China, like Russia, has not extended official recognition to the Taliban government, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying made it amply clear in her press briefings this week, that China “is ready to play a constructive role in Afghanistan’s peace and reconstruction.” China has maintained contact and communication with the Afghan Taliban for months, she reminded reporters today, and in recent days, China’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan Yue Xiaoyong has “shuttled hectically between Afghanistan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Iran for mediation.”
“We respect the will and choice of the Afghan people. The war in Afghanistan has been dragging on for over 40 years. To stop the war and realize peace is the shared aspiration of the more than 30 million Afghan people and the common expectation of the international community and countries in the region,” she said yesterday. She did add that China expects the promises made by Taliban leaders to “be implemented so as to ensure a smooth transition ... keep at bay all kinds of terrorism and criminal acts, and make sure that the Afghan people stay away from war and can rebuild their homeland.”
Hua did not mention the Belt and Road Initiative, but Chinese government daily Global Times has featured the BRI in several articles this week as the key to providing the investment which Afghanistan needs to rebuild the nation, which few others are willing to provide.
In one article, for example, it reported that fertilizer shipped through Pakistan’s Gwadar Port—the Arabia Sea terminus of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor branch of the BRI—has been arriving in Afghanistan “undisturbed by war,” even over the last week. The Pakistan-Afghan border crossing used for these transshipments has closed and reopened various times, but the fertilizer has gotten through. “What happened just showed that normal trade between nations should not be blocked, regardless of the situation,” Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told Global Times.
Global Times ended this story with the broader perspective:
“According to Chinese experts, China could play a role in post-war reconstruction and development of Afghanistan, pushing forward projects under the BRI and providing investment when safety and stability are restored in the country. Afghanistan has become the first landlocked Central Asian country to benefit from using the Gwadar Port for transshipment trade. In 2020, the country imported 43,000 tons of fertilizers through the port contributing to its agricultural development.”
