Taliban will take part in China’s Belt and Road Forum

The ruling Taliban movement in Afghanistan (recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia) will take part in the Chinese Belt and Road Forum on October 17-18, dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the initiative of the same name. As the press secretary of the Afghan Minister of Trade and Industry Akhundzada Abdul Salam Javad told Reuters, they will also go to Beijing. O. the head of this department, Haji Nuruddin Azizi.

Officially, the power of the Taliban since August 2021 has still not been recognized by any country in the world. But participation in an international forum in China will not be a precedent event: for example, in 2022, their Charge d’Affaires of Afghanistan in Moscow, Jamal Nasir Garhwal, participated in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. At the same time, China in September 2023 became the first state to appoint a new ambassador in Kabul – Zhao Sheng.

The main purpose of the visit of the Afghan delegation will be to invite large investors to this country. The Chinese are showing interest in the Ainak copper deposit in eastern Afghanistan, where they began exploration and production of this metal back in August 2022. In addition, in January 2023, the Taliban government entered into a contract with the Chinese Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas for oil production in the Amu Darya River basin in northern Afghanistan.

The total value of Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources can be estimated at between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. For example, on its territory there are the largest lithium reserves in Eurasia, which have not been developed in recent decades due to conflicts. In addition, the Afghan authorities plan to discuss with their Chinese colleagues the infrastructural development of the Wakhan corridor, which is adjacent to the Chinese Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

At the same time, reports that the Taliban agreed with China and Pakistan to join the Belt and Road Initiative appeared back in May 2023. Then, former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang agreed with colleagues from Afghanistan and Pakistan to work together on the reconstruction of Afghanistan , including it within the framework of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), one of the flagship projects of the Belt and Road. China’s total investments in CPEC, which also connects China with the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, are estimated at about $60 billion.

The Belt and Road Forum will be held for the third time in 2023, and Russian President Vladimir Putin will also take part in it. The event was held for the first time on May 14–15, 2017 in Beijing, and for the second time in the same place on April 25–27, 2019. The final statements of the first forums were almost entirely devoted to the problems of global governance, including the coordination of macroeconomic policies, environmental issues, etc.

Chinese President Xi Jinping first presented the concept of the “One Belt, One Road” project in the fall of 2013 at Nazarbayev University in Astana. The main goal was to create a transit and transport infrastructure between China, the countries of Eurasia and Africa, and later the countries of South America began to participate in the initiative. On October 10, 2023, the Press Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China published a White Paper on the first results of the Belt and Road.

According to its data, from 2013 to 2022, the total value of imports and exports between China and other countries participating in the initiative reached $19.1 trillion, and the average annual growth rate was 6.4%. By the end of August 2023, more than 80 countries and international organizations had joined the Belt and Road Cooperation Initiative to promote smooth trade, and China had signed 21 free trade agreements with 28 countries and regions.

It is unlikely that China is now ready to make large investments in Afghanistan, but at the same time, the Taliban and Beijing are indeed meeting each other halfway in a number of areas, says Andrei Serenko, an expert at the Center for the Study of Modern Afghanistan. In particular, China is very interested in information and control over Uighur militants in Afghanistan, which will probably be discussed again in Beijing behind the scenes of the forum.

The Chinese are, of course, interested in minerals in Afghanistan, but extracting the same lithium in industrial quantities is now problematic, says Serenko. At the same time, according to him, the Chinese are still carrying out some work in the oil basins in the Sari-Pul province and in the extraction of precious stones and gold in the Badakhshan province.

Finally, Beijing can expect to use the Taliban as a kind of instrument to stabilize the situation in Pakistan. There has recently been both a permanent political crisis and the intensification of the terrorist groups “Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan” (recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia) and the “Balochistan Liberation Army” (operating in the province of Balochistan, where Gwadar is located, as well as its forces – in Afghanistan).

At the same time, the expert does not believe that China is ready to officially recognize the power of the Taliban in the near future – at the moment it is simply beneficial for it to have constructive relations with them, but at the same time Serenko claims that Beijing maintains contacts with the resistance forces in Afghanistan.

“The Belt and Road” has, first of all, a large economic dimension, and therefore it seems logical that Beijing invited the de facto government of Afghanistan, says Vasily Kashin, director of the Central Committee for International Relations of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. From the first days of coming to power, the Taliban showed great interest in Chinese investments and projects. At the same time, an invitation to the forum may also be a step towards China’s political recognition of the Taliban as the official government, as it indicates the positive development of their relations, the expert believes. The Wakhan corridor is a poorly developed high-mountain zone, which is also not very suitable for living, and building some kind of transport artery there can be technically difficult, says Kashin.

At the same time, this hypothetical project should not pose any additional security risks for China, since the penetration of militants and weapons into the XUAR did not occur along the main highways or through official checkpoints. The success of new attempts by the Chinese to enter Afghanistan with their projects will mainly depend on the stability of the situation within the country. Previous similar steps by the PRC in the 2000s. failed due to security problems and high levels of corruption, the expert concludes.