According to Adnan Aamir’s report in Nikkei Asia, Afghanistan’s Taliban government inaugurated a 121-kilometre unpaved road on October 4, 2026, connecting Sarhad-e Broghil with the Chinese frontier through Wakhjir Pass. The reported cost was US$5.5 million, financed from Afghan resources. Its promoters envisage a future link between China, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.[1] For Pakistan, the significance lies less in the traffic this road can carry today than in the determination it reveals to escape dependence tomorrow.
We should resist the temptation to announce the death of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Opening a road up to a frontier is not the same as opening that frontier for international commerce. Nikkei’s account identifies serious gaps in customs facilities, connecting infrastructure and security. Chinese permission, transport agreements, reliable maintenance and commercially viable onward connections remain essential. An unpaved mountain road is not a functioning freight corridor, much less a substitute for the capacity and economies of sea transport.
The proposed Gulf connection would also require a dependable route across Afghanistan and onward through Iran. Access to Iranian ports introduces its own security, financing and geopolitical uncertainties. Chabahar, often invoked in discussions of alternatives to Pakistan, faces the Gulf of Oman; it should not casually be described as a Persian Gulf port. Neither a road inauguration nor a line drawn across a map establishes an integrated China-to-port logistics service.
These qualifications strengthen the argument for Pakistan to act sensibly. There is time to compete through reliability. There is no justification for complacency. The road need never displace Pakistan’s ports entirely to weaken Islamabad’s bargaining position. A usable alternative for even some cargo would give traders and Kabul more choices. The relevant question is why Pakistan’s policy so often increases the attraction of being bypassed.
China’s conduct deserves a more serious reading than the language of permanent friendship permits. Its expansion of economic influence has commercial and strategic purposes: access to markets, infrastructure networks, investment opportunities and greater resilience against disruption. Security in western China is part of that calculation. Beijing’s interests overlap with Pakistan’s in important respects, but they are not identical. Pakistan cannot reasonably expect China to organise its entire regional policy around preserving Islamabad’s influence over Kabul.
Nor should we assume that an Afghan initiative is already a Chinese commitment. The reported Afghan financing of the Wakhan road matters. Kabul is seeking an opening; Beijing still determines whether its side opens. Concerns about Uyghur militant groups and the security of Xinjiang remain substantial obstacles in the Nikkei account. Chinese caution here illustrates the interaction of security and commerce, rather than a simple choice between them.
Beijing’s declared regional approach also leaves room for Pakistan. At the May 2025 trilateral meeting, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to promote CPEC’s extension into Afghanistan and strengthen regional connectivity.[2]
A connected Afghanistan could generate business through Pakistan as well as around it. Treating every Afghan connection with another country as a Pakistani defeat turns regional development into an endless contest for dependency. That is an impoverished basis for foreign policy.
Chinese mediation has plainly not secured durable peace between Islamabad and Kabul. It is more accurate, however, to acknowledge its limited results than to declare diplomacy exhausted. China hosted week-long talks in Urumqi from April 1 to 7, 2026, and publicly reported agreement to continue dialogue and avoid escalation.
Its account identified terrorism as the core issue affecting bilateral relations.[3] Subsequent cross-border violence, including the June operations reported by Reuters, demonstrates the distance between diplomatic assurances and conditions on the ground.[4]
Pakistan’s security grievance cannot be dismissed as an excuse for obstructing trade. The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a United Nations-sanctioned terrorist organisation.[5] Pakistan has a compelling responsibility to protect its citizens from attacks and to seek verifiable action against networks operating from Afghan territory.
Kabul’s denial of responsibility does not answer the practical question of how such attacks will be prevented. Equally, recognising the threat does not establish that every coercive response is effective, lawful or proportionate. Policy must be judged by whether it improves security, including for civilians on both sides.
The central mistake is to confuse imposing economic pain with obtaining strategic compliance. A closed crossing can damage Afghan commerce immediately. It does not necessarily persuade the Taliban leadership to dismantle militant relationships. It can instead strengthen the case for alternative routes while weakening the traders, transporters and border communities whose livelihoods give them an interest in cooperation. Pakistan must ask whether the pressure reaches the intended decision-makers or is absorbed by people with little influence over them. This process is already visible without waiting for Wakhan.
The World Bank’s January 2026 Afghanistan Economic Monitor recorded a shift towards Iranian and Central Asian corridors following the Pakistan border closure.[6] Its August monitor continued to describe adjustment towards alternative regional routes and noted textile exports to China through Central Asia. Afghanistan’s exports nevertheless remained below their year-earlier level.[7] Diversification is neither imaginary nor painless. That distinction matters: Afghanistan can suffer from Pakistan’s closure while Pakistan simultaneously loses business and influence.
Commercial relationships have a memory. An importer who finds a new supplier, warehouse, transporter and payment arrangement has invested in an alternative network. Reopening a gate does not automatically bring that business back. Customers compare the whole journey: freight charges, insurance, delays, damaged goods and the risk of another interruption. A geographically shorter route can become commercially inferior when delivery dates cannot be trusted.
The losses within Pakistan extend beyond transit receipts. Exporters lose orders; drivers lose trips; warehouses lose customers; small enterprises lose turnover. Perishable produce is particularly exposed to delays.
Reduced competition and disrupted supplies can also raise costs for households and manufacturers. We should avoid inventing a single dramatic figure for these losses without reliable data. Their channels are clear enough to require a published assessment whenever extended restrictions are imposed.
Pakistan’s claim to be a regional hub becomes difficult to sustain when its relationships with adjoining markets repeatedly obstruct movement. China’s friendship cannot compensate for every closed commercial door. Afghanistan is the immediate case, but the larger issue concerns our approach to India, Iran and access to Central Asia. These relationships differ profoundly; they should not be placed in one undifferentiated category of hostility. What connects them is the need to weigh security choices against economic consequences.
With India, the disputes are grave, and Pakistan cannot manufacture reciprocity by itself. A case for commercial normalisation must recognise terrorism, Kashmir, military escalation and political resistance on both sides. It should still ask whether all peaceful exchange must remain hostage to the most difficult dispute. A carefully negotiated reopening of selected trade, with safeguards and transparent rules, need not imply surrender of a political position.
The World Bank’s 2018 study, A Glass Half Full, estimated potential India–Pakistan trade at US$37 billion, compared with roughly US$2 billion then recorded.[8] This is a historical model estimate, not a forecast for 2026 or a promise of immediate export earnings. Its enduring relevance is the scale of opportunity that artificial barriers can suppress. A serious government would commission an updated assessment, identify sectors where households and producers could benefit, and negotiate from evidence rather than slogans.
Iran requires a different calculation. Banking restrictions, sanctions exposure and regional insecurity impose constraints that enthusiasm cannot remove. Pakistan should nevertheless pursue lawful, transparent trade arrangements where feasible, improve border facilities and examine how its own ports can complement neighbouring networks.
Competition with Iranian routes should encourage better service. Assuming that Iran’s difficulties will permanently preserve Afghan dependence on Pakistan would be another version of the same error.
Central Asian connectivity also requires reciprocal access and confidence. Pakistan wants routes through Afghanistan to northern markets while frequently treating Afghan access to the sea as an instrument of political pressure. Other governments will price that inconsistency into their decisions. Durable transit arrangements must make disruption exceptional, specify procedures for emergencies and offer practical remedies when ordinary commercial movement is interrupted.
The deeper lesson concerns our understanding of influence. A neighbour that depends on us reluctantly is always searching for an exit. A neighbour that earns, produces and trades profitably with us has reasons to preserve the relationship. Neither arrangement guarantees peace. The second offers a broader foundation for it because businesses, workers and consumers acquire something tangible to defend. Pakistan should seek importance through the services it provides, rather than through the difficulties it can impose.
This requires an honest reassessment of the expectation that a congenial government in Kabul would translate into a compliant western neighbour. Afghan political actors have their own constituencies, ambitions and alliances. Shared religious language does not erase competing state interests.
Pakistan’s legitimate objective should be an Afghanistan that prevents its territory from being used for violence against us and honours workable agreements. Demanding political deference makes that already difficult task harder.
A practical response should begin with a sustained security mechanism involving Pakistan and Afghanistan, supported by China where both accept its role. It should establish regular contact, evidence-sharing procedures, agreed responses to specific threats and a way to review whether commitments have been implemented. Verification must be designed and accepted, not merely demanded in communiqués. Economic incentives can support this process, but cannot substitute for action against armed networks.
Commercial arrangements should proceed alongside those talks. Pre-cleared consignments, electronic seals, targeted inspection and designated freight channels can reduce risk without automatically stopping all lawful trade. Emergency restrictions may sometimes be necessary, but their scope, duration and review should be explicit.
Food, medicines and humanitarian consignments need protected procedures. Traders should receive timely notice and access to a complaints mechanism. These measures would not abolish security threats; they would make the response more discriminating.
Pakistan must also make its own routes worth choosing. Efficient ports are undermined by unpredictable clearance, repeated checking and uncertain charges further inland. A transport corridor succeeds when the entire journey works.
Customs reform, transparent fees, interoperable documentation and competitive logistics services deserve as much attention as new construction. For domestic producers using imported inputs, cumbersome taxes and delayed refunds can consume working capital even when the headline customs duty is low. A promise of connectivity means little if policy makes production and delivery unnecessarily costly.
CPEC should be assessed on the same practical basis. Road length and project announcements cannot by themselves establish economic transformation. The questions concern reliable services, productive investment, exports and employment. Pakistan should invite China to help integrate existing assets with Afghan and Central Asian networks, while insisting on commercial appraisal, transparent obligations and local benefits. Chinese finance is not an exemption from the need to examine costs and risks.
Communities along these routes must participate in the gains. Security arrangements that protect cargo while leaving surrounding settlements without opportunities will struggle to build durable confidence. Local employment, access roads, essential services and fair treatment of small traders are economic necessities. Women and young people should not disappear from the discussion simply because officials concerned primarily with borders and freight conduct corridor negotiations.
Parliament should require an annual account of the economic consequences of neighbourhood policy, including prolonged border restrictions. Such an assessment should distinguish demonstrable security gains from asserted ones, and immediate losses from longer-term diversion of trade. Provincial governments, exporters, transporters and border communities should be heard. Foreign policy is a public responsibility; its material consequences should not remain beyond public scrutiny.
Wakhan presents several possible futures. It may remain a limited road to a largely closed frontier. It may support modest bilateral trade if the missing arrangements are secured. Over time, it could become part of a wider network reaching Iran and other regional markets. None of these outcomes is certain. Pakistan would gain little by basing policy on the hope that the most ambitious version fails. Existing alternatives are already sufficient to make reliability a national economic interest.
Afghanistan’s rulers must understand that a transit economy cannot flourish alongside tolerance of cross-border militancy. China must protect its interests without assuming that infrastructure alone resolves political grievances.
Pakistan, for its part, must stop treating economic interdependence as a concession bestowed on others. It is also a source of jobs, revenue and security for our own people.
The proper answer to a road around Pakistan is to make the road through Pakistan dependable. We should defend our citizens firmly, negotiate with our neighbours persistently and measure policy by its results. The question raised by Wakhan is not whether China will abandon Pakistan. It is whether Pakistan will abandon the habits that make others search for ways around it.
Endnotes
- Adnan Aamir, “Afghanistan opens potential China trade route to Persian Gulf”, Nikkei Asia. Road details and feasibility qualifications are drawn from the report supplied for this article.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, “Wang Yi on the Outcomes of the Trilateral Meeting of Foreign Ministers of China, Afghanistan and Pakistan”, 21 May 2025.
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, regular press conference, 8 April 2026. Account of the Urumqi talks held on 1–7 April.
- Reuters, “At least 28 killed in Pakistan air operations on Afghanistan, UN says”, 28 June 2026. Includes the competing Pakistani and Afghan accounts.
- United Nations Security Council, sanctions-list narrative summary for Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. Cited for its designation, not for a current estimate of membership.
- World Bank, Afghanistan Economic Monitor, January 2026, trade discussion on pp. 4–5.
- World Bank, Afghanistan Economic Monitor, August 2026, pp. 3–6. Published 23 September 2026.
- World Bank, A Glass Half Full — The Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia, 2018, foreword p. xvi. The trade-potential estimate is historical.