US to declassify intel on China offering bounties to Taliban for attacking American troops in Afghanistan: Report
Months ago, the outgoing Donald Trump administration faced accusations that it did little despite Russia offering money to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan for eliminating American soldiers deployed in the war-ravaged Asian nation. Trump played it down, calling the reports fake.
And now, it has been reported that the Trump administration has planned to declassify “uncorroborated” intelligence that accuses not Russia but China of offering money to "non-state actors" in Afghanistan to target American troops. Axios reported it on Wednesday, December 30, citing two senior officials of the administration that will vacate office on January 20.
“The Trump administration is declassifying as-yet uncorroborated intelligence, recently briefed to President Trump, that indicates China offered to pay non-state actors in Afghanistan to attack American soldiers, two senior administration officials tell Axios,” the report said.
According to the report, the intelligence featured in Trump’s briefing on December 17 and the president was verbally briefed on the issue by National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, officials added.
Trump planned to pursue hardline China policies before leaving
It was only in November, less than two weeks after Trump lost his re-election bid to Democrat Joe Biden, that Axios cited senior officials to report that he planned to pursue a series of hardline policies vis-a-vis Beijing in his dying days in office and make it challenging for the incoming administration to alter the China policies. Trump has had a bitter relation with China during his term and attacked it on issues ranging from trade war to coronavirus pandemic.
The latest revelation about declassification of intelligence on China also comes six months after The New York Times reported that Moscow offered secret bounties for Taliban extremists to eliminate American troops in Afghanistan.
Axios also reported that the Chinese embassy in Washington DC did not respond to the matter and Trump is also not believed to have spoken with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, over it. It was also not clear if any member of the Congress or even President-elect Joe Biden had been briefed about it, though the latter has now access to the President’s Daily Brief.
If the intelligence report is confirmed to be true, then Washington is set to see dramatic shifts in its Beijing policies in the near future with tensions escalating between the two biggest economies. On the other hand, if it is found to be untrue, yet it could lead to controversies centering around the decision to declassify.
While it is true that while China has played a quiet role in Afghanistan, inviting Afghan Taliban officials to Beijing to discuss peace plans and its weapons and money also have occasionally flowed into the Afghan conflict, experts feel Beijing doesn’t need to take such provocative action of asking the Taliban to kill US soldiers.
Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund who specializes in China-Afghanistan affairs, told Axios that pursuing peace in Afghanistan is “one of the extremely rare areas where the US and China still have a willingness to work together on an area of importance” and Beijing has knowledge about the drawdown. “They know the drawdown is taking place. We’re not in the context where anything else needs to happen to US troops in Afghanistan. There is no reason to create additional pressure on US forces,” he said, adding that it looked “incongruous”.