China pressures Afghanistan’s Taliban to stop attacks on its interests in Pakistan, dangles economic carrot

The Chinese diplomats are “searching for alternative ways” of persuading Afghanistan’s Taliban regime to rein in the thousands of Pakistani Taliban militants it granted safe havens to after seizing power in 2021, according to a source in Islamabad who sought anonymity because of political sensitivities.

Beijing effectively recognised the Taliban regime by accepting the diplomatic credentials of its envoy in February.

Police officials told This Week In Asia last month that their investigations found that the so-called ‘broken switch’ faction of the TTP had launched the terrorist attack from its camps in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan.

They also held the cell responsible for a practically identical attack in July 2021, which also targeted employees of Wuhan-based China Gezhouba Group Co working on the same World Bank-funded hydropower project at Dasu. Nine Chinese nationals and four of their Pakistani colleagues were killed in that attack.

Pakistani journalist Nusrat Javed last month reported that Beijing had asked the Afghan Taliban regime to either “push the TTP into Pakistan or tighten the leash” as a precondition to the Chinese investments in Afghanistan that it is actively seeking.

Chinese diplomats had recently talked up the prospects of Beijing investing in Afghanistan’s mineral and power sectors, he said, but had also expressed deep concerns about the presence of the Pakistani insurgents, along with the Taliban’s arch-rival Islamic State-Khorasan (Isis-K).

Beijing has similar concerns about the Uygur militants of the al-Qaeda affiliate Turkistan Islamic Party who are also protected by Kabul, although they have not staged any cross-border attacks on the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

The security threats posed to