taliban delegation in 2019, but comes as the group is much more powerful, with Wang saying he hoped that Afghanistan can have a "moderate Islamist policy".

"Isn't this the same Taliban that blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in front of world media? Shouldn't we have a bottom line?" a Chinese netizen commented on the Twitter-like Weibo below a news clip showing Wang standing next to a Taliban official.

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