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China Weighing Occupation of Former U.S. Air Base at Bagram: Sources

Building on friendly relations Beijing has secured with the new Taliban government in Afghanistan, China is now considering new ways to expand influence and embarrass the U.S.

By Paul D. Shinkman

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Sept. 7, 2021, at 5:53 p.m.

 

A view of the Bagram Airfield base after all U.S. and NATO forces evacuated in Parwan province, eastern Afghanistan, on July 8, 2021.(XINHUA NEWS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES)

China is considering deploying military personnel and economic development officials to Bagram airfield, perhaps the single-most prominent symbol of the 20-year U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

The War in Afghanistan Ends Where It Started

 

The Chinese military is curently conducting a feasibility study about the effect of sending workers, soldiers and other staff related to its foreign economic investment program known as the Belt and Road Initiative in the coming years to Bagram, according to a source briefed on the study by Chinese military officials, who spoke to U.S. News on the condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday issued a carefully crafted denial of plans for an imminent takeover of the military airfield roughly an hour from Kabul, first established by the Soviets during their own occupation in Afghanistan and which at the height of the U.S. military presence there was its busiest in the world.

"What I can tell everyone is that that is a piece of purely false information," Wang Wenbin told reporters Tuesday morning. China has repeatedly denied many of its other military deployments beyond its borders.