According to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, a drug rehabilitation center called Omid — meaning hope — in Kabul has been reduced to rubble in a Pakistani air strike. Pakistan denies the claim, saying it struck militant infrastructure, ammunition depots and legitimate targets in an "open war".

One of the pitiless truths of war is that it also embraces those least equipped to bear it. If related reports prove to be true, those in Omid were already casualties — of decades of conflict, displacement and despair in Afghanistan. This time they are casualties of a war between neighbors. Islamabad says militant groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan operate from Afghan soil. Kabul says that's Pakistan's internal problem. Meanwhile, drones fly, fighter jets roar, and civilians die caught in the cross fire.

China is playing the role of mediator — never an easy job in a region where grievances have long memories and short fuses. In his recent conversations with both Afghan and Pakistani officials, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a very basic message: Stop fighting. Talk. Choose cooperation over escalation.

Wang pointed out that Afghanistan and Pakistan are "inseparable brothers and neighbors". A reminder that geography is not a choice, and coexistence is a necessity.

The more turbulent the external environment becomes, the more regional countries should strengthen unity and cooperation to overcome difficulties together, forging a path of cooperative and common security.

As Wang stressed, China has always maintained an objective and fair stance on the Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict, and a special envoy on Afghan affairs is currently shuttling between Afghanistan and Pakistan to mediate, urging both sides to remain calm and exercise restraint, engage in face-to-face exchanges as soon as possible, achieve a ceasefire at the earliest opportunity, and resolve contradictions and differences through dialogue.

But it should not be forgotten that war thrives on the seductive illusion that one more strike will finally settle things, even if all it does is just make things worse. Sound familiar? It should. One only has to look westward, to the Middle East to see a similar tragedy unfolding in a tit-for-tat vicious cycle. There, too, every side insists it is acting in self-defense. There, too, ceasefires arrive late and leave early.

The lesson is not subtle: escalation is easy; exit is hard.

And this uneasy heart of Asia — where the United States failed a 20-year experiment in "American democracy" — is too important to be left to the logic of escalation. At the crossroads of global counterterrorism efforts, trade routes and fragile geopolitics, instability does not just remain here. It radiates outward, complicating everything from security to development to the faint hope that war might someday become less fashionable.

Which brings us back to Omid: hope.

Afghan officials say they do not want their territory to be used to attack others. Pakistani officials say they are fighting terrorism. Both claims may be true. Both can be used to justify actions that make peace impossible. That's why Beijing calls for a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable approach to security.

It begins with a ceasefire — as a recognition that continuing down this path leads nowhere worth arriving at. It continues with negotiations — difficult, frustrating and indispensable. And it ends, if at all, with the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding trust where none seems possible.

The hospital was called Hope. That is not a metaphor. It is a challenge. The question now is whether either party is willing to build on the hope for a better future to say "ok let's talk and find a way we can get along".