What will return of the Taliban mean for the rest of the region?

China will see the US departure along with its liberal democratic notions as an opportunity to extend its influence in the region

A Taliban fighter stands guard at a checkpoint in the Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan.. Picture: AP 

The Taliban’s reinstatement will unsettle the power balance in the Central and South Asia region. Land-locked Afghanistan borders Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Alongside Russia and India, these states will be jockeying for position in the new order wrought by the Taliban victory. Opportunities and obstacles for these players, both immediate and long-term, will be shaped by multi-layered relations rooted in trade, religious and cultural ties, a desire for regional hegemony and strategic advantage.

Russia, Iran and China will welcome the US’s unedifying departure and its failure to develop a western-style democracy in Afghanistan. All three have established links with the Taliban in an attempt to cultivate good working relations and while many, particularly western, states have shuttered their embassies in Kabul, the Chinese, Pakistani, Russian and Iranian missions remain open. However, there will be concerns that the Taliban’s victory will embolden extremists among domestic Muslim populations in these states or that terrorists will be permitted to operate within Afghanistan as happened in the 1990s. Ultimately, civil war and instability in Afghanistan benefits no-one.