Iain Dale 7pm - 10pm
Maajid Nawaz: 'Strategic' Afghan withdrawal made to focus on China
16 September 2021, 16:12
'We are already starting off on the back foot.'
Maajid Nawaz questions whether the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was to refocus military power on a "new Cold War" against China.
It comes as the UK joins a new alliance with Australia and the US designed to counter an increasingly powerful China.
Maajid explained that the West is probably "already" in a "new form of hybrid warfare" with China, which involves "cyber, bio, information, elite capture, [and] economic growth."
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Maajid said: "Look to how the Taliban visited China, met with their foreign minister a week before the fall of Kabul, and then announced that China is their partner and will be their partner in rebuilding Afghanistan.
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"Perhaps our withdrawal, which was right in principle, but wrong in how it was done... was, as this announcement last night seems to confirm, a strategic withdrawal to focus the brunt of our military efforts in containing China, and in particular with regards to the south China sea.
"So this all does look like the direction of travel with regards to our foreign policy is very rapidly moving to some form of attempt to contain expanding Chinese influence."
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