Afghanistan's neighbors watch warily as Taliban completes its dramatic takeover
NEW DELHI — The Taliban’s stunning takeover of Kabul on Sunday sent shock waves around the world — with immediate implications for the complicated knot of three regional powers in Afghanistan’s neighborhood: Pakistan, India and China.
In recent months, all three governments have escalated their diplomatic outreach to the group in anticipation of the possibility that the Taliban would grow into a political force in Afghanistan. That possibility — and more — became reality as Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar appeared likely to sweep into the vacated presidential palace in Kabul, ushering in a new geopolitical landscape in Asia.
For Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban’s return delivers a strategic defeat to Pakistan’s rival, India, but also potentially a boost to an affiliated insurgent group, known as the Pakistani Taliban, that threatens Pakistan itself. For India, it heightens anxieties about militancy in Kashmir at a moment when it is juggling combustible border standoffs with not just Pakistan, but also China.
And for China, the U.S. withdrawal has raised fears of a widening network of militant groups targeting the ambitious infrastructure projects it is unfurling westward across the Eurasian continent. As the Chinese presence in countries like Pakistan — perhaps Beijing’s closest ally — has soared over the past decade, so too have attacks against its citizens.
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