America’s defeat in Afghanistan threatens to undermine its limited geostrategic influence. With the rise of the Taliban, the region’s energy infrastructure and natural resources are now more in danger than ever since 2001, the year Washington ousted the Taliban regime.
As the Taliban take stock of the natural resources and US-funded infrastructure they now have at their disposal, their strategic competitors, such as China and Russia, will fixate on lucrative development projects that further their regional ambitions.
Afghanistan has an estimated 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium, neodymium as well as other minerals crucial as lithium for the production of technology. A volume valued between 853,565 million and 2.5 billion euros. To these should be added 60 million tons of copper , 2,200 million tons of iron ore and veins of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc and mercury.
This makes the country a key investment target for China , which currently leads global rare earth supply chains and uses them as part of its geopolitical strategy. The US and the rest of the West need access to these raw materials and at this moment Beijing controls 90% of the processing capacity.
The Taliban will also be able to negotiate with the vast lithium reserves in provinces such as Ghazni, Herat and Nimroz. Lithium is a key component in the construction of the lithium-ion batteries that power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles.
The prospect of China gaining control of the untapped lithium and rare earth deposits in Afghanistan would be a huge advantage for Beijing in its growing competition with the US and Europe. In 2019, the US imported 80% of its rare earth minerals from China , while European countries obtained 98% from the Asian giant.
The world’s second-largest economy also shares a small border with Afghanistan, called the Wakhan Corridor, just 210 km long. A difficult place for road network construction but nevertheless its location is crucial to the safety and viability of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key part of the New Silk Road Initiative (BRI, for its acronym in English) of the Asian country. In 2020, China’s exports to Afghanistan reached only 41.4 million euros while imports were 12.6 million euros.
The Taliban tighten control and evacuations resume
The Taliban tightened control of the Afghan capital on Tuesday as many businesses reopened. The US control at Hamid Karzai International Airport yesterday made possible successive evacuation flights with airlifts to Kuwait, Doha and Dubai and neighboring capitals. A day earlier, US President Joe Biden acknowledged that the Taliban’s takeover of the country was faster than he expected and that the exit had been “far from perfect.”
