Asia Central
With Russia distracted, China makes its move in Central Asia by Geoff Raby
By Geoff Raby
China is the only major country to recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan, a move that could give it access to large lithium and copper deposits. For China these days it doesn’t get much easier to pursue its geostrategic objectives. With the US distracted on two fronts, in Europe and the Middle East, and Russia mired in its intractable invasion of Ukraine, China is largely free to advance its interests on an increasingly global scale.
On January 31 in Beijing, the representative of the government of the Emirate of Afghanistan – the first ambassador to China appointed by the Taliban – presented his credentials to President Xi Jinping. In doing so, China alone among major states has broken with the international understanding not to recognise formally the Taliban government.
Withholding formal recognition of the Taliban is intended to put pressure on the Kabul regime to improve its human rights performance, especially with respect to rights of women and children.
Even before the fall of Kabul in August 2021, China had taken a more forward position to engaging with the Taliban.
From 2016, it engaged actively in the Quadrilateral Co-ordination Group (Afghanistan, Pakistan, US and China) and sought to use its close ties with Pakistan to encourage improved relations with the republican government. And then, 18 days before the Taliban’s victory, China’s foreign minister met the Taliban leadership in Tianjin; Wang Yi has also visited Kabul to meet with the Taliban.
China has three main objectives in Afghanistan, no matter who is in power. First, and the single most important influence on all of China’s foreign policy, is frontier security; second, commercial considerations; and third, its geostrategic objectives to become the dominant power in “core Eurasia”.
Border security
Since the Qing Dynasty’s (1644-1911) westward expansion and progressive absorption of the lands that now comprise China’s Xinjiang province, controlling these Turkic-speaking peoples and maintaining border security have been enduring foreign policy and security challenges for Beijing.
With the return of the Islamic, fundamentalist Taliban, Beijing fears radicalisation of its Muslim Uyghur and Kazak populations by militant groups operating from Afghanistan.
China has long been interested in Afghanistan’s wealth of mineral resources. It has extensive copper and lithium reserves among many others.
In 2008, Jiangxi Copper first acquired the rights to develop the enormous reserves, reportedly the second largest in the world, at Mes Aynak, some 40 kilometres from Kabul. It was prevented by the Taliban during the civil war from developing the project, but all that might change now.
Afghanistan has been described as a “second Chile”, which has the world’s largest lithium reserves. Last year, Gochin, a Chinese battery company, was reportedly in discussions on a $10 billion lithium project in Afghanistan. Its current status is unknown.
Beijing’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Kabul will, however, give a lift to China’s Belt and Road initiatives in Afghanistan. Already an extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the west from the Khyber Pass to Kabul has been planned, although increasing tensions in relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan may set that back.
Already last year, a rail-road-rail route from Lanzhou in China to western Afghanistan via Kashgar in Xinjiang, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan was opened.
In March last year, China surprised the world by announcing that it had brokered an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to re-establish diplomatic recognition.
Beijing has long cultivated Iran. And through Iran, Beijing can also increase its influence over West Asia. This will be strengthened further by Beijing becoming the major (now the only) foreign partner of the Taliban.
In all of this, with the US out of core Eurasia, Russia is the biggest loser from China’s relentless expansion of its influence to the west.
Russia has long regarded West Asia, Afghanistan and Central Asia as its sphere of influence. Beijing’s unilateral recognition of Afghanistan breaks with Russia. It would be seen as highly opportunistic in Moscow and damage strategic trust between the two. It would not have been taken lightly in Beijing.
Chinese propaganda has for some time now been silent on Xi and Putin’s “friendship without limits”. While this “friendship” may be without limits, it would seem to have a use-by date.
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More from Geoff Raby - Australia’s ambassador to China, 2007-11.
