Raffaello Pantucci is an adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and a senior associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute in London. He is also the author of "Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire."
China's close embrace of the Taliban was on display once again at last month's Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, where acting Minister for Industry and Commerce Nooruddin Aziz represented the government in Kabul that no country has officially recognized.