In early February, marking a visit to China by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, the two countries issued a joint statement urging Afghanistan’s Taliban government to take action against all terrorist organisations operating within its borders, and to prevent the use of Afghan territory for hostile activities against other countries.

It is an issue that Islamabad has raised repeatedly in recent years, often accusing the Taliban administration in Kabul of providing refuge to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), according to a recent report by the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI).

Hostilities carried out by the TTP have included attacks on Pakistani security forces as well as Chinese nationals within Pakistan.

Yet, even as the largest foreign investor in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, China has thus far remained silent on the escalating tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

This may now change as Pakistan is set to assert control over the 350-km long Wakhan Corridor linking Afghan territory to China's Xinjiang region. It is a narrow strip of land that also serves as a regional buffer of sorts between Tajikistan and Pakistan. In December 2024, tensions in the region were only exacerbated by Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan, which in turn led to an increase in skirmishes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border according to CACI. At the time Pakistan targeted TTP hideouts in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. This reportedly led to the deaths of 46 individuals.

In response, the Taliban launched retaliatory attacks on multiple locations along the Pakistan border, killing one Pakistani soldier, CACI says.

China remains silent, though, even as a potential conflict between the two countries could jeopardise investments by Beijing worth many billions of dollars in both states. CACI attributes this to China opting for a "wait and watch" approach towards the ongoing hostilities.

A key factor behind China’s silence on the escalating tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan is its own security concerns regarding so-called Uyghur militancy in its Muslim-majority Xinjiang Autonomous Region, also called East Turkestan; a region which shares a border with Afghanistan.

If pushed, the Taliban could potentially leverage the "Uyghur card" CACI claims to destabilise Xinjiang / East Turkestan – a seemingly simple option given that the previous Taliban regime provided sanctuary to Uyghur militants, and a number of Uyghurs now live in Afghanistan.

As such, the Taliban has supposedly issued a warning to Beijing against adopting a pro-Pakistan stance in the ongoing conflict. In doing so, Kabul has cautioned that Islamabad is attempting to draw China into its proxy war. As a result, China remains apprehensive that Uyghur jihadists could gain ideological and operational support under Taliban rule.

Consequently, Beijing has sought to avoid antagonising the Taliban, opting instead for diplomatic engagement and substantial investments in Afghanistan’s energy, infrastructure, and mining sectors following the US withdrawal in 2021.

Potentially complicating the issue in recent days is a Taliban move towards currying favour with the US by releasing a US airline mechanic held for over two years in Afghanistan. The mechanic in question, George Glezmann, was apprehended in late 2022 while supposedly visiting the country as a tourist.

His release on March 20 was publicised following a meeting between the Taliban and US officials in Kabul.

According to a BBC report, the Taliban has called the release of Glezmann's an action carried out "on humanitarian grounds" and "a goodwill gesture." Crucially, however, the Afghan-US meeting is the highest level at which the countries have met since January, when President Donald Trump came to power.

Afghanistan's foreign ministry took to X (formerly Twitter) to mark the event, saying it demonstrated "Afghanistan's readiness to genuinely engage all sides, particularly the United States of America, on the basis of mutual respect and interests".

No response was seen by China in the immediate hours after the release of Glezmann or the comments made by authorities in Kabul.

Across the border in Pakistan, meanwhile, Islamabad has long aligned itself with China’s broader ambitions to expand its influence across South and Central Asia through Afghanistan long before the Taliban’s takeover of the country in 2021, and will be disappointed by the lack of open support from Beijing.

For China, though, the Wakhan Corridor is an all-important focal point in the region, serving as a key point of connectivity with South and Central Asia through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). If control over this narrow strip of land is lost, China’s BRI is broken – at least temporarily.

To this end, the corridor has the potential to function as a pivotal junction, enabling China to increase – or lose – its geopolitical and economic influence across the broader region. Furthermore, there are still a number of regional security concerns for China. Not least Beijing’s plans to increase the footprint of its existing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

In a bid to avoid loss of any future influence in the region, as CACI points out, China has already set up a military base in eastern Tajikistan, near the Wakhan Corridor; a facility from which to prevent terrorism and instability from spilling over from Afghanistan into Xinjiang / East Turkestan. In addition, Beijing has also built the Taxkorgan Airport on the Pamir Plateau in northwest Xinjiang, CACI reveals. Both facilities reinforce China’s military and economic influence in the region.

However, even as China opts for continued fence-sitting in the more-than-likely vain hope that the Afghan-Pakistan issues will one day sort themselves out, and as Beijing spends money hand over fist in Afghanistan on the one hand and finances multiple projects in Pakistan on the other, President Xi and co. are not the only ones playing the waiting game. The region’s Uyghurs have done so for decades, and continue to do so now – watching and waiting; until it suits them to act.