Raffaello Pantucci

Opinion | With an intractable Taliban, Afghanistan remains a headache for China, Russia and all its neighbours

Recent moves by China and Russia to bring diplomacy to bear on the Taliban government are unlikely to work

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A Taliban fighter stands guard near the foreign ministry in Kabul on March 27 after a suicide bomb attack. Afghanistan’s neighbours want the Taliban to tackle terrorism, form an inclusive government and restore women’s rights. Photo: AP

Raffaello Pantucci

Published: 3:00am, 12 May 2023Updated: 4:10am, 12 May 2023

The geopolitical wrangling around Afghanistan continued at the recent China-Afghanistan-Pakistan foreign ministers’ dialogue in Islamabad, even as Russia pushes for the formation of a core group in the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan that would include itself, India, Iran, Pakistan and China.

Neither is likely to fix Afghanistan or bring answers. Rather, Afghanistan will continue to sit at the centre of the Eurasian heartland, creating headaches for the powers that surround it.

The meeting in Islamabad this week, an extension of a format that Beijing encouraged under the previous Afghan government, was rekindled in March last year after a brief hiatus during the Taliban takeover. This week, the three countries agreed to work on the idea of connecting Afghanistan to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a vital part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Beijing also appears to have used the opportunity to remind the Taliban not to let Afghan territory be a host for other nation’s problems. A Chinese statement after the meeting said the Afghan side “stressed that it will not allow any forces to use Afghanistan’s territory for activities against China and Pakistan”.

These are not new ideas. Beijing has wanted to extend the CPEC to Afghanistan for years, to encourage greater trade connectivity and stability. In 2019, suggestions were even mooted to install cold storage facilities along the Afghan-Pakistani border for perishable goods. Whether this extension will happen is unclear.

Relations between the Taliban and Islamabad are poor, with a rise in violence in Pakistan seen as linked to militant groups across the border. And Beijing is clearly frustrated – it has repeatedly expressed concerns about the Taliban hosting terrorist groups that threaten Afghanistan’s neighbours, and earlier this year, released a statement with Iran calling on the Taliban to restore women’s rights in the country.