BEIJING: The US withdrawal from Afghanistan after two decades of war has opened the door for China to expand its influence and block access to its vast mineral deposits.
It didn’t turn out that way.
More than a year after the U.S. military left, Afghanistan’s economy is collapsing, 19 million people are at risk of severe hunger, and the investment of Taliban was expecting from Beijing did not come. Both sides blame the other.
Khan Jan Alokozay, Vice President of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said in an interview: “Not even a penny has been invested by China. “Many of their companies have come in, met us, done research and then left and gone, which is frustrating.”
From China’s point of view, the Taliban have not shown they are doing enough to crack down on a group with separatist ties in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to two people familiar with the matter. Furthermore, the people said, the Taliban are also seeking to renegotiate the terms of existing projects to exploit Afghan resources.
While the Taliban have vowed not to allow terrorist groups to operate on Afghan soil, China has repeatedly called on the group to take action against the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, a Muslim separatist group seeking to establish an Islamic state that overlaps with China’s vast Xinjiang region. China and Afghanistan share a 76-kilometer (47-mile) border.
According to Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, the Taliban have repeatedly said that ETIMs are not active in Afghanistan and that they “will not allow anyone to use the land of Afghanistan against any country.” any other”. But a United Nations report in May cited several countries as saying that ETIM is still present in Afghanistan.
Support for any group that causes tension in Xinjiang is a red line for Beijing, which has been accused of “genocide” by the US and other countries for pushing most of the Uighur population to Muslims in the region into forced labor camps after more than a decade of unrest. formerly. China denies those accusations and says critics are trying to interfere in its domestic affairs.
“ETIM is definitely a ticking time bomb for China, making it a long-term threat,” said Faran Jeffery, deputy director at Islamic Theology for Counter-Terrorism, a think-tank called is the UK-based ITCT, said.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, referred questions about the Taliban’s ties to ETIM to officials in Kabul, but added, “according to our communication with the Afghan Taliban, the Taliban faction several times. said they would not allow their territory to be used by any terrorist force to attack countries, including China.”
The dream of exploiting wealth in Afghanistan dates back centuries. After the US withdrew, China signaled it would help it happen – both by activating previously stalled joint ventures and breaking ground on new projects. With many countries pausing their support for Afghanistan to see how the Taliban would rule, China is one of the few countries that promises the new regime an economic lifeline.
China is “ready to step into the void caused by the US hasty withdrawal to seize the golden opportunity,” Zhou Bo, a military strategist and former colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, wrote in the New York Times. just a few days before American forces left for the last time. five. He cites access to Afghanistan’s mineral resources as a key benefit of strengthening ties.
To facilitate those relations, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met several times with representatives of the Taliban before and after the US exit. In March, he made a rare visit to Kabul to hold talks with the acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. After praising the country’s leaders and alluding to support for Afghanistan’s participation in the belt and road infrastructure program, Wang’s statement then cut short the race.
“China hopes that the Afghan side will strictly fulfill its commitments and take effective measures to resolutely suppress all terrorist forces, including ETIM,” the statement said.
But Beijing still doesn’t believe that’s happening, putting billions of dollars of promised and future investments on hold. That includes a $3 billion deal with China’s State Metallurgical Corporation, which was awarded a contract in 2007 to mine copper in the Mes Aynak area for 30 years. The Taliban once expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the long-stalled project.
In addition, a project by China National Petroleum Corporation was either not fully operational or making little progress in extracting oil from the Amu Darya basin in northern Afghanistan after receiving a contract from the government. before. Building an oil refinery was part of a deal that never materialized.
The Taliban’s relationship with ETIM dates back to the 1990s, when they ruled Afghanistan for five years before being ousted by the US following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“The Taliban consider the ETIM as their guests, who have stood with the Taliban against US and NATO forces” for the past two decades, Mr. Jeffery said.
A United Nations report in May – citing comments from member states – said ETIM had expanded its “space of operations” in Afghanistan by forming alliances with local Taliban commanders. and “secretly” buy weapons, in order to improve its ability to “terrorist activities.” Estimates of the group’s size vary widely, from a few dozen fighters to 1,000, according to the report. report.
While the Taliban are trying to curb the movement of ETIM fighters in Afghanistan to satisfy China – pushing them back to the border with Xinjiang, for example – they are also “worried that if they resist the ETIM too strongly, , many of their members may Jeffery of the ITCT say will eventually defect to the Islamic State, one of the Taliban’s biggest threats.
In addition to the ETIM, the Taliban also want to renegotiate the terms of several previously reached investments, including an increase in the royalty rate for copper mining at the Mes Aynak site. Previously, China had sought to lower the rate by 19.5%.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, Mufti Esmatullah Burhan, downplayed any security risks to China, saying the Taliban had tightened control across the country and that a “business environment suitable” has emerged for China and other countries to “make use of” the country’s resources.
That is still not enough to convince Beijing.
For now, the continued stalemate means that Afghanistan’s stockpile of mineral resources – including gold, copper and lithium deposits – will remain underground for much longer. By some estimates, the assets could be worth more than $1 trillion – but only if they can be mined.
Experts who monitor the country say that after two decades of war, the Taliban have failed to transition from insurgency to dominance. The government is run largely on the orders of spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, who ruled from the Taliban’s birthplace in the Kandahar region bordering Pakistan.
All of that is giving China pause, too, said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate at the Royal Institute of British Services in the UK.
It is difficult for China to move companies to a country ruled by people who have “very little management experience, very little ability to provide what you need from the local government,” Pantucci said.
It didn’t turn out that way.
More than a year after the U.S. military left, Afghanistan’s economy is collapsing, 19 million people are at risk of severe hunger, and the investment of Taliban was expecting from Beijing did not come. Both sides blame the other.
Khan Jan Alokozay, Vice President of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, said in an interview: “Not even a penny has been invested by China. “Many of their companies have come in, met us, done research and then left and gone, which is frustrating.”
From China’s point of view, the Taliban have not shown they are doing enough to crack down on a group with separatist ties in the far western region of Xinjiang, according to two people familiar with the matter. Furthermore, the people said, the Taliban are also seeking to renegotiate the terms of existing projects to exploit Afghan resources.
While the Taliban have vowed not to allow terrorist groups to operate on Afghan soil, China has repeatedly called on the group to take action against the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, a Muslim separatist group seeking to establish an Islamic state that overlaps with China’s vast Xinjiang region. China and Afghanistan share a 76-kilometer (47-mile) border.
According to Suhail Shaheen, head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, the Taliban have repeatedly said that ETIMs are not active in Afghanistan and that they “will not allow anyone to use the land of Afghanistan against any country.” any other”. But a United Nations report in May cited several countries as saying that ETIM is still present in Afghanistan.
Support for any group that causes tension in Xinjiang is a red line for Beijing, which has been accused of “genocide” by the US and other countries for pushing most of the Uighur population to Muslims in the region into forced labor camps after more than a decade of unrest. formerly. China denies those accusations and says critics are trying to interfere in its domestic affairs.
“ETIM is definitely a ticking time bomb for China, making it a long-term threat,” said Faran Jeffery, deputy director at Islamic Theology for Counter-Terrorism, a think-tank called is the UK-based ITCT, said.
Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, referred questions about the Taliban’s ties to ETIM to officials in Kabul, but added, “according to our communication with the Afghan Taliban, the Taliban faction several times. said they would not allow their territory to be used by any terrorist force to attack countries, including China.”
The dream of exploiting wealth in Afghanistan dates back centuries. After the US withdrew, China signaled it would help it happen – both by activating previously stalled joint ventures and breaking ground on new projects. With many countries pausing their support for Afghanistan to see how the Taliban would rule, China is one of the few countries that promises the new regime an economic lifeline.
China is “ready to step into the void caused by the US hasty withdrawal to seize the golden opportunity,” Zhou Bo, a military strategist and former colonel in the People’s Liberation Army, wrote in the New York Times. just a few days before American forces left for the last time. five. He cites access to Afghanistan’s mineral resources as a key benefit of strengthening ties.
To facilitate those relations, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met several times with representatives of the Taliban before and after the US exit. In March, he made a rare visit to Kabul to hold talks with the acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. After praising the country’s leaders and alluding to support for Afghanistan’s participation in the belt and road infrastructure program, Wang’s statement then cut short the race.
“China hopes that the Afghan side will strictly fulfill its commitments and take effective measures to resolutely suppress all terrorist forces, including ETIM,” the statement said.
But Beijing still doesn’t believe that’s happening, putting billions of dollars of promised and future investments on hold. That includes a $3 billion deal with China’s State Metallurgical Corporation, which was awarded a contract in 2007 to mine copper in the Mes Aynak area for 30 years. The Taliban once expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the long-stalled project.
In addition, a project by China National Petroleum Corporation was either not fully operational or making little progress in extracting oil from the Amu Darya basin in northern Afghanistan after receiving a contract from the government. before. Building an oil refinery was part of a deal that never materialized.
The Taliban’s relationship with ETIM dates back to the 1990s, when they ruled Afghanistan for five years before being ousted by the US following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“The Taliban consider the ETIM as their guests, who have stood with the Taliban against US and NATO forces” for the past two decades, Mr. Jeffery said.
A United Nations report in May – citing comments from member states – said ETIM had expanded its “space of operations” in Afghanistan by forming alliances with local Taliban commanders. and “secretly” buy weapons, in order to improve its ability to “terrorist activities.” Estimates of the group’s size vary widely, from a few dozen fighters to 1,000, according to the report. report.
While the Taliban are trying to curb the movement of ETIM fighters in Afghanistan to satisfy China – pushing them back to the border with Xinjiang, for example – they are also “worried that if they resist the ETIM too strongly, , many of their members may Jeffery of the ITCT say will eventually defect to the Islamic State, one of the Taliban’s biggest threats.
In addition to the ETIM, the Taliban also want to renegotiate the terms of several previously reached investments, including an increase in the royalty rate for copper mining at the Mes Aynak site. Previously, China had sought to lower the rate by 19.5%.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, Mufti Esmatullah Burhan, downplayed any security risks to China, saying the Taliban had tightened control across the country and that a “business environment suitable” has emerged for China and other countries to “make use of” the country’s resources.
That is still not enough to convince Beijing.
For now, the continued stalemate means that Afghanistan’s stockpile of mineral resources – including gold, copper and lithium deposits – will remain underground for much longer. By some estimates, the assets could be worth more than $1 trillion – but only if they can be mined.
Experts who monitor the country say that after two decades of war, the Taliban have failed to transition from insurgency to dominance. The government is run largely on the orders of spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, who ruled from the Taliban’s birthplace in the Kandahar region bordering Pakistan.
All of that is giving China pause, too, said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate at the Royal Institute of British Services in the UK.
It is difficult for China to move companies to a country ruled by people who have “very little management experience, very little ability to provide what you need from the local government,” Pantucci said.
