With American troops pulling out of Afghanistan as part of a wider long term US retreat from south and central Asia, China is waiting to fill the vacuum. It has brought regional countries together to encourage peace, invested in mineral and oil extraction in a country where hardly anyone else will invest a penny, and put pressure on its ally, Pakistan, to stop helping the Taliban. According to the Wall Street Journal, China even hosted a delegation of Afghan Taliban officials in December, “to discuss the possibility of opening talks with the Afghan government”.
作為美國從中南亞撤退的長期整體計劃的一部分，美軍正在撤出阿富汗，而中國正在等待填補美國留下的真空。中國已牽頭讓這一地區的多個國家坐到一起探討如何促進和平，在一個幾乎沒有其他人愿意投一分錢的國家投資了礦產和石油開采，并已向其盟友巴基斯坦施壓、要求后者停止幫助塔利班(Taliban)。據華爾街日報(WSJ)報道，中國在去年12月甚至接待了一個阿富汗塔利班官員代表團，“以探討后者與阿富汗政府展開談判的可能性”。