The main point was the chaos of the American withdrawal, the future of the countries, both Afghanistan and America, and the fate of the poor Afghans in the hands of the vicious Taliban. That such a significant amount of capital has become a detail in policy decisions and public debate indicates a radical shift in the US paradigm for interpreting the world. From the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989 up to a few months ago, the central issue in public debate was the management of the economy: the increase in wealth, the solidity of accounts and ever-increasing returns on the stock market.
In this paradigm, China was crucial. It was a sizable low-cost production base and a potentially huge development market, so it was a vital part of the global value chain and the economic/globalist paradigm.
