🇨🇳🤝🇦🇫 China, after nearly a century, is poised to agree a transformative border opening with Afghanistan that would make possible the creation of a cargo corridor running all the way from the East China Sea to the Persian Gulf.

With the US renewing its blockading of Iranian ships seeking passage to the shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean, the Iranians have been busy reviewing their logistical options in trade at all points of the compass. The potential presented by Iran’s border with Afghanistan, a country that in turn has borders with China, Central Asia and Pakistan is one item that has moved much higher on Tehran’s economic agenda.

As Eldaniz Gusseinov and Daniel Longerich write in a July 13 article for Central Asia-Caucasus Institute’s Substack (“Iran’s Turn to the East: Afghanistan and the Contest Over Eurasia’s Corridors”): “The war has accelerated a reshaping of overland corridors around Iran. Tehran is strengthening its rear in Afghanistan, where it has already become the top trading partner and is extending a railway northward from Herat.”

The possibilities offered by Afghanistan as a corridor, however, will not be clear until Beijing takes a crucial decision. Add Gusseinov and Daniel Longerich: “The Afghan route gives Iran only partial insurance, since a through connection to China is not yet built and depends on Beijing’s willingness to open the border.”

Iran and Afghanistan can, of course, look to develop road and rail infrastructure that could provide for transformative expansions of Iranian, Afghan and other goods flows to China via Central Asia and Pakistan (though the Afghan Taliban’s extremely poor and volatile relations with Islamabad might preclude Pakistan as a viable, regular transit partner), but the big prize for both Tehran and Kabul would be a decision from Beijing to allow trade passage to and from China directly via Afghanistan with the opening of a border gateway at the end of the Afghan Wakhan Corridor.

China's only border checkpoint with Afghanistan, which lies at the end of the Wakhan Corridor, is closed. Opening it could give Afghanistan a huge economic boost and provide China with a route straight through to the Middle East and Iran with a road into China.

“Iran’s answer to its maritime vulnerability [exposed by the US blockade] lies in overland infrastructure,” conclude Gusseinov and Longerich, pointing to the Khaf-Herat railway, opened in 2020, which connected the Iranian rail network to the ancient oasis city of Herat in western Afghanistan.

With the ambition to build rail and road links right through the Wakhan Corridor, an elevated mountain valley, and into China, what hope is there that Beijing will give the green light?

China, till now, appears to have remained wary about opening the single border crossing at the junction of the Wakhan Corridor with its Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region over concerns about possible infiltration of East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) Uyghur militants from Afghan territory as well as its commitments to Pakistan, which would like to see regional trade increasingly flowing through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) undertaking. However, March brought an interesting development when China established a new county, Cenling County, across from the frontier and border checkpoint in question.

Analyst Philip Acey in The Diplomat assesses that “the administrative change hints at China’s plan for greater integration with Afghanistan – and beyond to Central Asia”, adding: “The creation of Cenling County aligns with a broader pattern of deepening regional integration and potentially signals strategic intent to realize the long-discussed Wakhan Road. If completed, the route would reconnect Afghanistan and China for the first time in nearly a century.”

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