China’s growing footprints in Afghanistan may soon become a major concern for the world as Beijing looks to harness its business interests in Kabul along with connectivity, security and access to natural resources.
Shunned globally since Taliban’s takeover, Afghanistan has the been struggling for finance. Though the country gets UN aid every week, the fragile economic situation and fight on terror need more support from the world community.
Huge sums of Afghanistan’s money have been frozen by USA, much to the chagrin of Taliban. In such a situation, China has come as a panacea, investing heavily in the country in return for selective terror crackdown, top Intelligence sources have told CNN-News18.
China was the only country to host Afghanistan’s ambassador in Beijing. It also wants Taliban and Pakistan to sit and settle the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issue, sources said.
In connectivity, China wants Taliban to continue with the 2016 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) pact and expansion in Central Asia apart from CPEC and Gwadar Port.
In doing all this and paying under-the-table rewards to the Taliban leadership, China started with crackdown on the East Turkistan Islamic Movement. This they wanted for two reasons — crackdown in Afghanistan is optics and will ensure safety of Chinese workers in Afghanistan, the sources added.
In 2023, Afghanistan’s foreign minister Muttaqui had promised his counterpart in China that they were ready to deliver on terror crackdown. Pakistan has deported hundreds of thousands of Afghans who were settled in Pakistan from decades, justifying its action by alleging that Taliban-supported TTP is taking shelter with these refugees.
China facilitated trilateral talks with Afghanistan and Pakistan so that Pakistan’s tensions with Afghanistan are reduced and they desist from troubling Islamabad and GHQ.
The Intel sources said the idea behind the high-level meeting was to prevent any major tension between Taliban and Pakistan and ensure zero-hinderance in BRI and CPEC.
Also, Afghanistan’s Lithium will be a major asset in the days to come, especially when green energy is the future and logistics cost for China are negligible.
‘Helping Hand’
• In January 2023, Taliban signed a $540 million contract to extract oil from the Amu Darya basin
• In April 2023, a Chinese company showed interest in investing $10 billion in Lithium and another rare earth minerals in Afghanistan
• In November 2022, China revived the Pine Nut Air Corridor, resulting in exports of over 1,000 tonnes to Beijing
• In December 2022, China implemented zero tariffs on 98 per cent Afghan products
• Restarting work on the Aynak Copper Mine in Logar and securing new oil and gas extraction contracts in the Amu Darya basin exemplify China’s keen interest in resource extraction
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