China’s cautious quest to draw Afghanistan back into the fold
China’s cautious quest to draw Afghanistan back into the fold
WRITTEN BY SARAH GODEK
23 August 2024
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan three years ago, few countries have been more proactive in engaging them than China. In the past several months, China has advocated at the UN level for countries to increase international dialogue with the Taliban, at the same time gradually increasing its own bilateral interactions with Taliban-led Afghanistan and laying the groundwork for regional interconnectivity. In doing so, China envisions a future for Afghanistan that officials hope to contrast with decades of failed intervention: one reconnecting Afghanistan to the world and its surrounding region to increase mutual prosperity.
China’s increasing engagement with Afghanistan is clear; bilateral trade more than doubled between 2022 and 2023, from USD 595 million to USD 1.33 billion. At the same time, however, few new noteworthy investments have been reported outside of the 2023 Amu Darya oil basin contract. Tangible engagement with Afghanistan under China’s Belt and Road Initiative is also yet to materialise.
The actual hesitation on the ground of China’s businesses and government in further deepening ties with Taliban-led Afghanistan indicates significant barriers remain. While China will continue to expand its interests in Afghanistan, it will do so at a measured pace and with great caution instead of rapidly filling the great power vacuum the United States left behind. In this, the Chinese government is making a long-term bet: it could see benefits from investments in agriculture and critical materials like copper and lithium as well as regional interconnectivity in the future, slowly bolstering its great power status in the process.
Post-takeover engagement trends
As the first country to accept a Taliban ambassador and appoint a new ambassador to Afghanistan post-takeover, China has made its pro-engagement stance clear. Even before the takeover, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, prior to his current dual appointment as Director of the Foreign Affairs Commission Office and Foreign Minister, met the Taliban’s political commissar as the Taliban expanded its power. Since the takeover, officially reported interactions of Chinese officials with the Taliban have continued, with the largest lapse around the 20th Party Congress and after a December 2022 attack in Kabul had injured Chinese nationals. In the past three months, reported interactions have increased, with Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Zhao Xing noting that “economic, trade, and personnel exchanges are becoming more frequent”.
By increasing relations at a slower pace, China’s government makes a safer long-term bet on Afghanistan that forgoes short-run gains to ensure greater security that could protect longer-term benefits in the future.
By contrast, China reports little engagement with the former Afghan government. Zhao’s recent meeting with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president before ousted president Ashraf Ghani, is the exception rather than the rule with few other similar meetings reported. This demonstrates China’s clear preference for engaging with the Taliban. China’s engagement with the Taliban is not new; Beijing consistently worked to engage the Taliban even during the previous Afghan administration. This trend is clear in examples from 2015, 2016, 2017, throughout 2018, and 2019. In 2020, China promised the Taliban investment and infrastructure projects if they could ensure peace after the US withdrawal.
The promises of greater engagement
The promises of greater engagement with Taliban-led Afghanistan, should its security situation stabilise, are clear: China could experience economic returns from investments in the country and increased regional connectivity to Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asian countries. China could also receive a boost to perceptions of its status as a great power globally for having fostered peace through engagement in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, China’s business engagement is progressing; Chinese companies have reportedly been more active in Afghanistan than other countries, and they secured at least four major mining contracts. Mining investments are where increased engagement promises the highest reward for China; the Chinese-invested Mes Aynak mine is the second largest known copper mine in the world, and Afghanistan sits on an estimated USD 1–3 trillion worth of unexplored mineral reserves. In 2023, a Chinese company reportedly offered to invest USD 10 billion in Afghanistan’s lithium mines. It is therefore clear that sharing in any of the benefits of exploiting Afghanistan’s resources promises handsome returns.
Chinese companies are also interested in non-mineral investments; most recently, a Chinese company signed a USD 25 million agreement to facilitate the export of 10,000 tons of cotton to China. Another agreed to invest RMB 95 million (approximately USD 13 million) to build a pine nut processing plant in Kabul. Afghan media also reported consultations on agricultural ventures, solar panel production, and solar power generation.
Regionally, China and its partners are laying the groundwork for greater connectivity. Xi Jinping and Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon recently discussed construction along the China-Tajikistan-Afghanistan corridor. Kazakhstan’s participation in the trans-Afghan railway project could facilitate Chinese cargo transport to South Asia. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation is also possible: China and Pakistan previously planned to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) through Afghanistan, and the Vice Chairman of Tibet recently expressed hope to explore more cooperation with Afghanistan under the BRI.
Internationally, China is one of the Taliban’s few friends. Chinese officials consistently push for greater engagement, calling for SCO member states to adhere to engagement and dialogue, calling UNSC travel bans on Taliban officials “counterproductive”, and most recently celebrating the third UN-organised Doha meeting on Afghanistan for securing Taliban participation. Taliban officials have praised China’s engagement stance and called on China to continue to be a friend internationally. On the one hand, reincorporating Afghanistan into the international community could allow for adjusting international sanctions, facilitating greater ease of access for Chinese businesses to Afghanistan. At the same time, it would also be a win for China’s model of bilateral relations, which frequently advocates noninterference in what its government considers countries’ “internal affairs”.
China’s vision for Afghanistan is clear: China wants Afghanistan to be reintegrated into the international community “as soon as possible” and cooperate with its neighbours to foster prosperity and security in the region. Supporting Afghanistan to achieve these goals would deliver China a great power win where the United States and Soviet Union failed. Yet significant challenges remain to this vision’s realisation. Looking at actual Chinese actions in Afghanistan, it can be observed that China has not gone all-in on Afghanistan ties.
The reality of China-Afghanistan ties
While Chinese officials recently co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for practical work on the Chinese-leased Mes Aynak mine in Afghanistan, this was after a 16-year delay and months of Taliban pressure including a recently imposed deadline to begin practical work. This work is not even on the mine itself but on an access road that will not be completed until 2025. Taliban officials conceded copper extraction is unlikely to begin for at least two years; this could be further delayed.
The Taliban is also pushing to open the Wakhan Corridor — the narrow part of northeast Afghanistan connected to China — but there has been no apparent reciprocal movement on the Chinese side. Despite enthusiastic Afghan reporting on business consultations, few actual deals have been signed. Chinese companies go to Afghanistan for inspection but face difficult investment conditions.
Regional connectivity is also stumbling. Afghanistan’s participation in the BRI has been mainly limited publicly to expressed willingness to cooperate. Efforts to extend CPEC into Afghanistan stalled given Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions that have further spiralled following an attack in Pakistan which Pakistan defence officials blame on an Afghan national that killed Chinese engineers in March 2024. Tajikistan’s push for practical measures for construction along the China-Tajikistan-Afghanistan corridor was followed by a more muted China-Tajikistan statement noting only that the two countries “attached importance” to the construction.
China’s major concern is security. The Mes Aynak ceremony was heavily guarded, and holidays in Afghanistan are accompanied by Chinese embassy warnings to avoid outdoor activity. While Chinese nationals in Afghanistan have not suffered attacks since December 2022, suicide bombings in Afghanistan are not infrequent, and increased attacks in Pakistan since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan highlight dangers for neighbouring countries.
In particular, China is forced to consider the issues with security it has faced in its history of deepening engagement with Pakistan. There have been at least 25 incidents targeting Chinese nationals in Pakistan since 2011, including at major CPEC sites, dampening China’s enthusiasm for CPEC.
While there have been few attacks on Chinese nationals in Taliban-led Afghanistan, the number of terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan could be as high as 20 and includes major groups such as Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) and Al Qaeda, which have a demonstrated history of causing chaos beyond their immediate environs. The Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which poses a security threat to Western China, is another pressing concern. These groups’ activities make the instability of the security environment apparent to Chinese citizens; security concerns are frequently cited by Chinese analysts and netizens as barriers to progress in economic cooperation, including through the Wakhan Corridor.
The real security concerns China faces in Afghanistan make increasing engagement with the country highly risky, though Beijing can also limit those security risks through greater engagement with the Taliban to manage those groups’ actions. This is part of the bet that China is making in stepping up interactions but also puts a limit on the speed with which it will do so. By increasing relations at a slower pace, China’s government makes a safer long-term bet on Afghanistan that forgoes short-run gains to ensure greater security that could protect longer-term benefits in the future.
While fostering peace in Afghanistan through engagement where other major powers’ interventions failed promises potential economic benefits and would bolster China’s international status, Chinese officials are more likely to work gradually to achieve a positive vision for Afghanistan with utmost caution until security for Chinese interests can be ensured sufficiently for the bet to pay off.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Sarah Godek is a Research Associate for the Stimson Center’s China Program. Image credit: Flickr/Callum Darragh.