Why China fears a hasty US retreat from Afghanistan

Ten months after the first meeting of the foreign ministers of China and the five Central Asian states, Beijing followed through with a second session on May 11 at a gathering in Xian hosted by Foreign Minister Wang Yi. 

The venue is symbolic. The ancient city of Xian used to be the starting point of the Silk Road. And, perhaps, the timing too, as this is the 25th anniversary of the Shanghai Five process, where China, quietly but steadily, began building up its economic, military, and diplomatic relations with Central Asia and presented itself as a viable partner.

The Xian meeting was a watershed event as it created an “institutional guarantee” for the nascent “C+C5” framework. The participants agreed on a memorandum of understanding to establish a regional cooperation mechanism, promote the high-quality construction of the Belt and Road and establish three research centers to carry out cooperation. 

“A journey of a thousand Chinese miles starts beneath one’s feet,” the ancient Chinese proverb says. Even as the Shanghai Five process blossomed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, C+C5 too appears to be destined to scale heights.

The Shanghai Five, consisting of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, also had a modest beginning in 1996 as it emerged from a series of border-demarcation and demilitarization talks that the four former Soviet republics held with China.