Commentary: Is a stable Afghanistan where China, Russia and US cooperate?

SYDNEY: There is little that the United States can concur with China and Russia at a time regularly described as a “Second (or New) Cold War”. Yet amid all the ideological differences, one critical mutual interest is to prevent a civil conflict erupting in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s geography is significant for all three powers. To the north, it borders landlocked Central Asia, where economic dependence drives the former Soviet states into the Russian sphere of influence.

Through the north-eastern Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan shares a border with China’s Muslim-majority Xinjiang province. And to the east, Afghanistan borders Pakistan, the West’s strategic regional ally since the partition of British India.