China is considering expanding its one-man assistance force in Afghanistan to include more police trainers, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday - another hint that the world’s most populous country is becoming more assertive in its foreign policy.
| How do you expand a one-man presence? Buy him extra groceries? Send him pies in his CARE packages? |
More cooperation between the two neighbours on anti-terrorism efforts is also in the works, Afghan officials said. Omar Samad, a spokesman for Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah, said the Chinese indicated during a meeting on Wednesday that they might send more people. Abdullah was in Beijing on an official visit that ends on Thursday. "The good news is that the Chinese are seriously considering adding to the number of police officers," Samad told The Associated Press. He said the Chinese would be coordinating with Afghanistan and with German forces that are coordinating security in the Afghan capital. "We welcome the Chinese move in this direction," Samad said. "It’s a testament to the fact that the international effort in Afghanistan is so widespread that even the PRC is willing to chip in. China is faced with the same phenomenon of international terrorism as Afghanistan. We have spotted in the al-Qaeda set-up several Chinese belonging to this organisation (who) have been captured. We will be having discussions of this issue in the future, also in terms of how to expand cooperation and make sure any of these militant terrorist organisations are unable to carry out their activities."
China has one police trainer in Afghanistan not technically a peacekeeper, but a show of interest from a country whose far west shares a 50-kilometre border with Afghanistan. The Chinese government has increasingly used military assistance as a diplomatic tool. Late last year, it sent a military technical team to Liberia after the West African nation switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the mainland. |