In a recent post on X, Amrullah Saleh, the former vice president of Afghanistan, accused Chinese mining companies, “in collaboration with Taliban commanders,” of “rampant plundering and theft” at gold mines in the northeastern regions of the country. He emphasized, “This exploitation occurs at the detriment of local communities, resulting in their alienation and mounting resentment.”
Since the rise of the Taliban in the early 1990s, relations between the group and China have gone through several dramatic phases. China neither had a role in the creation of the Taliban regime, unlike its regional ally Pakistan, nor did it recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. During the Taliban’s first stint in power, from 1996-2001, China mostly stayed out of Afghanistan. However, it is alleged that the Chinese company Huawei Technologies was involved in providing the Taliban regime with a telephone system in Kabul during the late 1990s. Zhongxing Telecom (ZTE) was also alleged to have stakes in the same project.
Fast forward to the Taliban takeover of Kabul during the summer of 2021. Chargé d’Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan Zhao Haihan praised the transition, saying, “Afghanistan ushered in a new era of independent development an the transition from chaos to order. The Afghan people have truly become the masters of their own homeland.”
In the past four years, there has been an increasing closeness between Beijing and the Taliban, although the latter has not received formal recognition from the Chinese government. Despite lacking official status, the de facto Taliban government has been actively negotiating aid, investment, and trade agreements with Beijing. In fact, the Taliban celebrated this closeness when they secured their first significant foreign investment deal since seizing power. In January 2023, the Chinese company Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CAPEIC) signed a contract to extract oil and develop an oil reserve in Afghanistan’s northern province of Sar-e-Pul in collaboration with the Taliban.
In September 2023, Beijing sent its ambassador to Kabul. A few months later, Moreover, Beijing provided another diplomatic boost and a foreign policy achievement to the regime when President Xi Jinping accepted the credentials of the newly appointed Taliban ambassador to China in the Great Hall of People in January 2024. Both countries have reportedly been holding almost weekly diplomatic talks since then.
In addition to oil, there is growing speculation about China’s increasing interest in lithium mining in Afghanistan. Several Chinese firms reportedly conducted on-site inspections for lithium mining in late 2021, which was followed by inquiries from nearly two dozen state-owned Chinese companies regarding such projects. In late August 2023, the Taliban regime in Kabul announced that it had signed seven mining contracts amounting to $6.5 billion in investment with local companies, many of whom have foreign partners in countries including Turkiye, Iran, and China. These contracts included the extraction and processing of gold, zinc, lead, and iron ore from the Afghan provinces of Takhar, Logar, Ghor, and Herat.
In his post on X, Amrullah Saleh highlighted that these Chinese mining companies are acting in collaboration with the Taliban as well as Haji Bashir Noorzai – who has become the Taliban regime’s go-to person for revenues from mining operations as he has control over those operations. Saleh described Noorzai as “a notorious Afghan drug trafficker who built a vast heroin supply franchise in collaboration with terrorists until his arrest by U.S. authorities in 2005 and subsequent release in a 2022 prisoner swap.”
The strengthening relationship between China and the Taliban is being facilitated by Noorzai, who once had ties with the U.S. forces, and is now considered a key figure in enhancing ties between the two. Noorzai is a notorious drug kingpin, and his heroin empire funded the Taliban’s prolonged conflict in Afghanistan against U.S. forces. Today, with the Taliban back in power, Noorzai is believed to have established questionable joint venture agreements with Chinese companies in Afghanistan, which secured at least two contracts related to minerals and petrochemicals by early 2024. Due to his closeness mainly with Chinese state-owned firms, Noorzai has become Beijing’s man in Kabul.
Despite China’s increasing closeness with the Taliban, these Chinese investments face several challenges. Afghanistan is landlocked, water-scarce, and lacking in infrastructure. To effectively utilize the minerals extracted from Afghanistan, Beijing will have to overcome significant transportation and logistical challenges in moving these resources back to China. Although China and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in 2016 to incorporate Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), there has been little to no progress on this front.
Experts generally agree that a key reason for China’s involvement in Afghanistan is to maintain influence over the Taliban. This relationship is aimed at ensuring that the Taliban prevent Uyghur separatists from using Afghan territory as a base for their activities in Xinjiang. This is crucial for China. More than that, China wants the Taliban to extradite Uyghur militants affiliated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) to China.
However, the Taliban has shown reluctance to comply and has instead relocated these militants within the country, to areas farther away from the Afghanistan-China border. This could be attributed to the Taliban’s longstanding strategic alliance with members of ETIM dating back to the 1980s. It remains to be seen whether China can leverage its diplomatic support and economic investments in Afghanistan to persuade the Taliban to meet its demands and control the ETIM members residing there.
