New Delhi, Nov 2 (SocialNews.XYZ) China has increased its influence in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the US and is taking up mining projects in the Taliban-ruled country that are adversely impacting the local communities, according to a report in The National Interest news portal.
As the Western nations evacuated their embassies, China kept its mission in Kabul open and built a close relationship with the Taliban government which needed money and support without conditions related to human rights issues, considered important by Western nations.
China has now emerged as one of Afghanistan’s largest trading partners, and the Taliban government has actively courted Chinese investment. 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 includes guiding prospective investors to mining locations and encouraging them to invest, the report states.
While Chinese companies gain access to economic opportunities, the Taliban gain potential sources of revenue.
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 a copper mining contract.
However, even as the Taliban government sees these projects as a source of revenue, the local communities are getting hit. The Taliban has awarded Samti gold concession in Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province to the China-Afghanistan Company which started mining and processing in January 2026.
However, this project 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, the report points out.
Source: IANS
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