Mocking over Afghanistan debacle + Blockade on Nvidia deal

The obviously rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan is currently the biggest failure of US policy in Central Asia. Germany, as an ally, is now also deeply involved in the disaster. The big neighbor China, on the other hand, brags that it had predicted the course of events and realistically assessed the Taliban’s strength. America’s decline begins in Afghanistan – that is the way Beijing sees it.

In fact, China has much better ties to the region than the USA has. And Beijing applies purely pragmatic standards in foreign policy. China now practices the policy of non-interference that it always demands of other nations. If the Taliban are the de facto rulers, then Chinese foreign policy recognizes them as the country’s rulers. Michael Radunski analyzes what ominous message China derives from these events for Taiwan.

At the same time, the pragmatism of Chinese policy means staying its hard course in the trade war with the US. Specifically, this creates an effective blockade for the potentially largest takeover in the semiconductor industry. The American chip manufacturer Nvidia planned the acquisition of British chip design service provider ARM. China, however, strongly objects: The concentration in the Western semiconductor industry threatens supplies to Chinese tech giants like Huawei. And Beijing certainly has a say in the matter; after all, antitrust authorities on all continents have to give their approval.

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Finn Mayer-Kuckuk