Afghan Envoy Urges China to Open Trade to Ease Crisis

(Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan’s top diplomat in Beijing called on China to let in more of its agricultural products, saying that expanded trade would do more to ease a humanitarian crisis next door than fiscal aid. 

Ambassador Javid Qaem, a holdover from the Islamic Republic government that fell to the Taliban, said in an interview Friday more flexible trade rules on the Chinese side and better logistics could help Afghanistan expand its annual exports of agricultural products like pine nuts from $500 million to as much as $2 billion of annual trade with its larger neighbor. 

He urged China to expand air shipments of pine nuts that resumed last month and said the two countries were a “week or two” from agreeing to a similar arrangement for saffron. 

“This is what we really expect from China,” Qaem told Bloomberg News at the embassy in Beijing. “The humanitarian assistance is on one side, but because China is a very good market -- and it’s a very big market -- what we really expect is trade.”

The plea for Chinese support comes as Afghanistan braces for a winter of political and economic turmoil after the U.S.’s exit and the Taliban’s capture of Kabul in August. Anxious to prevent either militants or refugees from spreading across the border, China has embraced the Taliban regime, pledging during a meeting last month in Doha, Qatar, to help the Islamist group “rebuild the country.”

China has so far pledged some 200 million yuan (around $30 million) in assistance to Afghanistan, a figure that includes food supplies and Covid-19 vaccines. Still, that’s likely not enough to relieve a food shortage that United Nations aid programs have projected will affect 23 million people in Afghanistan this winter, or more than half the population.

“We need assistance -- the people need assistance and they need it soon,” Qaem said, addressing all world powers. “It shouldn’t be only pledges.” 

Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute who researches counterterrorism and Beijing’s relations with the West, described China’s efforts as positive developments. But he said Beijing could provide more transformational support by restarting large-scale mining projects or detailing Afghanistan’s role in its Belt and Road Initiative. 

“In economic terms, it has not done as much as it could have contributed to the country, in trade, investment or aid,” Pantucci said. “The likely hesitation at China’s end comes from concerns that, in making bigger plays, Beijing will end up being seen as the sponsor and lead champion of the new Taliban regime, something that may bring with it a series of complicated responsibilities on the international stage that China wants to avoid.”

Qaem was speaking largely independent from the new Taliban government, saying that Afghan diplomats in Beijing were no longer getting paid and “just continuing somehow.” He acknowledged being unaware of a Pakistani statement late Thursday that Taliban representatives would soon travel to China to attend a meeting of envoys from Beijing, Moscow and Washington. 

While Qaem stopped short of criticizing the Taliban’s ideological views, he questioned their slow resumption of services, especially education for girls. “I don’t see anything that should stop them from doing it. Girls education should start from today -- why we should even wait for it?” he said.

He blamed the delay on “internal issues” in the Taliban, between factions he described as “the politicians” and “the hardliners.” 

The militant group is suddenly responsible for restarting an economy battered by the pandemic on top of decades of war, even as the U.S. withholds some $9 billion in Afghan central bank reserves. One immediate casualty of the chaos was the “pine nut corridor” of direct cargo flights that began in 2018, cutting out Indian and Pakistani middle men, and bringing an estimated $800 million in annual revenue to Afghanistan. 

China’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Wang Yu, hailed a 45-ton shipment that reopened corridor Oct. 31 as a symbol of the “important bond of friendship between our two countries.” Qaem said he hoped China could expand those shipments and help clear other barriers restricting trade in other goods such as saffron and pomegranates. 

China, which hasn’t yet formally recognized the new government in Kabul, was “playing a constructive role” in talks with the Taliban, Qaem said. The international community needed to overcome their uncertainty over how to deal with the Taliban, whether that’s working with them directly or the through the United Nations, he added. 

“This is the reality on the ground: The Taliban are there and they have a piece of land where 35 million people are living,” Qaem said. “And we have to find a way to reach the people and get them out of this dire situation.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Bloomberg