Chinese state enterprises in Afghanistan are enjoying special treatment from the Taliban, which is taking steps to “stabilize the situation and pursue international recognition,” China’s state-run Global Times boasted Tuesday.
Chinese businessmen are a little nervous about the security situation but eager to exploit a market where “a thousand things wait to be done,” the Global Times said.
“While the wait-and-see approach is a result of SOEs [state-owned enterprises] weighing up both political security risks and China’s national strategy, the boldness of risk-taking private firms also underscores China’s successful diplomacy with the Taliban, which lays the foundation for the safe and smooth operation of Chinese businesses in Afghanistan,” the article said.
The Communist Party paper once again warned the West not to impose sanctions against the Taliban as they would ostensibly hurt the people of Afghanistan and interfere with all the profitable reconstruction work (and ruthless exploitation of mineral resources) China plans to do.
According to the Global Times, China is particularly worried about sanctions that “could cut companies operating in Afghanistan off from the global banking system,” as with U.S. sanctions against Iran.
The Global Times piece aggressively promoted the fiction that Chinese state-owned enterprises are very different from “private businesses,” when in truth the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) absolutely dominates all of them and, as the free world has learned over the past decade, every Chinese company is a tentacle of the Chinese state.
According to the fiction peddled in the Tuesday article, Chinese SOEs are deeply concerned with lingering instability in Afghanistan and require further security assurances from the Taliban, while “private businesses” are ready to take more risks while the new regime sorts itself out.
“Chinese private firms’ risk-taking moves are also built on China’s flexible and successful diplomatic policy, which paves the way for a stable relationship with the Taliban leadership and provides a solid foundation for Chinese businesses to run smoothly in Afghanistan,” the Global Times said.
The Global Times boasted that the Islamist regime “offered an olive branch that assured small- and medium-sized Chinese investors,” and has gone out of its way to make Chinese representatives feel comfortable while the Western world scrambles to evacuate its people from Kabul:
“We saw Taliban members in every street and block… When they heard about business hurdles in China Town, they would send higher-level officials, asking about the difficulty and how they could help. They say that Chinese people are friends, and should not be afraid to ask if they run into any trouble,” Yu Minghui, director of the China Arab Economic and Trade Promotion Committee, told the Global Times on Monday.
According to Yu, Chinese businessmen were also informed that the new leadership has vowed to protect investors, as “whoever stayed in the country is helping Afghans.”
The Global Times concluded that, unlike the Taliban, Chinese businessmen are “relatively immune to potential Western sanctions” and have “backup plans to deal with any possible ensuing impact.”
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