MESOP NEWS BACKGROUND: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) And The Taliban Are ‘Old Friends’ MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 9568
30.9.2021
Recently, quite a few observers and analysts have suggested that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is unfamiliar with Afghanistan and the Taliban, and that the complete withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan will leave Beijing facing the Taliban directly and destabilize China. However, that is not the case. In fact, the CCP has a decades-long relationship with Afghanistan and has had relations with the Taliban since the 1990s.
Commenting on Afghanistan-China relations, Liu Jinsong, director-general of the Department of Asian Affairs of China’s Foreign Ministry and former Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote: “Our friendship is commended for sharing weal and woe together. Since modern times, both countries have fought against colonialism, imperialism and hegemony and won national independence at huge expenses. In this process, we have always sympathized with and supported each other.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Tianjin. (Source: Fmprc.gov.cn, July 28, 2021)
1950-1973 – PRC’s Relations With Afghanistan Under The Reign Of King Mohammad Zahir Shah
In 1950, the Kingdom of Afghanistan under the reign of King Mohammad Zahir Shah was one of the first countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The two countries established diplomatic relations and exchanged ambassadors on January 20, 1955.
Ding Guoyu, first Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan (1955-1958). (Source: Af.china-embassy.org)
In the 1950s and 1960s, China and Afghanistan maintained close relations, and the heads of state, prime ministers, and other high-level officials of the two countries exchanged visits. Trade pacts as well as a treaty of friendship and non-aggression were signed between the two nations in 1960. On November 22, 1963, Beijing and Kabul signed the Boundary Treaty, which settled the status of their shared border across the Wakhan Corridor and therefore Afghanistan did not have to cede any territory to China.
In October 1964, then Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah visited China and met with founding leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou Enlai and other CCP leaders. On that occasion, Mao opened his meeting with the king, underlying the common fight against Great Britain in the two countries’ history. “Afghanistan is a heroic country and has never surrendered,” Mao stated.
In 1971, the Kingdom of Afghanistan supported Beijing, voting in favor of the PRC’s membership in the United Nations, and Nationalist China (i.e., the Kuomintang representative) was expelled.
1978-1992 – China’s Relations With Communist Afghanistan
The CCP Joins Hands With The United States To Fight Against The Soviet Union
In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was abroad, his cousin and former prime minister of Afghanistan Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup. Khan became the first President of Afghanistan and implemented in the beginning a pro-Soviet policy, but then sought to lessen the country’s dependence on the Soviet Union. China immediately recognized the new government. However, in 1978, Daoud Khan was assassinated during the Saur Revolution, led by the Afghan military and the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The revolution was the prelude to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 27, 1979.
On December 30, 1979, the CCP joined hands with the United States to fight against the Soviet Union, and issued a government statement, strongly condemning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and refusing to recognize the new Soviet-backed regime, headed by Babrak Karmal, PDPA General Secretary of the Central Committee. The statement read: “… The Soviet Union flagrantly launched a large-scale military invasion of Afghanistan and grossly interfered in the internal affairs of the country. This kind of armed intervention, which flagrantly tramples on the norms of international relations, not only violates the sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan, but also seriously threatens peace and security in Asia and the world. The Chinese government strongly condemns the Soviet Union’s hegemonic acts, and insists that the Soviet Union cease its aggression and intervention in Afghanistan and insists that it should withdraw all its armed forces…
“The Soviet armed aggression against Afghanistan is a major exposure of Soviet hegemonism. People have further seen where the main threat to world peace comes from, and what the true face of this so-called ‘natural ally’ of the third world is, and people have further seen that Soviet hegemony is extremely insane and adventurous. The Soviet Union’s aggressive ambitions are endless, and its aggressive behavior must be actually stopped. The perverse actions of the Soviet Union have aroused the resistance of the Afghan people and serious uneasiness and strong condemnation from all countries in the world. The Chinese government and the Chinese people will work with all peace-loving and justice-loving countries and people in an unremitting struggle to defeat Soviet aggression and expansion.”
It is worth noting that after Joseph Stalin’s death in1953, Mao Zedong and the CCP felt they were finally qualified to compete with the Soviet Union for the leadership of the world communist movement. By July 1964, the ideological war between the two communist parties reached its peak. The CCP said that capitalism had been restored in the Soviet Union, that the Soviet Union was no longer a socialist country, and that China was the center of the world revolution against imperialism and revisionism.
After Nikita Khrushchev was ousted in October 1964, Mao Zedong wanted to improve relations with the Soviet Union and avoid a rupture, and sent Premier Zhou Enlai to Moscow to celebrate the 47th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet October Revolution. But during the visit, the CCP delegation got furious when Soviet Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky suggested that Mao should be removed from power as well, in order to clear the way for normal relations between the two countries. After Zhou Enlai returned to China, he reported that there was no tendency for the Soviet Union to change course, and hence the CCP continued to criticize the Soviet Union.
In 1966, after the start of the Cultural Revolution, China and the Soviet Union did not break off diplomatic ties. But with the exception of China allowing the Soviet Union to ship supplies through China to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, relations between the two countries froze completely.
In 1967, Mao’s Red Guards stormed the Soviet Embassy in Beijing.
In 1968, the Soviet Union poured troops into the border area near Xinjiang. The Soviet deployment increased to 25 divisions, 1,200 aircrafts, and 200 missiles. At the same time, the Soviet Union and Mongolia reached an agreement that the Soviet would help maintain Mongolia’s southern border security and garrison troops there.
In August 1968, when Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, China denounced the Soviet Union as “social imperialism.”
In 1969, the two countries engaged in large-scale armed conflict in the border areas near Northeast China and Northwest China’s Xinjiang region. Many Western observers thought a full-scale war was imminent and inevitable.
During the Vietnam War, China moved large numbers of troops from its southern regions to northeast, north and northwest China to guard against a Soviet attack.
In the dangerous situation of simultaneous antagonism with the two superpowers, Mao Zedong believed that the greatest threat came from the Soviet Union. On the one hand, he began to prepare for a war with the Soviet Union; on the other hand, he took advantage of various strategic opportunities, such as the Soviet Union’s aggressive posture toward the United States in the Cold War, and the Nixon administration’s softening attitude toward the CCP caused by the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States. Hence, Mao Zedong decided to open the door to improve relations with the United States and Western countries in an all-round way. Finally, in 1971 and 1972, came the Ping Pong Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing, and Richard Nixon’s official visit to China. Therefore, Mao and his Communist Party reached the strategic goal of joining hands with the United States to counter and check the expansion and threat of the Soviet Union.
Chinese Weapons Are Provided To The Mujahideen In Afghanistan
Right after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party and the United States, in their honeymoon period, joined forces against the Soviet Union for their respective strategic interests. The CCP began to participate in the U.S.-led program to aid Afghan guerrillas to fight against the Soviet invaders. By the mid-1980s, countries assisting the Afghan resistance included Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States, China, and the United Kingdom.
At present, only the role of the United States is mentioned in history books, but China too actively participated in the war against the 40th Army of the Soviet Ground Forces and the government forces of Afghanistan. During this period, Chinese weapons provided to the mujahideen in Afghanistan were mainly infantry weapons, which were low-tech but reliable and suitable for the operation of the Afghan guerrillas. The Chinese version of the AK-47, the Type 56, was one of the main weapons of the Afghan guerrillas. China also provided: 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine guns Type 58 and Type 78, the Chinese version of the Soviet 12.7 mm DShK heavy machine gun Type 54 HMG, the Type 63 (12-tube, 107mm) multiple rocket launcher, the Type 69 40mm anti-tank rocket launcher and the portable air defense missiles HN-5.
Large quantities of Chinese-made Soviet-style weapons bought by the CIA, along with weapons supplied by countries such as Egypt, were secretly smuggled into Afghanistan via Pakistan every month and handed over to mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet invaders.
In addition, hundreds of Chinese instructors who taught sabotage tactics were sent to training camps and bases in Pakistan. According to data released during the Soviet era, the number of Chinese agents was several times greater the number of CIA agents in the region.
U.S. And China Signed A Listening Installation To Monitor Soviet Military Activities in Afghanistan
At the same time, Washington began to provide Beijing with a variety of weapons for its own defense against the Soviet Union in 1980. It is worth noting that, during the Carter administration, before the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States negotiations took place behind closed doors, including a series of military cooperation projects, such as a little-known joint China-U.S. intelligence monitoring station program against the Soviet Union, known as Project Chestnut, set up in Xinjiang.
The CIA and the PLA’s joint monitoring station project in Xinjiang later came to be seen by the U.S. as the most sincere and valuable one. Because both the CCP and the United States needed to have more information about Soviet military activities in Central Asia, especially early warning of direct military action against China, as well as Soviet military activities in Afghanistan.
The idea of a joint electronic and seismic listening station program was first raised by the United States in 1975, when Henry Kissinger met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua, but the Chinese side did not agree.
In January 1979, Deng Xiaoping visited the United States. In Deng’s last closed-door meeting with the U.S. side, before leaving Washington, President Jimmy Carter and his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski were present. Brzezinski again raised the issue of a joint Sino-U.S. monitoring station program, saying it was an important sign of the sincerity of Sino-American cooperation. But the Chinese side still did not answer.
In April 1979, Deng Xiaoping, while receiving a visiting U.S. Senate delegation, suddenly suggested that China could use American equipment to “monitor whether the Soviet Union is fulfilling the disarmament agreements.”
Deng also stressed an important principle: the joint monitoring stations can use U.S. equipment, but it must be operated by Chinese military personnel, and the results of the U.S. intelligence analysis must be shared between China and the United States.
The Communist China agreed to the U.S.-proposed project (the internal Chinese code for the program was “7911”) in November 1979. The climax of the negotiations took place between in December 1980 and January 1981. According to Chinese media, the United States was represented by Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner, then head of the CIA, and Robert Gates, who later became the U.S. Defense Secretary. They left Andrews Air Force Base on December 27, 1980, to travel to China and returned on January 7, 1981. At the time, CIA Director Turner deliberately grew a beard to hide his identity.
By the fall of 1981, two stations, including two monitoring stations and three different radio interception systems, were set up in Qitai, Changji Prefecture, and Korla city, in Xinjiang. The two monitoring stations in western China replaced Tacksman I and Tacksman II, two CIA ground listening stations in Iran that were taken back by Iran after the Islamic Revolution.
China Trained Mujahideen Against The Soviet Union in Xinjiang
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the PLA personnel provided training, arms, organization, financial support, and military advisers to the Afghan mujahideen resistance throughout nearly the entire Soviet military presence in Afghanistan – with the active assistance and cooperation of the CIA.
Until the mid-1980s, most of China’s training centers set up by Chinese military advisers and army troops for the Afghan anti-Soviet rebels were located in the Pakistani city of Peshawar and along the Pakistani border. However, as soon as the Soviets arrived in Afghanistan, the region of Xinjiang had become a forward operating base for the Chinese Communist Party’s joint efforts with the United States to fight the Soviet Union. China trained several thousand mujahideen in camps near Kashgar and Hotan inside Xinjiang.
It is also worth noting that there were also Maoist militias that fought against the Soviets and the Afghan regime as well as the mujahideen. They were initially well organized and carried out attacks in Kabul, however the KGB then had a policy of clearing Kabul of any pro-Chinese elements. A mild suspicion from the Khadamat-e Aetla’at-e Dawlati (KHAD), the main security agency and intelligence agency of Afghanistan, was enough to put someone in prison accusing them of being a pro-Chinese communist. The People’s Republic of China, which was a backer of the main Pakistan-based mujahideen, was either unable or unwilling to help the Afghan Maoists. Majid Kalakani, a prominent figure and leader of the Maoist insurgent group Liberation Organization (SAMA), was executed by the Afghan regime in June 1980. Members of the Afghan Maoist political party Shola-e Javid (“Eternal Flame”) were involved in fighting the Soviet-backed government and mujahideen (particularly Hezb-i Islami). The Babrak Karmal government arrested many of its members in June 1981.
During this period, the CCP government did not recognize the Afghan Karmal regime established with the support of the Soviet Union. Although the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan was still maintained, it was reduced to the level of charge d’affaires. Instead of having formal official relations with the Karmal regime, the Chinese government only maintained transactional and consular visa ties.
Chinese Embassy in Kabul (Source: Globaltimes.cn)