Afghanistan as the pawns to the devastating international and regional power games has been caught in uninterrupted civil and proxy wars since 1978. With the collapse of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a new political system in 2001, a mood of optimism and expectations for a better future swept the country. But, with the re-rise of the Taliban as an insurgent group in 2005 and the triple transitions (security, political and economic) unfolded in the country in 2014, the situation once again turned dreadful. Heightened insurgency, increased crime rates and the destructive activities of the terrorist groups ravaged every nook and corner of the country. Alongside, the economic turmoil, brain drain and emigration become the major social dilemmas affecting the everyday life of the citizens.&nbsp;

Over the last decade, the international community’s agendas of ending the conflict in Afghanistan have been focused on either rigorous military campaigns or abortive peace negotiations. Unfortunately, the fact that the conflict in the country is more of an economic phenomenon has been mostly degraded in the national and international agendas of conflict resolution in Afghanistan. The cost of war on terror as well as the cost of seeking peace and negotiated settlement with the Taliban through various mechanisms e.g., the high peace council, numerous peace processes in different countries and the substantial tribute payments to the terrorist networks and tribal chieftains through various formal and informal channels have been massive over the past years. On an average every year, 60 per cent of the national budget of Afghanistan and a significant portion of the off-budget funds and the foreign aid have been channelled to defence and security sectors and peacemaking projects. With rare resources, remaining for developmental programmes.&nbsp;

Similarly, According to a recent report by Pentagon, out of an estimated $45 billion cost of Afghanistan war for the US in 2018, just 1.7 per cent is the economic aid the rest all have been spent on bullets and probably gifts to local and external peace brokers. In this way, over the past 17 years, the situation in Afghanistan has turned worst, and the Afghan war has become a nightmare for the US and international allies. &nbsp;Did the international community and the government of Afghanistan degrade the more significant remedy (i.e., better economic opportunities) as a viable path for conflict resolution in Afghanistan? Yes, they did. &nbsp;

A moment of deliberation on nature and the dynamics of the ongoing war in Afghanistan would indicate that among the many factors that fuel the conflict and political instability in the country, one decisive factor is the socioeconomic crisis, particularity massive unemployment, poverty, and adult illiteracy. Based on the recent household survey data of the central statistic organisation of Afghanistan, more than half the population of the country, i.e., 54.5 per cent are living below the poverty line and 24 per cent of the active labour force is unemployed. In addition, inequitable distribution of wealth, income and rent is also remarkably high. &nbsp;

While, it is acknowledgeable that there is a hard-core ideology (at the leadership level) that the terrorist movements like the Taliban, ISIL-KP, and other such groups, carry. But at the grass root levels, a large number of people fighting for the Taliban and other insurgent groups are the non-ideological – employed soldiers, who do not fight for the cause of an ideology or the international Jihad propaganda as such but for mere a subsistence livelihood, in a situation where no alternative is available for them. Further, due to an overall chaotic situation in the country, there is a considerable gap between legal and illegal earning opportunities, which have enormously boosted incentives for the later. On a nutshell, the political economy of group access to resources (mines, minerals, and opium trade) at the top levels and the socio-economic ills like poverty, adult illiteracy, and unemployment at micro levels are the significant contributing factors to the perpetuating conflict in Afghanistan. &nbsp;

Indeed, the government of Afghanistan and the international community have failed to tackle the root causes of conflict; increasing poverty, alarming levels of unemployment, widespread corruption and the weak rule of law in the country. The provision of better opportunities for sustainable employment and income, which could have essentially encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to put down their guns and procure their livelihoods through dignified jobs, has not only not been in equal footing with other remedies (war and peace negotiations) part of national and international agendas. But such opportunities have enormously been reducing over the last years. The dearth of legal and sustainable sources of income and employment has compelled thousands to either personally take-up illegal activities; drug producing and trafficking, abductions, assassinations, robbery, illegal mining and various other forms of crimes or be easily recruited by the organised terror networks to carry destructive activities. &nbsp;

Due to the very problem of insecurity, on the other hand, the private and foreign investments, which are the primary sources of jobs in many countries, are insignificant in Afghanistan. The loss of the confidence of the investors and producer, the flight of the capital and brain drain have been growing over the past years, more so since 2014. Peace negotiations with few tourists’ leaders here and there and the counterterrorism strategies cannot go successful in Afghanistan unless the remedy is sought in grass root levels. When a large number of the population is impoverished and deprived of a dignified source of living, they can easily fall prey in the hands of terror groups other than the current ones, anytime in the future. Therefore, the provision of sustainable sources of jobs and income need to be seriously taken into considerations for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan. One such feasible means at the moment is the public investment in the establishment of small and medium scale labour-intensive factories and the reactivation of the country’s state-owned enterprises. &nbsp;&nbsp;

Public sector enterprises have a long history in Afghanistan. For the first time, during the second term reign of Amir Sher Ali (1868-79) few factories were established in Kabul. The decades of planning (1953-1973) were comparatively a period of significant industrialisation, infrastructure building, and economic progress in Afghanistan. A wide variety of firms from cotton mills to large-scale public transportation enterprises, construction firms, electricity-generating factories, arms-producing factories, public utilities, agricultural cooperatives, and insurance firms, were built. These enterprises at times could provide up to 60 per cent of the revenues of the governments, and their products could to a reasonable extent fulfill the demands of the government institutions and the domestic markets (MoF, Afg).&nbsp;

The government of Afghanistan had fully owned 64 fully or semi-operational public sector enterprises, locally known as Tasady in 2004 (MoF, Afg). Though not in good shape and full operation, still few SOEs have a significant market share in their relevant sectors, like the electrical utility company (Sherkat-e-Breshna), Afghan Telecom, and the Ariana Airlines, etc. However, on the one side, most of these enterprises were damaged during the wars of the 90s and on the other side, with the adaptation of Afghanistan to the neoliberal economic ideology these enterprises were impelled to privatization and dissolution. Since 2005 when the privatisation plan was approved, some 26 of the SOEs were either privatized, changed to public companies or dissolved (MoF, Af).&nbsp;

In the absence of a progressing private sector, the government is obliged to play the role of the entrepreneur in the economy. At the moment, to prevent a larger humanitarian crisis caused by war, drought, and economic turmoil, the government of Afghanistan needs to undertake a robust social security system. Under the current critical situation, the state-owned enterprises could be the best policy instruments in the hands of the government to fight unemployment, inflation, and poverty in the country. If the half-remained Skeleton of the SOEs in Afghanistan are rescued from the looting under the labels of privatisation and if enough investments are made for their re-operationalization and capacity expansion, they would, directly and indirectly, provide a sustainable source of living for a significant portion of workers, who are otherwise easy preys in the hands of the terrorist groups. &nbsp;

Currently, along with the US and Russia, almost every country in the region from Pakistan to Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and recently Turkey are trying to have their share of play in the ongoing peace negotiations with the Taliban, often by circumventing the people and government of Afghanistan; scattered initiatives that can only make the peace process more complex and challenging. 
 
However, few of these countries have something tangible to offer for the betterment of the situation in Afghanistan, rather than the pursuance of their strategic interests. It should not go unacknowledged that few countries like India on the other hand, have been the most reliable partners to the development of Afghanistan over the past years. They can continue to win people’s hearts and minds through their soft policies of developmental interventions. Such assistance as infrastructural development and job creation for the ordinary people can best lead Afghanistan towards lasting peace and stability by boosting the capabilities of the people and eternally stimulating the grassroots’ voices for peace and cooperation with the government. &nbsp;

As India has a long history of running public sector enterprises, the government of Afghanistan can seek technical assistance from India and other such countries for the re-operationalisation of its SOEs and establishment of additional labour-intensive processing and manufacturing units in Afghanistan. The need for the robust participation of the government and the assistance of the international community for countering economic downturn, unemployment and poverty are inevitable for the resolution of the uninterrupted 50 years of conflict and the establishment of lasting peace in Afghanistan. At the end of the day, it would be more of sustainable jobs and income, not bullets and complicated peace rounds that will persuade a large number of people to stand alongside the democratically elected government of Afghanistan against the terrorist oppositions.&nbsp;&nbsp;

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

&nbsp;

Afghanistan as the pawns to the devastating international and regional power games has been caught in uninterrupted civil and proxy wars since 1978. With the collapse of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a new political system in 2001, a mood of optimism and expectations for a better future swept the country.

Afghanistan as the pawns to the devastating international and regional power games has been caught in uninterrupted civil and proxy wars since 1978. With the collapse of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a new political system in 2001, a mood of optimism and expectations for a better future swept the country. But, with the re-rise of the Taliban as an insurgent group in 2005 and the triple transitions (security, political and economic) unfolded in the country in 2014, the situation once again turned dreadful. Heightened insurgency, increased crime rates and the destructive activities of the terrorist groups ravaged every nook and corner of the country. Alongside, the economic turmoil, brain drain and emigration become the major social dilemmas affecting the everyday life of the citizens. Over the last decade, the international community’s agendas of ending the conflict in Afghanistan have been focused on either rigorous military campaigns or abortive peace negotiations. Unfortunately, the fact that the conflict in the country is more of an economic phenomenon has been mostly degraded in the national and international agendas of conflict resolution in Afghanistan. The cost of war on terror as well as the cost of seeking peace and negotiated settlement with the Taliban through various mechanisms e.g., the high peace council, numerous peace processes in different countries and the substantial tribute payments to the terrorist networks and tribal chieftains through various formal and informal channels have been massive over the past years. On an average every year, 60 per cent of the national budget of Afghanistan and a significant portion of the off-budget funds and the foreign aid have been channelled to defence and security sectors and peacemaking projects. With rare resources, remaining for developmental programmes. Similarly, According to a recent report by Pentagon, out of an estimated $45 billion cost of Afghanistan war for the US in 2018, just 1.7 per cent is the economic aid the rest all have been spent on bullets and probably gifts to local and external peace brokers. In this way, over the past 17 years, the situation in Afghanistan has turned worst, and the Afghan war has become a nightmare for the US and international allies. Did the international community and the government of Afghanistan degrade the more significant remedy (i.e., better economic opportunities) as a viable path for conflict resolution in Afghanistan? Yes, they did. A moment of deliberation on nature and the dynamics of the ongoing war in Afghanistan would indicate that among the many factors that fuel the conflict and political instability in the country, one decisive factor is the socioeconomic crisis, particularity massive unemployment, poverty, and adult illiteracy. Based on the recent household survey data of the central statistic organisation of Afghanistan, more than half the population of the country, i.e., 54.5 per cent are living below the poverty line and 24 per cent of the active labour force is unemployed. In addition, inequitable distribution of wealth, income and rent is also remarkably high. While, it is acknowledgeable that there is a hard-core ideology (at the leadership level) that the terrorist movements like the Taliban, ISIL-KP, and other such groups, carry. But at the grass root levels, a large number of people fighting for the Taliban and other insurgent groups are the non-ideological – employed soldiers, who do not fight for the cause of an ideology or the international Jihad propaganda as such but for mere a subsistence livelihood, in a situation where no alternative is available for them. Further, due to an overall chaotic situation in the country, there is a considerable gap between legal and illegal earning opportunities, which have enormously boosted incentives for the later. On a nutshell, the political economy of group access to resources (mines, minerals, and opium trade) at the top levels and the socio-economic ills like poverty, adult illiteracy, and unemployment at micro levels are the significant contributing factors to the perpetuating conflict in Afghanistan. Indeed, the government of Afghanistan and the international community have failed to tackle the root causes of conflict; increasing poverty, alarming levels of unemployment, widespread corruption and the weak rule of law in the country. The provision of better opportunities for sustainable employment and income, which could have essentially encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to put down their guns and procure their livelihoods through dignified jobs, has not only not been in equal footing with other remedies (war and peace negotiations) part of national and international agendas. But such opportunities have enormously been reducing over the last years. The dearth of legal and sustainable sources of income and employment has compelled thousands to either personally take-up illegal activities; drug producing and trafficking, abductions, assassinations, robbery, illegal mining and various other forms of crimes or be easily recruited by the organised terror networks to carry destructive activities. Due to the very problem of insecurity, on the other hand, the private and foreign investments, which are the primary sources of jobs in many countries, are insignificant in Afghanistan. The loss of the confidence of the investors and producer, the flight of the capital and brain drain have been growing over the past years, more so since 2014. Peace negotiations with few tourists’ leaders here and there and the counterterrorism strategies cannot go successful in Afghanistan unless the remedy is sought in grass root levels. When a large number of the population is impoverished and deprived of a dignified source of living, they can easily fall prey in the hands of terror groups other than the current ones, anytime in the future. Therefore, the provision of sustainable sources of jobs and income need to be seriously taken into considerations for lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan. One such feasible means at the moment is the public investment in the establishment of small and medium scale labour-intensive factories and the reactivation of the country’s state-owned enterprises. Public sector enterprises have a long history in Afghanistan. For the first time, during the second term reign of Amir Sher Ali (1868-79) few factories were established in Kabul. The decades of planning (1953-1973) were comparatively a period of significant industrialisation, infrastructure building, and economic progress in Afghanistan. A wide variety of firms from cotton mills to large-scale public transportation enterprises, construction firms, electricity-generating factories, arms-producing factories, public utilities, agricultural cooperatives, and insurance firms, were built. These enterprises at times could provide up to 60 per cent of the revenues of the governments, and their products could to a reasonable extent fulfill the demands of the government institutions and the domestic markets (MoF, Afg). The government of Afghanistan had fully owned 64 fully or semi-operational public sector enterprises, locally known as Tasady in 2004 (MoF, Afg). Though not in good shape and full operation, still few SOEs have a significant market share in their relevant sectors, like the electrical utility company (Sherkat-e-Breshna), Afghan Telecom, and the Ariana Airlines, etc. However, on the one side, most of these enterprises were damaged during the wars of the 90s and on the other side, with the adaptation of Afghanistan to the neoliberal economic ideology these enterprises were impelled to privatization and dissolution. Since 2005 when the privatisation plan was approved, some 26 of the SOEs were either privatized, changed to public companies or dissolved (MoF, Af). In the absence of a progressing private sector, the government is obliged to play the role of the entrepreneur in the economy. At the moment, to prevent a larger humanitarian crisis caused by war, drought, and economic turmoil, the government of Afghanistan needs to undertake a robust social security system. Under the current critical situation, the state-owned enterprises could be the best policy instruments in the hands of the government to fight unemployment, inflation, and poverty in the country. If the half-remained Skeleton of the SOEs in Afghanistan are rescued from the looting under the labels of privatisation and if enough investments are made for their re-operationalization and capacity expansion, they would, directly and indirectly, provide a sustainable source of living for a significant portion of workers, who are otherwise easy preys in the hands of the terrorist groups. Currently, along with the US and Russia, almost every country in the region from Pakistan to Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and recently Turkey are trying to have their share of play in the ongoing peace negotiations with the Taliban, often by circumventing the people and government of Afghanistan; scattered initiatives that can only make the peace process more complex and challenging. However, few of these countries have something tangible to offer for the betterment of the situation in Afghanistan, rather than the pursuance of their strategic interests. It should not go unacknowledged that few countries like India on the other hand, have been the most reliable partners to the development of Afghanistan over the past years. They can continue to win people’s hearts and minds through their soft policies of developmental interventions. Such assistance as infrastructural development and job creation for the ordinary people can best lead Afghanistan towards lasting peace and stability by boosting the capabilities of the people and eternally stimulating the grassroots’ voices for peace and cooperation with the government. As India has a long history of running public sector enterprises, the government of Afghanistan can seek technical assistance from India and other such countries for the re-operationalisation of its SOEs and establishment of additional labour-intensive processing and manufacturing units in Afghanistan. The need for the robust participation of the government and the assistance of the international community for countering economic downturn, unemployment and poverty are inevitable for the resolution of the uninterrupted 50 years of conflict and the establishment of lasting peace in Afghanistan. At the end of the day, it would be more of sustainable jobs and income, not bullets and complicated peace rounds that will persuade a large number of people to stand alongside the democratically elected government of Afghanistan against the terrorist oppositions. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

A viable path for boosting peace in Afghanistan

China, an economic giant, has started the move to revitalise the ancient Silk Road. Its ambitious Belt and Road (B&amp;R) initiative, which includes plans for a Silk Road economic belt and the 21st-century maritime Silk Road, aims to connect continental Asia, Europe and Africa. The project has an estimated investment requirement of $5 trillion in infrastructure across 65 countries.

A major B&amp;R investment in South Asia is the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which connects the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to Pakistan&rsquo;s Gwadar Port. An important part of the CPEC is the reconstruction and upgrading of the Karakorum Highway, a 1,300 km paved roadway across the Karakoram Mountains connecting Kashgar to Abbottabad. The highway, which first opened to traffic in 1986, serves as an important trade and transit corridor between China and Pakistan. It has shortened the distance between China and the Middle East from 15,900 km via the Malacca Strait to a 3,700 km land route through the Khunjarab pass.

Between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, inside the Pamir Knot, lies the Wakhan corridor. This strip of land sandwiched between the four countries was created as a buffer between the territories of British India and Tsarist Russia in the 19th century, which was then formally demarcated between the Kingdom of Afghanistan and the Chinese People&rsquo;s Republic in November 1963.

The Wakhan corridor has historically been an important transit path of the ancient Silk Road route. According to Alexander Farhad, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the passes across the Pamir led Chinese pilgrims to the Buddhist centres in today&rsquo;s Afghanistan and India and were used by Persian merchants to sell their goods in the Chinese market.

Nazif Shahrani, in his The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War, maintains that until the collapse of Mughal Empire in India, Wakhan was one of the main routes for traders and merchants between India, China and major cities like Bactria and Bukhara in modern-day Afghanistan and Central Asia. It was due to the rapidly developing use of sea routes by Westerners to reach India and China in the late 15th century that the importance of the ancient Silk Road from Rome to China went into decline.

Geographic complexity

Given the geography of the Pamir Mountains, building infrastructure in the Wakhan could be difficult and costly. However, there are many instances of projects that have been successfully completed in the similar and even more geographically complex terrains of the region. The Karakorum Mountains, into which the Karakorum Highway was built (using 1960s and 1970s technology, taking 20 years to complete), and the Pamir Mountains where the Wakhan corridor lies are in the same area with similar topography.

A nutshell comparison of these areas indicates that the feasibility of infrastructure in Wakhan is increasingly viable given the road and tunnel-building technologies available in China today. The cost of the 400 km Wakhan project would be trivial compared to the $794-million upgrade of the Karakorum Highway or the $4.2 billion for the 1,600 km China-Tibet railway that opened in 2006. If such mega projects could be built on the roof of the world way back in the late 1970s and early 2000s, there is no reason to perceive geographic complexity as a barrier to building connectivity via Wakhan.

According to a report, the trilateral agreement was signed in Dushanbe to connect Tajikistan and Pakistan via the Durah Pass during the tenure of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan&rsquo;s president from 1992 to 1996, after a feasibility survey to assess the best possible route that could connect Tajikistan and Pakistan. Although the decision has not yet found a practical implementation, all the countries have independently built infrastructures approaching the corridor in their respective territories over the past decade.

These recent developments &mdash; which include the Lowari Tunnel Project, the first phase of the Chitral-Tajikistan highway completed in 2017; the five bridges over the Panj River constructed since 2002; a road built west of Wakhan by the Chinese military in 2009; and roads connecting Ishkashim-Baharak to Faizabad and onward to Afghanistan&rsquo;s ring road and the port of Hairatan &mdash; imply that all the countries are implicitly keen to develop this route. These recent improvements have made the possibility and prospect of building infrastructure through Wakhan itself much more feasible.

What is currently missing is an initiative to open borders and collaborate. While geographical complexity has not been a barrier to the development of the infrastructure in Wakhan, security concerns and regional political play seem to be the major roadblocks on the way to the development of Wakhan.

Local concerns

China&rsquo;s main security concern has been from the separatist movement in its Xinjiang autonomous region. The movement of terrorist groups and the possibility of them building links with Xinjiang separatists was enough of an impetus for Beijing to keep the border closed for decades. However, these concerns seem to be fading away due to China&rsquo;s massive investments in the Xinjiang region, where employment opportunities and improving living standards have brought more stability and peace.

Moreover, India, Afghanistan&rsquo;s close regional ally, may not be happy with Kabul joining the CPEC. India opposes the Belt and Road initiative because of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, through which the CPEC passes, is a disputed territory between Delhi and Islamabad and it has blocked India&rsquo;s direct access to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

Instead, India has invested in the trilateral Chabahar project with Iran and Afghanistan to compete with the CPEC. More importantly, India&rsquo;s concern might be that the opening of Wakhjir pass, along with the already-opened Khunjarab pass, will give China the upper hand by enhancing its geopolitical and geo-economic dominance in the region.

However, countries around the Wakhan corridor have good economic ties and mutual interest for further cooperation with each other. The geo-strategically important Wakhan route, if built, would be the most efficient and the shortest possible bridge in the region. This would further strengthen trade and personal contacts. Chinese investment in Afghanistan to date stands as the largest foreign investment in the country.

Three Chinese state-owned companies have invested in Afghanistan&rsquo;s lucrative mining sector after it was opened to foreign investors in 2007. Afghanistan&rsquo;s Ministry of Mining and Petroleum signed the contract with a consortium of Chinese state-owned companies &mdash; the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper Company Limited (JCCL) &mdash; for the exploitation of the Mes Aynak, the world&rsquo;s second-largest copper deposits, in Logar province in 2008.

The other major Chinese investment in Afghanistan is in hydrocarbons. Based on a contract signed in 2011, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its Afghan partner, Watan Oil and Gas, secured the exploration, development and production of the three blocks of hydrocarbon deposits of Amu Darya basin in Sar-e-Pol and Faryab provinces of Afghanistan.

According to data by the Afghan Central Statistic Organisation, bilateral trade between China and Afghanistan has surged from $432 million in 2008-09 to $1.09 billion in 2016-17, an increase of 153 per cent. Given this upsurge, the future of economic cooperation seems promising. This is further encouraged by connectivity that was recently established between the two countries with the opening of a railway in 2016. Similarly, Tajikistan and Pakistan have close economic and trade relations between themselves and also with Afghanistan (discussed here, here and here), which will benefit further from better and shorter trade routes among them.

Neighbours with benefits

There are three main advantages of building infrastructure through Wakhan corridor.

First, the inhabitants of the Pamir Knot &mdash; encompassing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, Wakhan District in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, Kashgar in Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, and Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan &mdash; share a common history, culture, religion and geography.

People in this enclave have been isolated from wider civilisations for centuries. Moreover, the border areas among these four countries are widely underdeveloped and economically insecure. Their primary sources of livelihood have been livestock husbandry and, to some extent, agriculture. According to a 2008 report, the literacy rate in Wakhan district hardly reaches 5 per cent.

The foremost advantage of building infrastructure in this region would be to bring change in the life and livelihood of the local population. Their access to markets and cities would help them sell their products, get access to education and find alternative sources of income. Regional investment in infrastructure and trade would provide locals with reliable sources of employment, rejuvenating these people&rsquo;s historical ties to the ancient Silk Road.

Second, connecting the bordering countries and facilitating economic integration through better infrastructure would lead to more stability and security in the region. Better customs controls and the deployment of border guards, as well as control of the illegal cross-border trafficking, would encourage legal exchange and cooperation.

Indirectly, the integration of the border areas would strengthen local development and lead to an increase in the economic well-being of the local population, which would lead to more secure and stabilised border regions.

Finally, linking the Wakhan corridor to the Karakorum Highway would provide the shortest route for China to reach its mega projects in Afghanistan, and for the Afghans to access the vast Chinese market. The north-south expansion of the corridor would help landlocked Tajikistan to get access to Pakistan&rsquo;s ports, allowing the Pakistanis to reach the resource-rich Central Asian republics by traversing Afghanistan through the shortest possible route.

If built, the Wakhan corridor would be the least costly trade route between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan compared to the current alternatives. This should compel the four countries to transform this land buffer into a bridge between them.

Currently, CPEC benefits Pakistan and China, but it can be easily extended to include Afghanistan and Tajikistan. If the Wakhan route is connected to the CPEC, it would undoubtedly boost trade and transform the economic outlook for the entire region.

Political bottlenecks and security fears should not hold back economic progress and regional prosperity. It would be in the best interest of the region as a whole to develop more projects like CPEC and Chabahar, with regional integration and economic cooperation in mind. These megaprojects, linked together in good faith, could reinforce and facilitate trade and transit in the region with the lowest possible costs and numerous benefits.

This <a href="https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/wakhan-corridor-china-pakistan-afghanistan-tajikistan-world-trade-news-81661/" rel="nofollow">article</a> has been originally published in <a href="https://www.fairobserver.com/" rel="nofollow">Fair Observer</a>.

(Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity).

Image Credit: Iryna Hromotska

The connection of Wakhan route to the CPEC would undoubtedly boost trade and transform the economic outlook for the entire region

China, an economic giant, has started the move to revitalise the ancient Silk Road. Its ambitious Belt and Road (B&R) initiative, which includes plans for a Silk Road economic belt and the 21st-century maritime Silk Road, aims to connect continental Asia, Europe and Africa. The project has an estimated investment requirement of $5 trillion in infrastructure across 65 countries. A major B&R investment in South Asia is the $46-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, which connects the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region of China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port. An important part of the CPEC is the reconstruction and upgrading of the Karakorum Highway, a 1,300 km paved roadway across the Karakoram Mountains connecting Kashgar to Abbottabad. The highway, which first opened to traffic in 1986, serves as an important trade and transit corridor between China and Pakistan. It has shortened the distance between China and the Middle East from 15,900 km via the Malacca Strait to a 3,700 km land route through the Khunjarab pass. Between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan, inside the Pamir Knot, lies the Wakhan corridor. This strip of land sandwiched between the four countries was created as a buffer between the territories of British India and Tsarist Russia in the 19th century, which was then formally demarcated between the Kingdom of Afghanistan and the Chinese People’s Republic in November 1963. The Wakhan corridor has historically been an important transit path of the ancient Silk Road route. According to Alexander Farhad, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the passes across the Pamir led Chinese pilgrims to the Buddhist centres in today’s Afghanistan and India and were used by Persian merchants to sell their goods in the Chinese market. Nazif Shahrani, in his The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War, maintains that until the collapse of Mughal Empire in India, Wakhan was one of the main routes for traders and merchants between India, China and major cities like Bactria and Bukhara in modern-day Afghanistan and Central Asia. It was due to the rapidly developing use of sea routes by Westerners to reach India and China in the late 15th century that the importance of the ancient Silk Road from Rome to China went into decline. Geographic complexity Given the geography of the Pamir Mountains, building infrastructure in the Wakhan could be difficult and costly. However, there are many instances of projects that have been successfully completed in the similar and even more geographically complex terrains of the region. The Karakorum Mountains, into which the Karakorum Highway was built (using 1960s and 1970s technology, taking 20 years to complete), and the Pamir Mountains where the Wakhan corridor lies are in the same area with similar topography. A nutshell comparison of these areas indicates that the feasibility of infrastructure in Wakhan is increasingly viable given the road and tunnel-building technologies available in China today. The cost of the 400 km Wakhan project would be trivial compared to the $794-million upgrade of the Karakorum Highway or the $4.2 billion for the 1,600 km China-Tibet railway that opened in 2006. If such mega projects could be built on the roof of the world way back in the late 1970s and early 2000s, there is no reason to perceive geographic complexity as a barrier to building connectivity via Wakhan. According to a report, the trilateral agreement was signed in Dushanbe to connect Tajikistan and Pakistan via the Durah Pass during the tenure of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan’s president from 1992 to 1996, after a feasibility survey to assess the best possible route that could connect Tajikistan and Pakistan. Although the decision has not yet found a practical implementation, all the countries have independently built infrastructures approaching the corridor in their respective territories over the past decade. These recent developments — which include the Lowari Tunnel Project, the first phase of the Chitral-Tajikistan highway completed in 2017; the five bridges over the Panj River constructed since 2002; a road built west of Wakhan by the Chinese military in 2009; and roads connecting Ishkashim-Baharak to Faizabad and onward to Afghanistan’s ring road and the port of Hairatan — imply that all the countries are implicitly keen to develop this route. These recent improvements have made the possibility and prospect of building infrastructure through Wakhan itself much more feasible. What is currently missing is an initiative to open borders and collaborate. While geographical complexity has not been a barrier to the development of the infrastructure in Wakhan, security concerns and regional political play seem to be the major roadblocks on the way to the development of Wakhan. Local concerns China’s main security concern has been from the separatist movement in its Xinjiang autonomous region. The movement of terrorist groups and the possibility of them building links with Xinjiang separatists was enough of an impetus for Beijing to keep the border closed for decades. However, these concerns seem to be fading away due to China’s massive investments in the Xinjiang region, where employment opportunities and improving living standards have brought more stability and peace. Moreover, India, Afghanistan’s close regional ally, may not be happy with Kabul joining the CPEC. India opposes the Belt and Road initiative because of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, through which the CPEC passes, is a disputed territory between Delhi and Islamabad and it has blocked India’s direct access to Afghanistan and Central Asia. Instead, India has invested in the trilateral Chabahar project with Iran and Afghanistan to compete with the CPEC. More importantly, India’s concern might be that the opening of Wakhjir pass, along with the already-opened Khunjarab pass, will give China the upper hand by enhancing its geopolitical and geo-economic dominance in the region. However, countries around the Wakhan corridor have good economic ties and mutual interest for further cooperation with each other. The geo-strategically important Wakhan route, if built, would be the most efficient and the shortest possible bridge in the region. This would further strengthen trade and personal contacts. Chinese investment in Afghanistan to date stands as the largest foreign investment in the country. Three Chinese state-owned companies have invested in Afghanistan’s lucrative mining sector after it was opened to foreign investors in 2007. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mining and Petroleum signed the contract with a consortium of Chinese state-owned companies — the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper Company Limited (JCCL) — for the exploitation of the Mes Aynak, the world’s second-largest copper deposits, in Logar province in 2008. The other major Chinese investment in Afghanistan is in hydrocarbons. Based on a contract signed in 2011, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its Afghan partner, Watan Oil and Gas, secured the exploration, development and production of the three blocks of hydrocarbon deposits of Amu Darya basin in Sar-e-Pol and Faryab provinces of Afghanistan. According to data by the Afghan Central Statistic Organisation, bilateral trade between China and Afghanistan has surged from $432 million in 2008-09 to $1.09 billion in 2016-17, an increase of 153 per cent. Given this upsurge, the future of economic cooperation seems promising. This is further encouraged by connectivity that was recently established between the two countries with the opening of a railway in 2016. Similarly, Tajikistan and Pakistan have close economic and trade relations between themselves and also with Afghanistan (discussed here, here and here), which will benefit further from better and shorter trade routes among them. Neighbours with benefits There are three main advantages of building infrastructure through Wakhan corridor. First, the inhabitants of the Pamir Knot — encompassing Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan, Wakhan District in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, Kashgar in Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, and Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan — share a common history, culture, religion and geography. People in this enclave have been isolated from wider civilisations for centuries. Moreover, the border areas among these four countries are widely underdeveloped and economically insecure. Their primary sources of livelihood have been livestock husbandry and, to some extent, agriculture. According to a 2008 report, the literacy rate in Wakhan district hardly reaches 5 per cent. The foremost advantage of building infrastructure in this region would be to bring change in the life and livelihood of the local population. Their access to markets and cities would help them sell their products, get access to education and find alternative sources of income. Regional investment in infrastructure and trade would provide locals with reliable sources of employment, rejuvenating these people’s historical ties to the ancient Silk Road. Second, connecting the bordering countries and facilitating economic integration through better infrastructure would lead to more stability and security in the region. Better customs controls and the deployment of border guards, as well as control of the illegal cross-border trafficking, would encourage legal exchange and cooperation. Indirectly, the integration of the border areas would strengthen local development and lead to an increase in the economic well-being of the local population, which would lead to more secure and stabilised border regions. Finally, linking the Wakhan corridor to the Karakorum Highway would provide the shortest route for China to reach its mega projects in Afghanistan, and for the Afghans to access the vast Chinese market. The north-south expansion of the corridor would help landlocked Tajikistan to get access to Pakistan’s ports, allowing the Pakistanis to reach the resource-rich Central Asian republics by traversing Afghanistan through the shortest possible route. If built, the Wakhan corridor would be the least costly trade route between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan compared to the current alternatives. This should compel the four countries to transform this land buffer into a bridge between them. Currently, CPEC benefits Pakistan and China, but it can be easily extended to include Afghanistan and Tajikistan. If the Wakhan route is connected to the CPEC, it would undoubtedly boost trade and transform the economic outlook for the entire region. Political bottlenecks and security fears should not hold back economic progress and regional prosperity. It would be in the best interest of the region as a whole to develop more projects like CPEC and Chabahar, with regional integration and economic cooperation in mind. These megaprojects, linked together in good faith, could reinforce and facilitate trade and transit in the region with the lowest possible costs and numerous benefits. This article has been originally published in Fair Observer. (Disclaimer: The author writes here in a personal capacity). Image Credit: Iryna Hromotska

Opinion: Wakhan corridor brings China, Pakistan & Afghanistan closer

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Zee News Rajasthan

Editor

Mirwais Parsa

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