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China and Afghanistan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Shen-Yu Dai
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Extract

When China and Afghanistan signed a Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression Treaty in 1960, they called it “a new Silk Road,” evoking nostalgic memories of a link between the two countries established 2,100 years ago. The old “Silk Road” stretching from China to Rome was opened by Chang Chien, a special envoy of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (140 B.C.), who was seeking a military ally against the Hsiung-nu tribesmen in China's northwest. The Ta Yueh-chih people, then living in the Afghanistan area, originally lived in the Kansu area of China but migrated towards the Oxus River valley under pressure from the Hsiung-nu tribesmen. The Hsiung-nu, therefore, gave Chinese and early Afghans a common cause for alliance in the following century. As early as 104 B.C. an official envoy from the Afghan kingdom travelled the Silk Road to the Chinese Imperial Court.

Type
Recent Developments
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 25 , January 1966 , pp. 213 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1966

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References

1 Peking Review, No. 51, 12 20, 1960Google Scholar.

2 Newspaper articles on occasions of visits by Afghan leaders in recent years have been packed with details sometimes sifted from not very commonly known historical works, for example, Yi-liang, Chou, “Chung-kuo ho A-fu-han ch'uan-t'ung yu-hao kuan-hsi” (“The Traditional Friendly Relationship between China and Afghanistan “), Kuangming Jih-pao (Kuang-ming Daily), 10 24, 1957Google Scholar; Hsiao-hua, Hsieh, “Chung-kuo ho A-fu-han ti ch'uan-t'ung yu-yi ” (“The Traditional Friendship between China and Afghanistan”,) Jen-min Jih-pao (People's Daily), 10 24, 1957Google Scholar; and “Chung-kuo ho A-fu-han ch'uan-t'ung yu-yi te hsin fa-chan” (“The New Development of Sino-Afghan Traditional Friendship”), People's Daily, September 8, 1959.

3 Or A.D. 2. See Ssu, Li, ‘A-fu-han shih wo-men ti hao ling-chu” (“Afghanistan Is Our Good Neighbour”), Kuang-ming Jih-pao, 01 21, 1956Google Scholar, giving A.D. 2 as the date; and Yi-liang, Chou, op. cit., People's Daily, 09 8, 1959Google Scholar, giving 2 B.c. This latter date is used not only more extensively and more recently, but also has the backing of Peoples' Daily's great official authority.

4 Menon, K. P. S., Delhi-Chungking: A Travel Diary, as quoted in Kusum Nair, “Where India, China and Russia Meet,” Foreign Affairs, 01 1958, pp. 330–339Google Scholar.

5 Katrak, Sohrab K., Through Amanullah's Afghanistan (Karachi: Din Muhammadi Press, 1963), pp. 8, 39Google Scholar.

6 See two memoranda by Ballantine, and Vincent, from the U.S. Embassy in China to the State Department in Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1942, China (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956), pp. 193–196Google Scholar. The United States and Afghanistan, coincidentally, exchanged legations for the first time in 1942.

7 Article IV. See text of the treaty in Treaties between the Republic of China and Foreign States: 1927–1957 (Taipei: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1958), pp. 1–2Google Scholar. In this diplomatic sweep towards the Moslem Middle East, China has already signed a similar treaty with Iraq in 1942 and signed another with Saudi Arabia in 1946.

8 New China News Agency (NCNA), January 17 and March 19, 1950.

9 Survey of Mainland China Press (SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 399, p. 6Google Scholar. Peking apparently was alluding to American construction of the high-speed road system in southern Afghanistan from 1947 onwards. She was also displeased by Afghanistan's initiative in seeking to modernise its educational system on the American model as announced by the Ministry of Education a year earlier.

10 At the turn of 1953–54, NCNA made it a regular practice to publish expressions of antagonism toward the pending United States–Pakistan Mutual Defence Agreement from the Afghan press, especially the Kabul newspaper Anis, see releases dated December 3, 17, 28, 1953, and January 11, 1954.

11 See SCMP, Nos. 972, 974, 977 for the diplomatic formalities, and No. 986 for Peking's observation on “United States Interference in Afghanistan” as “exposed by Indian paper.” See also NCNA, April 29, 1955, on U.S. “espionage activities in Nepal and Afghanistan.”

12 For texts of speeches, editorials and the communiqué, see NCNA, January 19–23, 1957.

13 NCNA, January 23, February 11, 25, July 28, September 19, 1957.

14 E.g., Afghan sports team in China, November 1957; Chinese water conservancy delegation in Afghanistan, December 1957; Chinese art troupe in Afghanistan, August-September 1958; Afghan football team in China, October 1958; Afghan cultural delegation again in China, November 1958; Chinese ensemble in Afghanistan, December 1958; and, again, Chinese cultural delegation and acrobats in Afghanistan, June and August 1959.

15 Ta Kung Pao, Hong Kong, 09 16, 1959Google Scholar.

16 See text in Peking Review, No. 51.

17 See communiqué and related documents, ibid. No. 35.

18 People's Daily, May 28, June 20, August 3–4, 1963.

19 Ibid. August 24, 1963.

20 People's Daily, June 27–28, 1964.

21 See NCNA, especially November 1, 3, 8, 1964.

22 Pekine Review. No. 47.

23 United Nations Map No. 279REV3, March 1962. The length of the Sino-Afghan border is 75 kilometres (46.5 miles) according to a Chinese source [Wen Hut Pao, Shanghai, 10 24, 1957]Google Scholar, and “nearly one hundred kilometres” according to an official Afghan source [Afghanistan: Present and Past (Kabul: Cultural Relations Office, Press and Information Department, 1958), p. 5]Google Scholar.

24 Kabul Times, March 25, 1965.

25 See Warner, Dennis, “Afghanistan in the Bear's Embrace?” Challenge, 11 1962Google Scholar, where the author speculates that “Soviet primacy” is already being “sucessfully challenged and rejected by Communist China” in its “benign” approach to Afghanistan. Pakistan observers have noted that Afghanistan has likewise been trying to “balance Soviet influence” by turning to China, see “The Policy of Afghanistan,” Pakistan Horizon, First Quarter, 1964, pp. 48–57.