China, Taliban discuss bringing Afghanistan into BRI

ISLAMABAD: China and the Taliban have discussed plans to bring Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) infrastructure project as Beijing looks to boost investment in the crisis-hit country, foreign media reported on Sunday. Visiting China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang held talks with Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and his Pakistan counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as part of the China-Pakistan-Afghanistan trilateral foreign ministers’ dialogue in Islamabad. The trio discussed security and trade while Afghanistan also said it “hopes to strengthen cooperation with China in infrastructure development within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative”, according to China’s foreign ministry.

Since ousting the Nato-backed government in 2021 after two decades of war, the Taliban have courted global powers, including China and Russia, for investment to shore up the crumbling economy and ease the regime’s international isolation. This includes efforts to attract Chinese infrastructure investment to connect Afghanistan with neighbours, such as Pakistan, through the BRI. Beijing has invested billions in Pakistan through the ambitious China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), an under-construction network of roads, trains and ports, which is ultimately expected to be worth up to $60 billion.

“The idea is to engage Afghanistan in economic activity that has already linked China and Pakistan together,” a Pakistani official told the Financial Times. Chinese and Afghan officials said in January that the state-run Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company had agreed a deal to drill for oil in the country. The Taliban also last year agreed a deal with Russia to source oil and wheat.

But while Afghanistan’s rich, unexplored reserves of minerals such as lithium and copper have long enticed foreign nations, meaningful investment in infrastructure or mining has so far proved prohibitively difficult because of the precarious security situation.

State-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation in 2007 secured the rights to Mes Aynak, one of the world’s largest known copper reserves, but did not develop it.

Afghanistan has suffered an economic catastrophe since the Taliban’s return prompted the US and its allies to cut off most financing. China and Pakistan both consider maintaining ties with the Taliban as vital to their security.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in India this week, and the pair discussed the situation in Afghanistan.

In remarks to journalists, Lavrov said he expected the Taliban to “deliver (on) their promises to come up with an inclusive government ...[and] ensuring the representation of the full spectrum of political forces in Afghanistan”. He added: “This hasn’t been done yet.”