WASHINGTON, DC — After two decades of focus on
Afghanistan, the United States' withdrawal this week allows the country to
shift its concentration to the east, where superpower rival China is now the
number-one priority.
اضافة اعلان
In an indication of Washington's strategic turn, Vice
President Kamala Harris was in Southeast Asia last week even as the US pullout
from Afghanistan moved into its turbulent final days, hoping to strengthen US
allies' pushback against the region's giant.
Harris accused Beijing of "actions that ... threaten
the rules-based international order," particularly its aggressive claims
of territory in the South China Sea.
Her tour of Singapore and Vietnam was seen as an effort by
the administration of President Joe Biden to reassure Asian allies, who were
left somewhat disquieted by the US pullout from Kabul after the sudden fall of
the Afghan government that Washington had propped up for nearly 20 years.
Ryan Hass, a foreign policy specialist at the Brookings
Institution, said the debacle of the US pullout from Afghanistan will not have
a lasting impact on Washington's credibility in Asia.
"America's standing in Asia is a function of its shared
interests with its partners in balancing
China's rise and in preserving the
long peace that has underpinned the region’s rapid development," Hass
said.
"None of those factors are diminished by events in
Afghanistan," he said told AFP.
The US turn to East Asia will "open up new
opportunities" for the US and its partners in the region, he told AFP.
No encouragement to Russia
Lawmaker Adam Smith, head of the Armed Forces Committee in
the House of Representatives, said that the US exit from Afghanistan is not
likely to change the balance between the United States and rival superpowers
Russia and China.
He rejected suggestions Tuesday that the seeming momentary
display of weakness by the US could encourage China to invade Taiwan or Russia
to attack
Ukraine, for example.
"I think anyone who thinks that their (Russia's or
China's) calculation has significantly changed because we just pulled the last
2,500 troops out of Afghanistan — I really don’t see that," Smith said
during an online Brookings conference.
"There are a lot of other issues that go into whether
or not Russia and China are going to feel like they have the ability to be
aggressive in those parts of the world," he said.
Derek Grossman, a former US Defense Department official and
now a defense expert at the Rand Corporation think tank, said China could seek
advantage in fostering good relations with the Taliban, the militant Islamist
group US forces fought for 20 years before they again seized power in
Afghanistan August 15.
Beijing could decide quickly to recognize the Taliban
government, even as Washington and other Western governments hold off as they
hope to convince Afghanistan's new rulers to moderate their hardline policies.
"China, as a new great power in competition with the
United States, probably wants to demonstrate its unique way of handling world
events, which tends to be — often reflexively — the opposite of Washington's
approach," Grossman said.
"Recognizing Taliban-run Afghanistan would contribute
to the perception that it is Beijing, and no longer Washington, that is now
setting the agenda and shaping the future regional order," he said.
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