By Hamza Ameer

Islamabad, Sep 11 (IANS): China is clearly one of the strongest and closest emerging allies of the newly-formed Taliban government in Afghanistan. With foreign aids and fundings to Afghanistan from western countries blocked, China seems to be given space to manage, demand and influence the future of the war-torn nation going forward.

The above mentioned reality can be established by the recent statements made by China during the first Foreign Ministers' meeting on the Afghan issue held among the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, which was virtually addressed by China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Yi highlighted that Afghanistan is now standing at the crossroads of history and facing severe challenges of humanitarian issues, people's livelihoods and the Covid-19 pandemic, adding that these issues may be used by ‘international forces' to create new troubles from Afghanistan, a clear hint towards the US and its other western allies.

"Taliban have announced an interim government, which in itself indicates a lot of uncertainties confronting Afghanistan's future. As neighbouring countries, we are eager to see the country get out of war and chaos, and resume development by seizing the opportunity to exert a positive influence on the situation," he said.

Yi also slammed the US and its allies for being the prime culprits behind the current chaotic situation in Afghanistan.

"The US and its allies are the culprits for the Afghan issue. Over the past 20 years, terrorist forces in Afghanistan have been on the rise instead of being eradicated and the Afghans were forced into poverty and hardship instead of achieving development and dignity," he said.

Since the exit of the US and NATO forces from Afghanistan and the takeover of the country by the Taliban regime, western countries have blocked their financial aids to the country, pushing it into serious and severe humanitarian and financial crisis.

At this sensitive juncture, China has been in active contact with the Taliban and has assured them of supplies, aids and even future development-level fundings, which have pushed the inclination of the Taliban towards the Chinese.

China has also stated clearly that it expects the Taliban to tackle and root out the presence of East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) aka The Turkistani Islamic Party, an organisation that has been behind terror attacks targeted in Xinjiang in China, with an aim to establish an independent Muslim state called East Turkestan, replacing Xinjiang.

China has been taking strong actions against the Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang, putting a large number of them in detention centres.

It is expected that the Chinese demand of rooting out ETIM will be met by the Taliban, keeping in view their dependency on China for humanitarian aid and fundings.

And it can be easily said that the increased influence of China will certainly affect the western countries and the US, which are now being showcased as the spoilers, who may try to make use of the political, economic and humanitarian crisis in the country and work towards the extension of these crises to create more challenges for the Taliban regime.