China’s View of South Asia and the Indian Ocean

[Dayuhan]

As far as guerilla warfare against Indians in Afghanistan, it would be worth noting that a200km (124-mile) highway, costing about $85m, links Zaranj on the Iranian border with the main road between the cities of Herat, Kandahar and Kabul has been completed and handed over to Afghanistan.

And how many causalities should have been there if the Afghans were hostile to Indians, even though there must have been Pakistani encouragement?

In another thread there was some interesting comment to my statement of doing things the 'Indian way'.

Justified if post were doubting my contention.

Here is the proof of the pudding!

The officer who was the in-charge of this road project spoke to me.

He said much, but we will leave it at that!

The Taliban don't seem to be targeting infrastructure projects no matter who undertakes them.

If you really believe that India could take over the US role in Afghanistan, apply some magical "Indian way", and avoid the mess that seems to overtake everyone else in Afghanistan... well, be my guest. The rest of us will observe with much interest and little optimism.

Am I to understand that Gwadar was built by China just to pander to Pakistan's desire?

It has no impact on Chinese economy or strategic interests?

The question is not whether there are interests, but whether those interests are sufficient to justify prolonged, risky, and expensive military involvements. The simple answer is that they aren't, at least not on China's part. What China stands to gain from these projects wouldn't begin to cover even a tiny fraction of the financial and ploitical cost of an effort to pacify Afghanistan.

Of course they may calculate costs and benefits as poorly as the Americans dd, but that seems unlikely. They don't have to play to a domestic political audience or pretend to be champions of democracy or anything else.

Not unlike the eternally proposed TAPI pipeline... potentially viable projects that some may find interesting enough to pursue, but not even close to being strategic game-changers that a nation would go to war to accomplish.