“中国军事介入阿富汗”谜团加深

A mystery over recent sightings of Chinese military vehicles patrolling inside Afghanistan deepened last week as Beijing denied its troops were in Afghanistan but confirmed it was undertaking “joint counter-terrorism operations” with Kabul.

近期，有人看到中国军车在阿富汗境内巡逻。上周，此事引发的谜团有所加深——中国否认其军队在阿富汗境内，但证实了中国正与阿富汗执行“联合反恐行动”。

The disclosure comes as China steps up its involvement with its western neighbour amid a gradual withdrawal by US forces from the war-ravaged country.

上述消息传来之际，随着美国军队逐渐撤出饱受战争蹂躏的阿富汗，中国开始加大对这个西部邻国的介入力度。

Ren Guoqiang, a spokesman for the Peoples Liberation Army, was asked about reports of Chinese troops inside Afghanistan at a defence ministry press conference on Thursday. He flatly denied any military involvement but said that “the law enforcement authorities of the two sides have conducted joint law enforcement operations in border areas to fight against terrorism”, according to an official transcript of the remarks made available Friday.

在上周四举行的中国国防部记者会上，国防部新闻发言人任国强被问及有关中国军队出现在阿富汗境内的报道。根据上周五公布的官方文字实录，任国强断然否认了任何军事介入，但他表示，“中阿两国执法部门确实根据双方的执法合作协议在边境地区开展了联合执法行动，目的是共同打击恐怖主义”。

“The report that the Chinese military patrolled in Afghanistan is false,” he said. An effort Friday to clarify whether there were any Chinese non-military patrols on the Afghan side of the border was met with the same response.

“有的外国媒体报道中国军队车辆进入阿富汗境内巡逻，这与事实不符，”他说。上周五，记者要求澄清在中阿边境的阿富汗一侧是否有中国非军事力量参与巡逻时，得到了相同的回答。

Col Ren was referring to a number of eyewitness reports and photos appearing to show Chinese military vehicles patrolling inside Afghanistan in recent months.

任国强上校针对的是一些目击者的说法，以及似乎显示最近几个月阿富汗境内有中国军用车辆在巡逻的照片。

The first photos were published on November 3, when Wion, an Indian news website, reported the presence of Chinese military vehicles in the Wakhan corridor, a mountainous strip of land between the Pamir and Karakoram mountain ranges that extends all the way to the border with China.

第一张照片发表于去年11月3日，当时印度新闻网站Wion报道称，中国军用车辆出现在帕米尔高原和喀喇昆仑山脉之间的山谷地带——瓦罕(Wakhan)走廊。该走廊一直延伸至中阿边界。

In February, the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst, a think-tank, published a report citing “overwhelming evidence” including statements of diplomats, as well as an unnamed Chinese official, that Chinese troops were patrolling inside Afghanistan, though the article also cited a denial by Sediq Sediqi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s ministry of internal affairs.

2月，智库Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst发表了一份援引“压倒性证据”的报告，其中包括一些外交官和一位未具名中国官员的说法，称中国军队在阿富汗境内巡逻。不过，这篇文章也引用了阿富汗内政部发言人塞迪克?塞迪奇(Sediq Sediqi)的否认说法。

Justin Bronk, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said that a denial by Beijing that the Chinese military was involved might not rule out a military-style operation by police. “Clearly in a place like Afghanistan, law enforcement and military patrols are rather blurred terms” he said.

位于伦敦的英国皇家联合军种研究院(Royal United Services Institute)的分析师贾斯廷?布朗克(Justin Bronk)说，北京方面对于中国军队介入的否认，可能并不排除使用警力展开军事性行动的可能性。“很显然，在像阿富汗这种地方，执法和军事巡逻这两个说法之间的界限相当模糊，”他说。

He said published photos of the alleged patrols showed two types of Chinese vehicles — the Dongfeng EQ 2050, similar to the US Humvee, and the Norinco VP 11, a mine resistant vehicle. Both are military vehicles, said Mr Bronk, but could be used in a law enforcement capacity.

布朗克表示，公布的所谓巡逻照片显示了两种中国车辆——类似于美国军用悍马(Humvee)的东风猛士EQ2050越野车以及北方工业公司(Norinco)的VP 11防雷越野车。他说，两者都是军用车辆，但可以用于执法行动。

If an agreement on joint patrolling exists, it would not the first such arrangement of extraterritorial law enforcement that China has with a border state. Since December 2011, China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have completed dozens of joint police patrols on the Mekong river, aiming to crack down on crime in the region. Those patrols follow the brutal murder of 13 Chinese sailors on a stretch of the Mekong by suspected drug smugglers in Oct 2011.

如果存在关于联合巡逻的协议，那么这不是中国首次与邻国达成的境外执法安排。自2011年12月以来，中国、老挝、缅甸和泰国已在湄公河地区完成了数十次联合警察巡逻，旨在打击该地区的犯罪活动。在巡逻之前的2011年10月，涉嫌走私毒品者在湄公河地区残忍地杀害了13名中国船员。

The motivations for China to deepen its involvement in Afghanistan are several. Beijing fears contagion from Islamic extremism, while Chinese companies also hold key mining and hydrocarbons concessions across Afghanistan.

中国更深介入阿富汗事务的动机有很多个。北京方面害怕伊斯兰极端主义势力的蔓延，而中国企业也在阿富汗境内拥有关键的采矿和碳氢化合物特许经营权。

“China's main focus is counter-terrorism,” said Andrew Small, an expert on China at the German Marshall Fund. He added that the Turkistan Islamic Party, a separatist organisation that China has linked to terror attacks, was believed to have its headquarters in Badakhshan, the Afghan province neighbouring China.

“中国的主要焦点是反恐怖主义，”德国马歇尔基金会(German Marshall Fund)中国问题专家安德鲁?斯莫尔(Andrew Small)表示。他接着说，中国认定分裂主义组织突厥斯坦伊斯兰党（Turkistan Islamic Party，又称“东突厥斯坦伊斯兰运动”，中文简称：东伊运）跟恐怖袭击有关联，据信该组织的总部设在阿富汗与中国相邻的省份巴达赫尚省(Badakhshan)。

Often accused of being a “free rider” that benefits from the security provided by US forces in Afghanistan, China has also been forced to respond to the likelihood of an eventual US withdrawal from the country.

中国的动机还包括应对美国最终撤出阿富汗的可能性。人们常常指责中国是驻阿美军提供的安全保护的“免费搭车者”。

“It’s impossible to see what China is doing outside the context of the US drawdown, which forced China, reluctantly, to face up to the fact that it will have to take on greater responsibility for security in its western periphery,” said Mr Small.

“如果去掉美国撤军的背景，就不可能理解中国在做什么。美国撤军迫使中国不情愿地面对一个事实，即它必须对西部周边的安全承担更大责任，”斯莫尔说。

In 2014 former US President Barack Obama announced that US forces would leave Afghanistan by the end of his term in office, though due to the worsening security environment 8,400 have stayed on since a partial drawdown was completed in December.

2014年，时任美国总统的巴拉克?奥巴马(Barack Obama)宣布，美国驻军将在他任期结束前撤离阿富汗。不过，由于安全环境的恶化，去年12月完成部分撤军以后，有8400人一直未撤走。