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The Afghan Debacle Should Prompt China to Revise its South Asian Policy

The Afghan Debacle Should Prompt China to Revise its South Asian Policy

A close-up photograph of Afghanistan from a desktop globe. Adobe RGB color profile.

This piece was first published by RUSI in London.  The views do not represent those of RUSI.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — While China has tried to rebalance its relations between India and Pakistan before, recent developments in Afghanistan should give it fresh impetus to do so.  Any future Cold War between the United States and China would be entirely different to the previous version for several reasons of which the most obvious is the economic and financial inter-dependency between the two countries. However, one similarity could survive in the form of proxy conflicts such as those seen in Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua in the 1980s.

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