Taliban to Gain Control over $1 trillion Mineral Wealth

“These resources were in the ground in the 90s too and they [the Taliban] weren’t able to extract them,” Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, told DW. “One has to remain very skeptical of their ability to grow the Afghan economy or even their interest in doing so.”

Even so, senior Taliban officials last month met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Tianjin, where Taliban Political Commission Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar said he hoped China would “play a bigger role in [Afghanistan’s] future reconstruction and economic development.”

On Monday, as the Taliban prepared to revert to the country’s old name — the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — China said it was ready for “friendly and cooperative relations” with the new rulers.

Another Stop on the New Silk Road
Chinese state-run media, meanwhile, described how Afghanistan can now benefit from the country’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — Beijing’s controversial infrastructure plan to build road, rail and sea routes through Asia to Europe.

But concerns about regional security must be addressed. A spillover of violence into other central Asian countries could leave a network of pipelines that supply much of China’s oil and gas vulnerable.

Beijing is also worried that the war-torn country could become a hideout for China’s minority Uyghur separatists and that its economic interests will be undermined by continued violence within Afghanistan.

“[The Chinese firm] MCC’s mining operations have been plagued by the instability in the country due to the conflict between the Taliban and the former Afghan government,” Tanchum, who is also a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI), added.

Improved Security Essential
“If the Taliban can provide China stable operating conditions, then the copper operations alone potentially could produce tens of billions of dollars of revenue, spurring the development of mining operations for other minerals in the country,” said Tanchum.

To date, the Afghan government hasn’t made a profit from its existing mining projects. According to a report by cable television broadcaster Al Jazeera, the government loses $300 million per year.

Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan is also set to benefit from Afghanistan’s minerals wealth. The Islamabad government, which supported the Taliban’s first takeover of Afghanistan in 1996, has maintained ties with the group and has been accused by the US of harboring Taliban militants.

Pakistan is also set to be a major beneficiary of China’s infrastructure investment — often dubbed the New Silk Road.

“Pakistan has a vested interest as the materials could potentially be transported along the commercial transit route from Pakistan to China,” Tanchum told DW, adding that a deal with the Taliban would give Islamabad the incentive to support a stable security environment in the region.

Still Pie in the Sky
Afghanistan’s new Taliban leaders still face an uphill battle in extracting the country’s mineral wealth. The creation of an efficient mining system in one of the world’s failed states could take years.

That means the Afghan economy may remain heavily reliant on foreign aid for the foreseeable future, despite several Western governments — including Germany — cutting development aid in an attempt to rein in the Taliban’s strength.

Security will not likely improve overnight, and corruption — which remains rife and reportedly exacerbated the Taliban’s speedy capture of the country — could continue to stymie foreign investment. Afghanistan’s infrastructure and legal system also remain woefully lacking.

“One of the main problems was that you were unable to get the resources out of the country without a private army to secure them against the Taliban,” Schindler said. “Now, that threat has gone, but the infrastructure … is still not there, so they will need large-scale investment.”

The US and Europe, which rely on rare earth imports from China, now face a fresh dilemma on the best way to engage with the Taliban. And many Western investors have been reluctant to bid for tenders on natural resources projects, citing security and rule of law concerns.

If they try to engage with the Taliban, they’ll be criticized for ignoring the Islamist group’s overthrow of the country’s nascent democracy and human rights abuses. If they don’t, they’ll miss out to China and the Taliban’s traditional allies.

Nik Martin is freelance journalist.  This article is  published courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).