In a zero-sum game, America’s defeat in Afghanistan has resulted in China’s gain.

Beijing has moved expediently to embed itself with the Taliban as an erstwhile terrorist group that the US fought unsuccessfully for two decades, and while the US and its allies focused on countering China’s Indo-Pacific ambitions, Beijing has been working quietly and methodically on the other plank of its global strategy: to strengthen its influence in West Asia.

China’s President Xi Jinping.Credit: Reuters

West Asia – stretching from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean – was once under the sway of US-led regional alliances. During the Cold War, the US was a central player in shaping the regional order. Along with Israel, the oil-rich, pro-Western monarchical Iran and Saudi Arabia formed the pillars of American influence in the region. Although Afghanistan maintained a foreign policy of neutrality, it was well-disposed towards the US, and Washington expected Iran’s monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah, to act as its regional gendarme and keep an eye on Afghanistan.

Yet, this is no longer the case and today China stands tall in the region. Its alliance with the “revolutionary” Islamic regime in Iran and its burgeoning ties with the ultra-extremist Taliban in Afghanistan have availed Beijing of a strong leverage to boost its geopolitical and geostrategic influence across the region.

Sino-Iranian camaraderie is........

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