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Ostensibly, Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential elections should have placed United States international policy back on a familiar path. However, despite the prevalence of a highly traditional vision of US foreign policy, the Biden administration has maintained significant continuities with the previous administration, as reflected in the policy towards China and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In part, this is due to the constraints produced by the deep divisions that exist at domestic level. This paper aims to unravel the fundamental elements of Biden's foreign policy, focusing on possible ideological and doctrinal elements, strategic priorities, and any continuities and changes relative to his predecessor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent past, Sino-Afghan relations have taken a new phase of collaboration and inter-dependency to work jointly to advance their common geo-strategic and geo-economic goals. Being an international power on the global chessboard, China does have a great role in the regional geopolitical setting to ensure peace and tranquility in the region on the one hand and prioritize its own interests on the other. Afghanistan, being an epicenter of the region, draws a special attention of neighboring countries especially China to address threat perception emanating from cross-border terrorism, drug trafficking and promoting insurgency in its region of Xinjiang. This paper attempts to analyze the scope of bilateral collaboration between China and Afghanistan. The paper also intends to ascertain whether Afghan leadership will be wise enough to use Chinese assistance as a trap card to utilize their geographic setting in such a manner in which both Chinese and Afghans can benefit and also to ensure their cooperation for longer period of time for peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, one of the major powers and close neighbor of Afghanistan, has both economic and strategic interests in Afghanistan in the post 2014 Afghanistan after US/NATO drawdown from the latter. Though China has never been directly involved in Afghanistan for decades its internal security concerns and the major shift in the geostrategic and geopolitical situation in the region has forced China to depart from its old posture and engage its neighbor. However much depends upon the future scenario that arises in Afghanistan and the nature of cooperation among different stakeholders and the role of neighboring countries of Afghanistan. This paper aims at studying the future prospects of China's interests in Afghanistan from different perspectives. An effort has also been made to suggest remedies to the challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent commentary on China's approach to Afghanistan has argued that it is either driven by opportunistic “free riding” on US-NATO efforts or a fundamental caution determined by security concerns in its restive province of Xinjiang. In contrast, this paper argues that China has three primary goals with respect to Afghanistan that mirror those toward the other states in “Greater Central Asia”: (1) to ensure the security of Xinjiang; (2) to secure the development of greater economic links, including investment in natural resources; and (3) to combat the influence of the United States and India. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]