The United States Department of State announced Thursday it was kicking off a cooperative venture with the Chinese to train Afghan diplomats. Although it is unclear who initiated the idea of the joint training program, it adds to a list of growing measures by the U.S. to ensure China is acting as a responsible stakeholder on the world stage.
The U.S. and China have "shared goals of a stable, secure, and prosperous Afghanistan," the State Department press release announcing the program read. "In pursuit of this goal," U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Asia Department Director General Luo Zhaohui and Afghan Ambassador to China Sultan Baheen met Thursday in Beijing "to celebrate the beginning" of the joint training program.
The training will see a group of carefully selected Afghan junior diplomats training under both Chinese MFA and U.S. State Department officials. The diplomats will also travel to the U.S. at an unnamed future date to attend the training.
China watchers believe steps such as these provide a two-fold incentive for the U.S. - one, it allows for increased cooperation, and therefore transparency, between American and Chinese staff across different sectors, and two, it allows the U.S. to ensure other countries have a stake in the long-term stability of the country after the pullout of American troops.
"Most importantly, the U.S. is trying to draw as many countries into [Afghanistan], and give them a stake in that nation's recovery, as possible," Heritage Foundation Research Fellow and China expert Dean Cheng told RTTNews.
"In addition, it provides a rare opportunity for concrete expression of US-PRC cooperation. While there are plenty of dialogues, conferences, meetings, etc., actual cooperation between the two nations is relatively sparse. As Afghanistan poses no direct threat at this time to either the U.S. or China...it's also safe," Cheng added.
The cooperation also allows the Asian giant's diplomatic corps to become involved in Afghanistan in a meaningful way.
"The Chinese are interested in doing this as it expands the power of the Foreign Ministry. As the Foreign Ministry in China is politically very weak (eclipsed by the Party's foreign affairs office and other parts of the Chinese bureaucracy), this is an opportunity for the MFA to expand its footprint in the one area it indisputably controls—the diplomatic offices and infrastructure," Cheng told RTTNews.
No further information on the problem, such as start date and U.S. and Chinese staff involved, was available at this time.
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