In a display of bureaucratic optimism so profound it borders on clinical delusion, the Chinese government has officially requested that the Taliban—a group whose primary historical contribution to global society is the creative use of high explosives—actually protect people from being blown up. Following a deadly blast in Kabul for which the Islamic State-Khorasan has gleefully claimed credit, Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a demand for 'effective measures' to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens. It is a request that carries the same weight and logic as asking a pack of hyenas to oversee a nursery, or expecting a toddler with a blowtorch to manage a fireworks factory without incident.

The sheer audacity of the Chinese Communist Party’s pragmatism is almost admirable, in a strictly ghoulish sense. For decades, Beijing has patted itself on the back for its policy of 'non-interference,' a euphemism for 'we don't care if you're a genocidal warlord as long as the lithium exports remain on schedule.' They looked at the graveyard of empires that is Afghanistan and thought, with the characteristic hubris of technocratic autocrats, that where the British, Soviets, and Americans failed with bullets and ideologies, China would succeed with state-backed loans and infrastructure projects. They assumed that the Taliban, having successfully transitioned from mountain-dwelling insurgents to a collection of bearded interns who lied on their resumes to run a country, would suddenly develop the infrastructure of a modern security state.

Instead, the reality of the situation is exactly what any sentient being with a basic grasp of history could have predicted. The Taliban are now learning the hard way that it is significantly easier to destroy a government than it is to prevent others from destroying yours. They are the dog that finally caught the car, only to find out the car is rigged with a suicide vest. The Islamic State group, acting as the even more unhinged younger sibling in this family of fundamentalist nihilism, has zeroed in on the one thing the Taliban desperately need: international legitimacy and foreign investment. By targeting Chinese interests, IS-K isn't just killing people; they are performing a surgical strike on the Taliban’s only hope for a functioning economy. It’s a masterclass in sectarian spite, and everyone involved is equally repellent.

Beijing’s demand for 'effective measures' is a fascinating study in the impotence of a superpower when confronted with a vacuum of common sense. What exactly do they expect the Taliban to do? Deploy their elite units of 'guys who know how to hide in caves' to perform advanced forensic counter-terrorism? The Kabul police, in a statement that can only be described as a masterpiece of unintentional comedy, claimed they are still 'investigating the cause' of the blast. One can only imagine the rigor of this investigation—perhaps a series of shrugs and a prayer, followed by the inevitable conclusion that the world remains a very loud and violent place.

There is a profound irony in watching the CCP, a regime that treats its own population like a programmable spreadsheet and monitors every digital heartbeat of its citizens, try to negotiate with a regime that views electricity as a suspicious novelty. The Chinese diplomats, with their polished shoes and their five-year plans, are trying to apply a logic of transactional stability to a region where 'stability' is considered a Western decadence. They want the Belt and Road Initiative to pave over the blood-soaked soil of the Hindu Kush, but the pavement keeps exploding. This is the price of the 'no-strings-attached' investment model: when you don’t care about the character of the people you’re dealing with, you shouldn’t be shocked when they lack the character to protect your assets.

The West, of course, is watching this with a mixture of schadenfreude and exhausted indifference. After twenty years of trying to turn Kabul into a liberal democracy via drone strikes and gender studies programs—a project that was as successful as trying to teach a cat to perform open-heart surgery—the Americans have left the building. Now, it’s China’s turn to find out that Afghanistan doesn’t want your money, your roads, or your 'effective measures.' It wants to be left alone to settle its ancient, bloody grudges in the ruins of whatever empire happens to be passing through this century.

Ultimately, this is just another chapter in the long-running human comedy of errors. The Chinese will continue to issue sternly worded statements from the safety of Beijing, the Taliban will continue to pretend they are a real government while their capital smolders, and the Islamic State will continue to prove that human cruelty is the only renewable resource in the region. The only constant is the absurdity of it all. Beijing wants security in a land defined by its absence, from a group defined by its hostility. It is a beautiful, tragic, and entirely predictable circle of stupidity that will continue until there is nothing left to blow up but the silence.