Two decades ago, Taliban gunmen executed hundreds of ethnic Hazara men almost immediately after capturing the remote, highland region of central Afghanistan. In the Yakawlang town alone at least 170 Hazara men, along with aid workers and a UN employee were killed in January 2001.

The ethnic people who returned to their dwelling places after the Taliban militants were driven away by the US armed forces within months after 9/11 are genuinely panicked. However, the Taliban stance seems perceptively different at least for the time being. ‘Don’t Fear Us’ is the caption of a Taliban leaflet for the Hazara residents. ‘We’ve no problem with you; our problem is with the government. You shouldn’t fear us. You can go on with your daily lives as usual’ it says.

Given the new nightmarish reality, the algorithm of diplomacy and politico-economic relationships that China, India, Pakistan and other participants of Doha dialogue process, aiming at peaceful milieu in the post-US army withdrawal situation, are becoming increasing complicated.

On Wednesday, an explosion near Afghanistan’s main security agency office in Kabul wounded three people after a bomb exploded, followed by gun shots at the acting defence minister Bismillah Mohammadi’s bungalow. One of Taliban’s spokespersons Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that the target was the minister's residence when an important meeting was underway. The attack on a heavily fortified part of Kabul reflects the vulnerability of security system.

With the US army withdrawal from the land-locked country, China is to play the key role in bringing the trouble-torn country to normalcy and has vowed to carry forward the peace process and establish a war-free milieu. But the task is no easy, the main issue is to persuade the Taliban to give up the path of violence. While Beijing maintains apparently good relations with the Taliban who were asked to send a delegation to Beijing for a bilateral talk, the Taliban leadership too wants to keep its Chinese counterpart in good humor, Suhail Shaheen, one of Taliban brass, termed China as a “welcomed friend” to Afghanistan. Taliban is keen to discuss investment in reconstruction work in Afghanistan “as soon as possible”. He promised on behalf of Taliban to protect Chinese investments and not to support China’s Uygur Muslims and the latter’s separatist movement. But China would find it too difficult to ensure that the Taliban violence against the ruling Afghan power with the President Ashraf Ghani at the helm would even be restricted.

Under the garb of diplomatic sobriety, China eyes rich mineral deposits in Afghanistan- hitherto unexploited reserves of copper, coal, iron, gas, cobalt, mercury, gold, lithium and thorium, valued at over US$1 trillion. But until 2017, China invested US$400 million in Afghanistan in contrast to US$5.7 billion invested in Pakistan..In 2011, the China National Petroleum Corporation bagged a 25-year US$400 million drilling contract in three oilfields with estimated potentials of about 87 million barrels of oil.

Time was when China involved in the Afghan scenario openly coalesced with the USA , Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to arm the Afghan Mujahideen fighting the erstwhile Soviet armed forces that crossed into Afghanistan to protect the ruling pro-communist government. That was shortly after China and the USA had established formal diplomatic relations during Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1979. But today’s Afghan soil has a different politico-social texture.

India has invested so far US $3 billion in several infrastructure and trade projects in Afghanistan and undertaken over 400 projects across all 34 Afghanistan provinces. Future of India’s investment runs into uncertainty with the high probability of Taliban capture of power in the troubled SAARC country. Indian diplomatic acumen faces an ordeal which the minister for external affairs, Dr Subramanian Jaishankar, seems incapable of taking on, although the main reason is decimation of the principal content, the Nehruvian policy of non-alignment during the seven-year regime of BJP-led government under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Dr Jaishankar’s frailty was evident during his dialogue with the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. He raised issues like peace negotiations and seriousness thereof, imperative for ‘an independent, sovereign, democratic, and stable Afghanistan at peace with itself and with its neighbours …Afghan civil society, especially on the rights of women, minorities, and on social freedoms over the last two decades’, but Blinker’s response was restricted to US’s sharing of ‘ a strong interest in a peaceful, secure, and stable Afghanistan’ and pushing the feather cock to India which, he hoped ‘will continue to make vital contributions to Afghanistan’s stability and development’.

The US Secretary of State stated significantly to a question from the CNBC correspondent,’ Even as we withdraw our forces from Afghanistan and NATO and others withdraw their forces, we remain very much engaged in Afghanistan. We have not only a strong embassy there, but also important programs that continue to support Afghanistan economically, through development assistance, through security assistance’.

Blinken’s response slaps a lesson to Dr Jaishankar that diplomacy needs no crutch. Indian presence in the post US withdrawal would depend on the diplomatic cover drives to face up to Taliban terror no stakeholders, not even Pakistan will brook. (IPA Service)