Afghanistan–China border

The end of the Wakhan

In the late 19th century Britain, fearing Russian expansion towards India, secured a buffer by extending Afghan sovereignty over the narrow Wakhan valley. The Wakhan’s line with Russia was carefully drawn, but its eastern end with China stayed a “conventional” line on maps, and in the early 20th century China claimed much of the Pamirs, including most of the corridor.^[1]

Afghanistan and China agreed in 1963 to delimit “the boundary existing between the two countries”, and signed a treaty in Beijing on 22 November 1963, the fifth of the border treaties China made with smaller neighbours in that period. The line follows the water divide of the Mustagh Range, between streams feeding the Amu Darya and the Yarkand, and crosses the Wakhjir Pass at 4,923 metres.^[1]

“wherever the boundary between the two countries follows a water divide, the ridge thereof shall be the boundary line”^[1]

A road that is not there

The Wakhan is 350 km long and 16 to 64 km wide, with about 10,000 people. There is no trade link across the short border with China; Afghanistan’s trade with China goes through third countries such as Pakistan.^[2]

China began helping build a road through the Wakhan in May 2021, and the Taliban, in power from August 2021, kept working on it and raised opening a trade corridor with Chinese officials in 2023. Officials in Badakhshan announced in January 2024 that the road had reached the border, but beyond the village of Khandud there is still little more than a dirt track with difficult river crossings.^[2]