China and the Taliban Team Up on Copper

Three years after seizing power in Afghanistan, the cash-strapped Taliban are desperate to finally unlock the country’s bounty of copper, a crucial input in electric vehicle batteries and semiconductors. And they’re aiming to do so with the help of a key partner: China.

In the global scramble for raw materials to power clean energy technologies and advanced weapons systems, Afghanistan’s mineral wealth should position it for success—at least on paper. The country may hold as much as $1 trillion worth of valuable minerals, according to U.S. estimates from 2010, and is home to what could be the world’s second-biggest copper deposit. But decades of war, political instability, and uncertainty have long thwarted any efforts to extract those treasures, leaving the country’s resource riches untapped.

The Taliban are eager to change that. At the center of their ambitions is finally transforming Mes Aynak, a massive copper deposit that lies southeast of Kabul at a historic archaeological site and is estimated to hold some 4.4 billion metric tons of copper ore. China—which commands many of the world’s critical mineral supply chains—is pivotal to seeing that vision through.

The Taliban are “all in” on this project, said Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center and the author of FP’s South Asia Brief newsletter. “The Taliban would see this project as very much a part of this broader vision that the Taliban have for making Afghanistan a bigger part of connectivity projects spanning South and Central Asia.”

The Taliban’s interest in copper is nothing new; Afghanistan’s rulers have long sought to exploit the country’s mineral riches. The effort to transform Mes Aynak dates back to at least 2008, when the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp. secured a $3 billion, 30-year mining concession for the project. After 16 years of delays, the Taliban and Beijing appeared to turn back to the project this summer with a July ribbon-cutting ceremony for the construction of a road to the mine, which Chinese officials said marked a “significant step” forward.

Yet even with this apparent momentum, analysts warn that a raft of security, regulatory, legal, financial, and infrastructure challenges stand in the way of the project’s success, alongside concerns of how mining could damage historic ruins. Advancing a mining project in any country is a risky endeavor that requires years, if not decades, of investment and commitment.

“This is not easy, and investing in a mine like this requires not just a lot of money but a lot of stability,” said Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, the founding director of the Center for Governance and Markets at the University of Pittsburgh. “China is not stupid. They do not want to waste a lot of money and scarce resources on an investment that will yield very little if [Afghanistan] blows up in civil conflict again.”

China’s involvement in the project reflects Beijing’s broader desire to ensure regional security and minimize instability that could spill over its own shared border with Afghanistan. “Their primary interest in Afghanistan is not in the mines,” Murtazashvili said. “Their primary interest is in stability [and] security, and the Taliban understand that darn well.”

Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, experts said, China’s engagement with the Taliban has been largely driven by Beijing’s practical interest in maintaining productive ties with its neighbor and advancing its own security and political goals. “They’ve been very active in Afghan diplomacy, and they have been very pragmatic,” said Eric Olander, the editor in chief of the China-Global South Project. Beijing sees opportunity in the fact that “the United States has left and will not come back,” he added.

China was the first country to name an ambassador to the country under Taliban rule, while Chinese firms have inked oil extraction deals with the Taliban and eyed the country’s reserves of lithium, another critical mineral. Beijing has given Afghanistan more than 350 million yuan (about $49 million) worth of humanitarian assistance since the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The Chinese always have this mindset that development leads to stability and peace,” Olander said. “My guess is that part of the political thinking is that economic engagement from Chinese entities will pave the way for more stability and contribute to a country’s development, which then contributes to peace.”

Beyond politics, Beijing also has major commercial interests in the success of Mes Aynak specifically. “I think the Chinese are in a quite eager position to see some action about the resolution of this project,” said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center, adding that the project has just been “sitting there.” “The Chinese have invested, they have spent their money, but nothing is really coming through—so of course they want to resume it.”

That is good news for the Taliban, who have been searching for new revenue streams and sources of foreign investment. After they seized power, foreign aid to the country plummeted as a result of international sanctions—a change that decimated the country’s economy and pitched millions of Afghans deeper into a humanitarian crisis.

“Ever since the Taliban took over, it’s faced a severe economic crunch because for so many years, Afghanistan’s economy had been so heavily reliant on international assistance,” said Kugelman, who noted that the group has struggled to secure foreign investment, particularly from capital-rich countries.

Hungry for more cash and international legitimacy, the Taliban have actively sought out deeper economic ties with Beijing. Just last year, the group announced plans to officially join Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship foreign-policy program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), as well as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which emerged under the BRI.

“The Taliban is trying to prove to the world that it is not isolated,” Kugelman said. “I think that the symbolic implications of China—a very consequential global player—working with the Taliban on economic projects, that’s a pretty powerful message that I think that the Taliban would want to send out to the world.”

Still, many challenges loom. No matter how much Beijing and the Taliban expand their economic ties, any efforts to advance the Mes Aynak copper project will still come up against the threat of Islamic State-Khorasan attacks and other security concerns, along with enormous financial risks and legal and regulatory uncertainty—all of which could prove to be too difficult to overcome. Copper prices have also whipsawed in recent months, offering yet another indicator of how difficult the project will be to get off the ground.

“There’s virtually no infrastructure in Afghanistan: power, water, trains,” said Olander of the China-Global South Project. “So there may be vast reserves of lithium and copper in Afghanistan, but extracting it and getting it out and getting it to port, every step along that supply chain is risk and is cost when you have lots of other alternatives that are far less risky, more developed, and arguably way more cost-efficient.”