{"id":137976,"date":"2012-06-11T22:46:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-12T05:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=137976"},"modified":"2012-06-11T22:46:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-12T05:46:55","slug":"china-afghanistan-deepen-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/china-afghanistan-deepen-ties\/","title":{"rendered":"China, Afghanistan Deepen Ties"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Afghan government claimed on Monday that militia loyal to army chief of staff and powerful former warlord Abdul Rashi Dostum is interfering with oil exploration by Chinese state-run petroleum giant CNPC<\/a><\/strong>, which signed a lucrative deal late last year<\/a> to develop oil fields in the northern part of the country. From Reuters:<\/p>\n The deal covering drilling and a refinery in the northern provinces of Sar-e Pul and Faryab, where Dostum is from, is the first international oil production agreement reached by the Afghan government for several decades.<\/p>\n Two government officials said supporters of Dostum were demanding a share of the proceeds. “Armed men belonging to General Dostum are intimidating the Chinese engineers in the area and creating obstacles to exploring the oil block,” a top aide to Karzai said.<\/p>\n He said that at a cabinet meeting chaired by Karzai last week, the mines ministry complained about interference by Dostum, a powerful former warlord who holds the largely ceremonial post of army chief of staff.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Dostum’s National Front party denied the allegations and said the government was trying to defame the general.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The news comes in the wake of a meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai<\/a> in Beijing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit this past week<\/a>, where China announced a 150 RMB grant to the Afghan government as the two sides touted the to ensure a positive strategic relationship. In their joint declaration, according to Xinhua News, the border nations also rejected the forces of terrorism, extremism, separatism and organized crime<\/a>. While China has made investments for the development of oil, gas and mining projects, The New York Times reports that its true interest lies in Afghan security<\/a><\/strong> and, more importantly, its own internal security after Western troops withdraw from the country in 2014:<\/p>\n China\u2019s major worry is the prospect of a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan lending sanctuary to the separatist group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, led by ethnic Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking, largely Muslim people in the autonomous western region of Xinjiang. The group wants a breakaway homeland in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n In official statements, the Chinese government refrains from specifying the threat of Afghanistan\u2019s harboring Uighur separatists, but an orderly transfer of power that would stop short of a Taliban takeover appears to be of uppermost importance for China.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n China\u2019s main concern is about how post-2014 Afghanistan will affect China\u2019s internal security, the analysts said.<\/p>\n \u201cChina\u2019s first concern is national security and to make sure the Uighurs don\u2019t get more strength,\u201d said Yun Sun, a Washington-based analyst specializing in China\u2019s neighbors. \u201cThe official line is that the Uighurs get terrorist training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Afghan government claimed on Monday that militia loyal to army chief of staff and powerful former warlord Abdul Rashi Dostum is interfering with oil exploration by Chinese state-run petroleum giant CNPC, which signed a lucrative deal late last year to develop oil fields in the northern part of the country. From Reuters: The deal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,14744,14745,14746,100],"tags":[5872,15740,3429,5810,4643,15460,5921],"class_list":["post-137976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","tag-afghanistan","tag-china-national-petroleum-corp","tag-hamid-karzai","tag-hu-jintao","tag-security","tag-uyghurs","tag-xinjiang","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n