Afghan Taliban see China as a friend of Afghanistan. According to media reports, Taliban have assured the security of Chinese investments in Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban’s Spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said they see China as a friend and are hoping to talk to China about investing in reconstruction work as soon as possible. Shaheen said, “we have been to china many times and we have good relations with them. China is a friendly country and we welcome them for reconstruction and development of Afghanistan” .
“If (the Chinese) have investments, of course, we will ensure their safety”. American troops withdrawal and resurgence of the Taliban should be strategically beneficial for China as Taliban shares strong ties with Pakistan. China have been eyeing big scale investments in Afghanistan as the country has the world’s largest unexploited reserves of copper, coal, iron, gas, cobalt, gold, lithium etc, valued more than 1 trillion US Dollars .
In 2011, China’s national petroleum corporation won a 400 million dollar bid to drill 3 oil fields for 25 years containing roughly 87 million barrels of oil. Chinese have also gain rights to mine copper at logar province of Afghanistan.