China has expanded its commercial ties with Afghanistan in the mining and construction sectors, with little regard for the well-being of residents impacted by its projects.

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, many Western governments evacuated their embassies. China, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to expand its influence after the departure of a major US military presence close to its western border. As the Western nations evacuated, it kept its mission in Kabul open and remained in Afghanistan to build relationships with the new government. The Taliban immediately saw the value of closer ties with China; it needed money and support without strings attached on human rights issues, a common arrangement in the West. Beijing was happy to overlook those troublesome conditions if its relationship could be profitable.

Today, China is one of Afghanistan’s largest trading partners, and the Taliban government has actively courted Chinese investment. I spoke with Ahmad (a pseudonym), a man who worked at the Guiyuan Hotel, an upscale Chinese-run establishment in downtown Kabul. According to him, the hotel hosts dozens of Chinese nationals each week. Ahmad also described other Chinese-run hotels opening across Kabul and in other provinces since 2021.

The Taliban government goes to considerable lengths to facilitate these visits. Ahmad noted that Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, and its Ministry of Industry and Commerce are hiring or training hundreds of Afghans who speak Chinese to assist visitors. Their work, he says, includes guiding prospective investors to mining locations and encouraging them to invest.

The activity connects visiting investors with the authorities deciding how Afghanistan’s resources will be used. Chinese companies gain access to economic opportunities, while the Taliban gain potential sources of revenue. In February 2025, the Taliban-run Ministry of Industry and Commerce reported a meeting with the head of the Chinese Citizens Union to ensure the issuance of investment opportunities, trade, and visas for Chinese businesspeople to help Chinese companies enter and operate in Afghanistan. The question is how much influence grows around those relationships, and who can challenge the terms.

In January 2023, the Taliban signed a 25-year contract with Chinese company Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co. to extract oil from the Amu Darya basin. The company has promised to invest $540 million in the site. Another potential area of Chinese investment is Mes Aynak in Logar province, where a Chinese mining consortium has held a copper mining contract for nearly 20 years. The company first bought the 30-year concession in 2008, under the previous Afghan government, but was obstructed from mining for years due to a range of security, labor, and environmental issues. In 2024, the Taliban sought to revive the project, signaling it would look on the project with favor; the Chinese appear intent on making up for lost time. 

At the same time, Chinese investment has borne fruit for the Taliban government; it has come with downsides for local communities. In August 2023, the Taliban awarded the Samti gold concession in the Chah Ab district of Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province to the China-Afghanistan Company. By January 2026, local reporting confirmed that mining and processing were underway. However, the development led to tensions between local residents and the mining company over the extraction of gold, with locals claiming they had been excluded from the economic benefits of the project while bearing the environmental and economic costs. There were also reports of Chinese partnerships in gold extraction in Badakhshan province, where residents complained about losing access to land and water, impacting large-scale climate damage.

China’s Ambiguous Afghanistan Diplomacy

Politically, China now deals with the Taliban as Afghanistan’s rulers, although it has yet to formally recognize the group as the legitimate government. (Five years after the Taliban takeover, only one country in the world, Russia, has done so.) In 2023, China also became the first country to send a new ambassador after the Taliban came to power, and President Xi Jinping accepted the Taliban ambassador’s credentials in January 2024. Beijing also offered tariff-free access for Afghan exports later that year.

Alongside access to China’s market, the Taliban government has gained meetings with senior Chinese officials and support for their involvement in regional talks. In April 2026, China hosted Taliban-Pakistan peace talks in Urumqi, Xinjiang, taking a direct role in efforts to resolve the conflict between the two sides. 

All these approaches have so far favored the Taliban leadership, without offering real support to Afghans demanding changes in how the country is governed. As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted, Beijing made nominal requests that Taliban leaders honor early promises they made on an inclusive government and women’s rights—but continued working with the group long after it became clear that those promises would not be realized. As human rights activists have noted, China’s willingness to accept this situation makes it harder to use international pressure to push for change. Several European governments have also sought agreements with the Taliban over deportations, raising similar concerns about engaging with the group without securing changes in its authoritarian structure of government.

The biggest losers in the China-Taliban rapprochement have been the Afghans themselves. Locals living near the mines have little say over the deals being made, even when the work threatens their land and livelihoods. Near Samti, for instance, residents complained that mining damaged farmland, blocked access to water and brought few improvements to daily life. In a protest gathering earlier this year, protesters demanded roads, water infrastructure, and healthcare; the Taliban suppressed the protests. Similar protests took place in February 2025, when residents complained that mining contracts with Chinese companies were damaging their properties while they received no share of the revenues. Some claimed they had already taken their concerns to the Taliban government, to no avail. 

In January 2026, the Taliban confirmed that three residents and a mining company employee had died in violent clashes in Chah Ab. Five others were injured. The Interior Ministry said the company’s operations had been suspended and two people arrested, but it did not name the company or identify its owners. 

These residents had been asking what their communities were getting from the wealth being taken from their area. If they struggle to get answers about a nearby mine, Afghans face an even greater challenge questioning agreements negotiated with foreign governments and companies. Their complaints must go to the same Taliban authorities that, according to Ahmad, are helping Chinese companies reach mining sites and encouraging them to invest. People seeking protection for their land have to depend on the administration that approved the mining in the first place.

The Taliban are also trying to build closer trade links with China. In May 2025, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to promote extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor into Afghanistan, although the extension has yet to be built. In a separate project, the Taliban inaugurated a 121-kilometer (75-mile) gravel road through the Wakhan Corridor towards Afghanistan’s narrow border with China in October 2026. No commercial crossing has opened there—it passes through a mountainous area and a nature preserve on the Afghanistan side—so the road does not yet allow goods to pass directly between the two countries. If these plans lead to regular trade, they could make it easier for Chinese companies to move Afghanistan’s resources to China. Afghanistan would in due course become more dependent on Chinese buyers and investment, giving Beijing greater influence over its economy and politics.

What Are China’s Political Interests in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is important to China for several reasons. Most prominently, Beijing wants the Taliban to prevent Uyghur militant groups from using Afghan territory to spark unrest in its western Xinjiang province. One of its main concerns is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uyghur militant organization seeking an independent state in Xinjiang. China sees the group as a threat to its security and territorial control, and wants the Taliban to deny these fighters shelter and training grounds across its border. According to a recent UN report, ETIM members move freely within Afghanistan under Taliban patronage, including through the issuance of identity documents, and are increasingly concentrated in Badakhshan province. The report also said that approximately 250 members of ETIM had joined Taliban police forces in 2025—moves that Beijing is no doubt aware of and unhappy about.

Beijing has also long been insecure about US military power near its western border. Lop Nur, China’s secretive military testing site in southern Xinjiang, lies roughly 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from Bagram, the former US military base north of Kabul. The possibility of using a base there to monitor sensitive sites in China helps explain Beijing’s opposition to a US return. In September 2025, China joined Russia, Iran, and Pakistan in rejecting the reestablishment of foreign military bases in and around Afghanistan.

China stands to gain from a Taliban government that relies increasingly on its investment and diplomatic support. Such dependence could make the Taliban more willing to meet Beijing’s security demands and less willing to give military access to a competing power. China would gain influence over Afghanistan’s foreign and security policies alongside its access to the country’s resources.  

China now has an opportunity to make the US withdrawal harder to reverse. As its links with Taliban ministries, businesses, and political leaders grow, any future influence built by any other country, such as the US, could carry a much higher economic and political cost. The Taliban would have to weigh such a decision against the investment and diplomatic support Beijing provides. That gives China a reason to keep building influence even when the Taliban fail to meet its other demands, such as getting rid of ETIM. 

Afghanistan’s minerals have therefore become part of a wider security bargain. Mining revenues will help sustain the Taliban’s authoritarian rule, while Chinese backing could strengthen the group’s ability to resist outside pressure. The biggest losers will be the people of Afghanistan, caught in the middle and forced to endure exploitative economic agreements that they have little power to shape.

About the Author: Natiq Malikzada

Natiq Malikzada is a journalist and human rights advocate. He holds an MA in International Relations and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, which he attended as a Chevening Scholar. Since 2013, he has focused on countering religious extremism and promoting democracy and pluralism. In 2020, he co-founded Better Afghanistan, an organization dedicated to fighting extremism, supporting education, documenting human rights violations, and empowering civil society. The organization also provides a platform for Afghan women’s rights activists to mobilize, engage in dialogue, and advocate for freedom and justice under increasingly repressive conditions.

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