Evils under the Ground

Abstract

For Beijing, military intervention overseas is no longer an unthinkable option. Rather, China’s expanding interests and newfound confidence and capabilities on the world stage, including overseas military bases in Djibouti and Tajikistan, make it a very real possibility. Official propaganda and popular films like Wolf Warrior II build up public expectations that Beijing is able and willing to protect Chinese interests abroad. A Chinese model for establishing peace and security may soon emerge in full. This is one that does not tear down state institutions overseas to usher in regime change, but works to maintain the legitimacy and power of state institutions, despite the violence they may have sown. It draws lessons from China’s counter-terrorism and the mass detainment of its Uyghur people at home. But this intervention threatens to bog down Beijing in quagmires overseas for decades. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, Beijing’s efforts to advance its strategic interests of developing new industrial corridors through South Asia face the challenge of overcoming long-standing regional insecurity and terrorism.