How does Taliban diplomacy want to gain recognition for their regime by warming the lithium market in Afghanistan?
Author: Andrey Serenko, Head of the Analytical Center of the Society of Political Scientists of Russia
On the eve of the two-year anniversary of its return to power, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan announced its intention to open to foreign countries the development of Afghan lithium deposits - a strategic raw material of the 21st century.
Two years prior, the Taliban had blocked any attempt by foreigners to enter the Afghan lithium market, sometimes using harsh measures (such as terrorist attacks/acts of intimidation to stop the Chinese who were trying to illegally or semi-legally develop lithium mines in Afghanistan in 2022).
What caused this "lithium reversal" in Taliban politics?
First, with the continuing decline in the interest of the world community in the Taliban experiment and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. This, in turn, is connected both with the world's fascination with the Ukrainian crisis and with its continuing fatigue from everything that has to do with the "damned" "Afghan issue."
The Taliban put Afghanistan on pause in the international agenda for two years. The situation in this country, after a series of dramatic years and events, is "suspended" (some optimists call such a freeze stabilization, but this, in our opinion, is wishful thinking). The Afghan threats have been pushed out of the current international political context by more glaring threats related to the Ukrainian crisis.
This, on the one hand, gave the Taliban a free hand for their social experiments in Afghanistan, and, on the other hand, made them uninteresting to the rest of the world.
Jihad, uninteresting to the world, ceases to be productive and profitable.
Having ceased to be interesting, the Taliban have lost the external political and economic attention they counted on after the victory in August 2021.
Having thrown the lithium topic into the information field yesterday, the Taliban want to regain the interest of the big world.
Secondly, the "lithium reversal" is associated with the failure of the Taliban's numerous attempts to achieve international political recognition.
Having promised Chinese, European, and Arab states and companies the possibility of access to Afghan lithium developments, the Taliban expect to receive international "lithium recognition" of their regime in return. As they say, not by washing, so by skating.
In this sense, the Taliban will likely try to avoid any one country's monopoly over the large lithium project in Afghanistan. Precisely because it is primarily a political project, and then an economic project.
The hints of the Taliban functionaries that the Chinese comrades may have some advantages in this matter may be related to the special global and regional status of China, which, by recognizing the Taliban regime in exchange for lithium, is able to secure a series of recognitions from states dependent on Beijing.
Although, of course, the demonstrative curtsies of the Taliban regarding the possible provision of lithium benefits to the PRC may also have a provocative dimension - the desire to make Chinese opponents represented by the United States and the collective West jealous and, accordingly, make them move.
Finally, thirdly, the "printing out" of the lithium topic by the Taliban may be associated with the growing economic crisis in Afghanistan and, accordingly, with the threat of a decrease in the profitability of the jihadist economy.
This can lead to a reduction in the possibilities of internal financing of the "jihad industry" - the power structures of the Taliban regime, as well as to the threat of a decrease in the rate of initial accumulation of capital by the Taliban elites.
Since coming to power two years ago, the Taliban leaders have engaged in forced personal enrichment. According to competent Afghan observers, figures of the first echelon in the Taliban hierarchy have long become dollar millionaires and continue to actively make personal fortunes.
Everything that could be taken "quickly" from Afghanistan, the Taliban leaders have already taken. The time has come to convert the country's strategic reserves - lithium deposits, along with the gem mining industry - into the personal income of the "fathers and sons" of the Afghan jihad.
Lithium diplomacy and "lithium jihad" are the new strategic priorities of the Taliban regime following the results of the first two years of returning to power.
Recognition and enrichment (legitimation not only of the political regime but also of personal fortunes) are the ultimate goals of the Taliban leaders.
