CHINA EYES AN AFGHAN BASE

Is China planning to set up a military base in Afghanistan? The two countries have for the first time discussed Chinese involvement in a new military base in the narrow Wakhan Corridor that connects the two countries and borders Kashmir, according to Afghan officials.

China committed financial support to construct the base in Badakhshan province, where the corridor lies in the far east, and will also train Afghan soldiers, defence ministry officials in Kabul said on February 2. Talks were held when the Afghan defence minister visited Beijing in December. “We are going to build it (the base), but the Chinese government has committed to help the division financially, provide equipment and train the Afghan soldiers,” spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh told AFP.

In Beijing, officials are tight-lipped about the plan—PLA spokesperson Senior Colonel Wu Qian said reports were “groundless”—but the denials may perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt. Similar denials avowing China’s long-held policy of “non-interference” didn’t amount to much when Beijing last year opened its first-ever overseas military facility in Djibouti.

China’s plans for overseas military facilities in the Indian Ocean have long been in the works, aimed at facilitating its navy’s ever-growing reach. Planners have already suggested that new facilities may come up in some of the many ports China is financing in littoral Indian Ocean countries, with the Seychelles and Gwadar in Pakistan mentioned as possibilities.

Less expected, however, is China’s Afghan gambit. Whether a full-fledged Chinese base or an Afghan base that China will fund and staff, the presence of PLA boots on the ground is certainly a game-changer.

China, in fact, has already quietly launched joint patrols in the Wakhan, aimed at targeting Uighur terrorists who China