THE inauguration of a road through the Wakhan Corridor on October 4 has drawn more commentary than its size warrants. The 121km unpaved track runs through Badakhshan to the edge of the Chinese frontier and the Taliban Administration built it with its own money and engineers. It completes a project first begun in 2019 under the previous, US-backed government in Kabul. The Taliban have hailed it as a historic link to the world’s second-largest economy. A recent Asia Times analysis went further and presented the road as a test of Pakistan’s hold over Kabul. Read that way, it becomes an early threat to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Both readings mistake a road for a corridor. A trade corridor needs infrastructure, a commercial reason to use it, a sponsor willing to pay for it and a security environment that traders and insurers can price. Wakhan falls short on each count and on current evidence it will not rival CPEC. It does carry a political message, however, and Islamabad should heed it.
Consider first the physical and institutional realities. The road, which reportedly cost around $5.5 million, climbs towards the Wakhjir Pass at nearly 4,900 metres, in terrain that is snowbound for much of the year and almost empty on the Afghan side. The onward roads to Faizabad and Kabul are long and badly maintained. More fundamentally, there is still no official border crossing between Afghanistan and China. Without customs posts, a connecting road on the Chinese side and a bilateral transit agreement, no commercial consignment can lawfully pass. For now, the road ends at a closed door.
The Karakoram Highway has its own problems of altitude and the Khunjerab Pass also closes in winter. But the highway is paved, has working customs and immigration at Sost and rests on decades of agreements between Islamabad and Beijing. CPEC was built on an existing border relationship. Wakhan would have to create one from scratch. The economics are weaker still. CPEC’s strategic rationale is maritime. It gives western China an outlet to the Arabian Sea through Gwadar and Karachi and it runs through a country of some 240 million people. Its headline value of $62 billion pays for power plants, motorways and industrial zones as well as transport links. Wakhan leads into a landlocked country with a small and fragile economy and cargo bound for a port would still have to cross Pakistan or Iran. At best, the route could carry a modest share of bilateral trade between Afghanistan and China. Nor does Wakhan fill any gap in China’s links with Central Asia. Beijing already reaches Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan by established road and rail crossings from Xinjiang. A seasonal mountain track adds little to that network.
The decisive factor is Beijing’s own calculus and China’s approach to Wakhan has always been driven by security. The corridor abuts Xinjiang and Chinese policy has long been shaped by fear of militants moving across this frontier. Therefore, China’s response to the inauguration was notably cool. Zhu Yongbiao, who heads the Center for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University, told Radio Free Europe that Afghanistan’s economic value to China is negligible. The same report cited a UN assessment this year that militants linked to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement remain active in Badakhshan, the province the road crosses. On this reading, the Taliban built the road to show Beijing what they can do. China had not asked for it.
China’s choices point the same way. It has put its money and diplomatic effort into CPEC. Even talk of extending CPEC to Afghanistan treats that country as a branch of the Pakistani corridor. Beijing is pragmatic and patient and it has shown no wish to open a route whose security risks it judges to outweigh modest commercial returns.
The road still matters, but its significance is political and Kabul’s account of it leaves out why the border keeps closing. The Taliban say opening Wakhan would free Afghanistan from neighbours that use the Karachi route and Gwadar as pressure points. Islamabad’s closures at Torkham and Chaman, however, are a response to terrorism launched from Afghan soil. Taliban continued to support the TTP, whose escalating attacks on Pakistan provoked military exchanges along the border. It also noted growing links between the TTP, Al Qaeda, ISIL-K and the Baloch Liberation Army, which has repeatedly targeted CPEC projects and Chinese nationals in Balochistan.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the Wakhan project. The militant networks that strain Kabul’s ties with Islamabad are the same ones that keep Beijing’s gate shut. A new road may strengthen Kabul’s negotiating hand. It will not open a border that China keeps closed for the same reason Pakistan closes its own. The way to Kashgar, for the Taliban, runs through action against the TTP.
—The writer is PhD Scholar International Relations, based in Islamabad.