That works if you want to win the land. China only wants the land in Xinjiang, they would be ecstatic if the whole place was Han Chinese.
The US by contrast has enough territory already, they don't want or need Afghan soil. Instead they went to war so that Afghanistan would have their chosen government. The only way to do that is to colonize it and exert direct control. They never committed to that (it's kind of frowned upon internationally), so it was a failure.
The US by contrast has enough territory already, they don't want or need Afghan soil. Instead they went to war so that Afghanistan would have their chosen government. The only way to do that is to colonize it and exert direct control. They never committed to that (it's kind of frowned upon internationally), so it was a failure.