Afghanistan: resource rich, starving millions – enter China?

Afghanistan is in the throes of its harshest winter ever. For a country where international development assistance constituted 43% of GDP and 75% of public expenditure before the Taliban took over in August 2021, the running dry of international funding, what with aid agencies scrambling to keep finances away from the Taliban, has left the country in dire straits.

Sanctions by the US and other Western nations have brought the aid-dependent economy to its knees, which, combined with the worst drought in 30 years, has engendered a disastrous declivity in living standards, leaving millions starving in the midst of winter.

The UN World Food Program has estimated that over 22 million people, more than half the country’s population, are facing crisis-levels of hunger. This has been a marked increase since September 2021, when it was estimated that 14 million people were going acutely hungry. 95% of the population of Afghanistan is already suffering from food insecurity, like skipping a meal a day.

In September 2021, according to UN statistics, the poverty rate was 72%. The UN fears, by the middle of 2022, this could go up to 97%.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, at the onset of 2022, warned that millions of Afghans are on the “verge of death”, urging the international community to fund the UN’s $5bn humanitarian appeal, release Afghanistan’s frozen assets and jump-start its banking system to avert economic and social collapse. The UN humanitarian agency earlier said $4.4bn was needed within Afghanistan, while a further $623m was required to support the millions of Afghans sheltering beyond its borders.

Aid, so far, compounded by reservations that the money will fall into the hands of the Taliban, has been a mere trickle. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), that met in Islamabad, in early January, has pledged to set up a humanitarian trust fund for Afghanistan. An OIC resolution, released after the meeting, said the Islamic Development Bank would lead the effort to free up assistance by the first quarter of 2022.

Also, in January 2022, Western diplomats met with Taliban representatives in Oslo, Norway, to discuss ways that the $9.1 billion of Afghan assets frozen by the US, could be freed for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan.

It has been reported that the World Bank is finalising a proposal to deliver up to $500m from a frozen Afghanistan aid fund to humanitarian agencies. These funds are planned to be redirected from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), which has a total of $1.5bn.

The US, on its part, which froze much of its Afghanistan funding when the Taliban came into power, has since recommitted to some of its aid, announcing $308 million in additional assistance last month (January 2022), which will provide shelter, health care, food, water and other basic services to the Afghan people.

It is imminent that the US changes its rigid approach towards the Taliban, and permits the access of Afghan reserves by the country’s people to ameliorate the cruel predicament of the latter. These reserves could be monitored so as to go specifically towards the benefit of the people and their nation, such that they can get back on their feet.

For, Afghanistan is a resource-rich country. With a little bit of assistance, it can well be on the path of recovery. Afghanistan possesses large reserves of non-fuel minerals, estimated at more than US $1 trillion. While it is renowned for its gemstones – rubies, emeralds, tourmalines and lapis lazuli, it is endowed with bounteous reserves of iron, copper, lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt, bauxite, mercury, uranium and chromium.

Under previous Afghan governments, the US Geological Survey delineated 24 areas in the country and estimated their mineral abundance. Data packages were prepared on all 24 areas for companies to use as a basis for making bids to exploit any resources.

Chinese and Indian companies expressed strong interest, and actual concessions were granted. Arguments over contract terms and concerns about security, however, had stalled activity since the late 2010s.

While India may be reluctant to enter Afghanistan again because of ideological differences with the Taliban, the door seems open to China to cash in on the opportunities. This, going by the fact that China is on very cordial terms with Pakistan, a key player in international diplomacy with Afghanistan, and that single-handedly manifested the resurgence of the Taliban.

Resource-hungry China, that has not recognised the Taliban so far, has no qualms about human rights issues unlike the West, itself displaying no compunction over its own human rights crimes within its boundaries. China would also be disposed to include Afghanistan in its all-pervasive Belt and Roads initiative with a sense of alacrity.

However, the threat of civil war erupting within Afghanistan again, perhaps, invokes China’s caution. China is also anxious that the Taliban will abet Islamic insurgency in its restive Xinjiang province. China’s prerogative, as far as the Taliban is concerned, is more focused on its own domestic security.

Despite assurances from the Taliban that Afghanistan will not be a base for separatists, China is apprehensive that Taliban ideology could spread through the region and influence other groups, including the Pakistani Taliban and separatist groups from Xinjiang.

However, in August 2021, following the Taliban takeover, the Chinese foreign ministry said it was “willing to continue to develop … friendly and cooperative relations with Afghanistan.” In September 2021, China pledged a modest $31 million in food, medicine, COVID-19 vaccines and other aid to Afghanistan. About half of this has been disbursed, according to the ministry of refugees in Kabul

And it is reported that the Chinese embassy in Kabul is secretly talking to the Taliban.

With the US capitulation in Afghanistan, the door has been left open, by default, to a Chinese onslaught. It is for a canny and expeditious China, now, to lay its stakes on a resource-rich Afghanistan and emphasise its geopolitical one-upmanship in a region that it has already got a major foothold in, through Pakistan.