A Chinese company has offered the Taliban $10 billion and a proposal to build key strategic infrastructure connecting north-south Afghanistan in exchange for access to the country’s lithium reserves. Some experts raised concerns that the offer would allow the Chinese regime to expand its influence in the region.
The proposal was discussed between a representative of Gochin and the acting minister of the Taliban’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, Sheikh Hadith Shahabuddin Delawar, in his office on April 13. The talks happened just a few months after the Taliban arrested two Chinese nationals trying to smuggle 1,000 metric tons of lithium-bearing rocks out of the country.
