Within days of the Taliban taking over Kabul on Aug 15, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying came out to express China's seeming endorsement of the Taliban's success when he stated, "We respect the will and choice of the Afghan people." While the tone of the message is suitably diplomatic, the clear implication is that the Taliban's aggression in recent days is welcomed by the national consensus of the Afghan people.
Seeking to secure allies in its quest to gain control of Afghanistan, the head of the Afghan Taliban political committee, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, had met China's Foreign Minister and State Councillor, Wang Yi, in Tianjin on July 28, with both sides taking the opportunity to lay the foundations for an amicable relationship.
The Afghan Taliban, on the one hand, emphasised its willingness to "grow sound relations with China" while also promising not to pose any threat to its powerful neighbour. The two countries share a 80km border. Beijing, for its part, expressed its explicit support for the Afghan Taliban by describing it as "an important military and political force in Afghanistan" before adding that it is "expected to play an important role in the country's peace, reconciliation and reconstruction process".
So far, Japan and South Korea have not made any response to the cordial gestures made between China and the Afghan Taliban. However, their actions indicate that they do not share China's attitude towards the Afghan Taliban. Like many other nations, Japan and South Korea closed their embassies in Kabul and evacuated all of their diplomats and aid workers from the capital.
Over the previous two decades, both Japan and South Korea had made significant contributions to Afghanistan's development. The key international conferences hosted by Tokyo on Afghan reconstruction in 2002 and 2012 prompted donor countries, regional and international institutions, and other stakeholders to commit themselves to the international effort to rebuild Afghanistan. Among the other major contributions made by Japan was the assistance it provided in deploying JMSDF naval ships to the Indian Ocean in order to support international vessels involved in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF).
According to Michael Finnegan, a senior research associate at the National Bureau of Asian Research, South Korea was one of the very first countries to stand with the United States against the 9/11 attack, promptly underscoring its commitment to the Mutual Defence Treaty it has with the United States. In addition to sending several thousand troops to support operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, South Korea also deployed medics and engineers to join the coalition's campaign in those two countries as well.
While all of Japan and South Korea's contributions would have been for nothing if they were to recognise the Afghan Taliban as a legitimate government in the future, it could be argued their current stance is worse as they sit on the fence and say nothing about China's response to the Afghan Taliban's regaining of power in the country.
Instead, Japan and South Korea should put their differences aside for now and unite their power diplomacy to talk China out of its alliance with the Afghan Taliban.
Legitimising the Afghan Taliban's return to power is more egregious than submitting to authoritarians in Southeast Asia. No matter how strongly they deny it, the Afghan Taliban is a terrorist organisation.
Aside from its terrorist activities, the Taliban continues to trample on human rights. After they took control of Kabul, Human Rights Watch said Taliban forces had been seen "using excessive and lethal force to disperse crowds at Kabul airport and at a protest in Jalalabad. The Taliban have long threatened, and in many instances killed, government workers, human rights and women's rights activists, and other high-profile women."
South Korea and Japan are thriving democracies. They are regarded by many of the Asean countries as setting the standards of democracy in Asia. Serving as a dual pivot to Southeast Asia, the values of Japan and South Korea in economic development and democracy have been warmly welcomed at the state level as well as in civil society.
However, if they are to retain their reputations as beacons of democracy, they need to be more robust in speaking out against the Taliban and China's trait of legitimising authoritarian regimes around the world. Otherwise, their middle power diplomacy, particularly their soft power, towards Southeast Asian nations risks losing its democratic credibility.
Thanapat Pekanan is a research associate with the Institute of Security and International Studies (ISIS) at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Political Science.
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