Will China Fill Afghan Vacuum?

The U.S. “pivot” to East Asia is looking increasingly like a game of musical chairs. The military, diplomatic and economic shift, which President Obama first presented last fall, was envisioned as a response to the winding down of the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increasing military power of China. Last week, while traveling in Asia, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that by 2020 about 60% of the U.S. Navy’s warships would be stationed in the Pacific Ocean, versus a roughly 50-50 split between Atlantic and Pacific today. But even as the U.S. shifts to the East, China is looking to its far West, to the very place the U.S. is planning to quit. The U.S. and its allies plan to withdraw most of their troops from Afghanistan by 2014. China, however, has large and growing interests in the country with which it shares a short, mountainous border. Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai met Friday with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing, where they announced a new strategic partnership. Afghanistan was also made an observer of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security group made up of Russia, China and four central Asian states, which was holding its annual summit in Beijing.