The article Shared insecurity, divergent responses: Pakistan, India, and China after the Return of the Taliban, by Saira Bano, Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Thompson Rivers University, Canada, published online in Asian Security on 5 August 2026, examines why Pakistan, India and China have adopted markedly different policies towards Taliban-ruled Afghanistan despite facing the same regional security shock.
Bano asks why a common source of insecurity does not produce similar state responses. Her answer is that states experience and interpret insecurity through different “modes of exposure”, shaped by geography, strategic interests and patterns of regional interaction.
Bano develops the concept of “modes of exposure” to refine Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT). While RSCT explains how insecurity spreads among geographically connected states, Bano argues that it is less effective at explaining why states exposed to the same threat pursue different policies. She identifies three modes: direct borderland exposure, indirect strategic exposure, and adjacent corridor exposure. Pakistan, India and China respectively represent these three pathways.
For Pakistan, the Taliban’s return initially appeared likely to strengthen Islamabad’s influence in Afghanistan, given Pakistan’s longstanding relationship with the movement and its expectation of greater strategic leverage. Instead, Bano describes the outcome as “strategic blowback”. The resurgence of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), cross-border militancy, disputes over the Durand Line and the failure of Taliban-mediated efforts to contain the TTP have progressively damaged relations. Pakistan has consequently shifted towards counterterrorism, border management, and coercive diplomacy. This trajectory has become even clearer in 2026, with Pakistan and the Taliban entering direct military confrontation over cross-border militancy and Pakistan describing the conflict as “open war”.
India, by contrast, represents indirect strategic exposure. The Taliban takeover initially appeared to threaten India’s substantial political and economic investment in Afghanistan, but New Delhi gradually moved from disengagement to what Bano calls “pragmatic re-engagement”. India reopened a diplomatic presence, continued humanitarian assistance, and expanded contacts with Taliban officials without formally recognising the regime. Bano argues that this reflects strategic adaptation rather than ideological convergence. India’s principal concerns are terrorism, regional influence, connectivity, and preventing Afghanistan from becoming a platform for threats against Indian interests. The deterioration of Pakistan-Taliban relations has also created greater space for India to cultivate its own relationship with Kabul. That trend has continued beyond the article’s core analysis, with India significantly expanding diplomatic contacts with Taliban officials and upgrading its diplomatic engagement.
China represents adjacent corridor exposure. Beijing has maintained diplomatic engagement with the Taliban while avoiding formal recognition, combining counterterrorism cooperation with economic caution and regional risk management. Its concerns centre on Xinjiang, transnational militant networks, the security of Chinese nationals and investments, and the wider environment surrounding the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Bano therefore characterises China’s policy as “controlled engagement”: maintaining political access and economic possibilities while avoiding deep entanglement in Afghanistan. This logic is particularly visible in China’s growing role as a mediator between Kabul and Islamabad. In April 2026, China hosted Afghanistan-Pakistan talks in Urumqi, and the Afghan foreign ministry again acknowledged Beijing’s role in facilitating dialogue in August.
The article’s analytical value lies in showing that Pakistan, India, and China are not simply choosing between supporting or opposing the Taliban. Their relationships with Kabul are being structured by how Afghanistan’s insecurity reaches them. Pakistan’s direct exposure makes its relationship increasingly conflictual because instability in Afghanistan is converted into an immediate domestic security problem. India’s indirect exposure makes engagement useful because maintaining access to Kabul protects its strategic interests and limits Pakistan’s influence. China’s corridor exposure encourages a more cautious relationship centred on stability, counterterrorism, and the protection of regional connectivity.
Bano’s framework therefore helps explain an important feature of present-day regional politics: the Taliban is simultaneously a security threat for Pakistan, a strategic interlocutor for India, and a risk-management problem for China. The three countries share an interest in preventing Afghanistan from becoming a source of wider instability, but their different modes of exposure produce different priorities and consequently different relationships with the Taliban. Her central proposition, that “shared insecurity does not necessarily produce policy convergence”, offers a useful way of understanding why the post-2021 regional order around Afghanistan has produced not a common policy towards the Taliban, but three increasingly differentiated forms of engagement.