Sunday, September 23, 2012

Chinese Top Security Official's Surprise Visit to Afghanistan


It seems China has decided to expand the sphere of influence further as conflicts start to erupt all over Asia.

The last official Chinese visit to Afghanistan was 46 years ago.

From Xinhua English version (9/23/2012):

Top Chinese security official makes surprise visit to Afghanistan

KABUL, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- China's top security official on Saturday made a surprise visit to Afghanistan, the first time in 46 years that a Chinese leader set his foot on the soil of this landlocked Asian country.

Zhou Yongkang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, arrived at the Kabul airport late in the afternoon.

The four-hour visit had not been announced by Beijing due to security concerns. It followed a two-day trip of Zhou to Singapore, where he met Singaporean leaders on bilateral ties.

Zhou, who is also secretary of the Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, will also go to Turkmenistan.

The last visit by a Chinese leader to neighboring Afghanistan was made by Liu Shaoqi in 1966 when he was the President of China.

During the past half century, Afghanistan was afflicted with series of military coups and two major wars commenced by the former Soviet Union and the United States respectively.

The country is still the front line in the U.S.-led war against terrorism and is undergoing daily bombing and bleeding.

In Kabul, Zhou was warmly received by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two leaders held a bilateral meeting.

"It is a priority of China's foreign policy to strengthen good- neighbored relations with surrounding countries. It is the consistent policy of the Chinese government and the CPC to consolidate and develop China-Afghanistan relations," Zhou said, according to a press release from the Chinese delegation.

Zhou said China is willing to make due contributions to peace and stability in Afghanistan, which is at a critical transition period.

"We will continue to provide assistance to Afghanistan with no attached conditions and sincerely hope the Afghan people can regain peace as soon as possible and build a better home in a peaceful environment," he added.

The United States has said that Washington and its allies will completely withdraw their troops from Afghanistan by 2014, leaving the country to stand on its own.

Karzai said Afghanistan would like China to be involved in its reconstruction efforts and is expecting China to play a bigger role in the peaceful development of Afghanistan and the region.

Official figures showed that by the end of 2011, China's direct investment into Afghanistan stood at about 200 million U.S. dollars and the aggregate contract value of projects undertaken by Chinese constructors in Afghanistan reached nearly 600 million U.S. dollars. In addition, about 20 China-aided projects in Afghanistan were completed between 2002 and 2011.

Karzai said China is among the first batch of countries that invested in Afghanistan, which brought concrete benefits to the Afghan people, and Afghanistan welcomes China to expand investment.

(Full article at the link)


Well let's see.


Maybe the entire Asia is entering another period of incessant warfare that could last a hundred years or more.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will the Chinese crush the Karzi opium trade?

I hope so.

Anonymous said...

Anon, are you kidding? They will join the trade.

Anonymous said...

There are an ever growing number of people who have lost someone to that evil trade,a trade which Mr Kharzi represents as a figurehead in Afghanistan at the behest of foreigners.

morocco tours said...

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Anonymous said...

I see that Google spam filter sucks balls.

I'd like to scoff "people should just grow up", but I hate when people say that to me. I also know that age doesn't really correlate with maturity. This incessant warfare is evidence of that. Hell, Ishihara is living evidence of that. "Age = Maturity" is nothing more than a generalization that modern society systematically forced onto the population.

What can I say then? People are always fighting over stupid shit that doesn't even matter. A million facepalms isn't nearly enough. Maybe if I could spiritually punch each and every one of those people in the face...

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Thanks for the heads-up. Time to clean out what's get caught in SPAM filter... (full of Lanvin handbags...)

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