HOW China deals with Afghanistan in the aftermath of America's retreat from its longest war may signal the ambit of China's coming global role. Indeed, American contraction creates opportunities for the expansion of Chinese objectives in the Greater Middle East, of which Afghanistan is a part.

History ties the two nations together. Both are survivors of Western imperium.

China's recovery from a century of national humiliation by Western powers and Japan from 1839 to 1949 is parallelled by Afghanistan's success in rebuffing any externally imposed order on its polity and society. Three Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839 to 1842; 1878 to 1880; 1919) in which Britain, acting from its base in India, sought to oppose Russian influence in Afghanistan, ended in abysmal failure for the invaders.