China’s rumored aims to dive into Afghanistan are exaggerated:

One of the first things many Western pundits predicted as the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan unraveled was the replacement in that power vacuum by China, long a critic of and strategic adversary to the U.S. 

Afghanistan has trillions of dollars worth of untapped mineral resources, and is in dire need of infrastructure investment, making it in theory a prime ground for China’s expansive Belt and Road Initiative. What’s more, China is one of the few countries and the only economic superpower to have so far established friendly relations with the Taliban, who shocked the world in early August by overtaking Afghanistan in a matter of days. 

In what many see as a symbolic taunt to the West, Chinese state officials have chastised Washington and its 20-year war, and cautiously welcomed the Taliban’s announcement of its new government of hardliners and FBI-wanted terrorists this week.  

“This has ended the more than three weeks of anarchy in Afghanistan and is a necessary step for Afghanistan’s restoration of domestic order and postwar reconstruction,” Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday, according to a transcript published by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

But beyond the statements, many regional experts are not convinced of China’s enthusiasm for barreling into the war-torn Central Asian state on its western border.  

China has long been wary of Islamic extremism in its far west. It’s also determined not to fall into the same quagmires that the Soviet Union and the U.S. were sucked into with Afghanistan, analysts say. 

“China is interested in economic engagement in Afghanistan and extension of its Belt and Road, including reconstruction and investing in untapped mineral resources of the landlocked country,” Ekta Raghuwanshi, Stratfor’s South Asia analyst for RANE, told CNBC.  

“However,” she cautioned, “it wouldn’t invest substantially anytime soon given security concerns in Afghanistan and proximity to China’s restive Xinjiang province,” she said, referring to Uyghur militants and the resurgence of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. 

And while China has made clear its approval of the Taliban, that doesn’t mean it’s ready to commit to doing business with them.  

“We don’t have evidence China will see the Taliban as a more secure partner,” Maximilian Hess, a Central Asia fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program, told CNBC.  

“It is very aware of the security risks, and attacks on Chinese infrastructure in Pakistan by Islamist groups have increased in recent years” including one as recently as August, Hess said. China…