From A Secret Base in Tajikistan, China's War On Terror Adjusts To A New Reality

In a remote stretch of land near the Wakhan Corridor not far from Tajikistan’s mountainous border with northeastern Afghanistan, China's regional ambitions are adjusting to a new reality on the ground.



Next to an old Soviet outpost and believed to have existed for at least five years, a collection of strategically located buildings and lookout towers controlled by Chinese troops are part of Beijing's nascent but growing hard-power footprint in the region focused on security in neighboring Afghanistan.


Though both the Chinese and Tajik governments officially deny the existence of the base and Chinese personnel, a visit by an RFE/RL source near the compound and the surrounding area saw Beijing’s first military footprint in Central Asia in full swing as it finds itself at a crossroads following the Taliban’s August takeover of Afghanistan.


Through interviews with current and former officials in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, details provided by people living near China’s unofficial military base, expert analysis, and observations by an RFE/RL source in the area, an image emerges of a rising China slowly shifting its role into security matters in the region.But that image is one that Beijing finds increasingly complicated.


China is navigating increasingly strained ties between the Tajik government and the Taliban and searching for a way to cooperate with Afghanistan's new Taliban regime in order to protect its regional interests, particularly targeting Uyghur extremists in Afghanistan, which Beijing has blamed for attacks in its western Xinjiang Province and still views as a threat.


"The situation in Afghanistan is awkward for China," Haiyun Ma, an associate professor at Frostburg State University who studies Beijing’s relations with countries in Central and South Asia, told RFE/RL. "You have a Taliban regime that has ties to terrorists, including Uyghur [extremist] groups, but Beijing is exploring how much it can work together [with it]."