Text/Cheng Jing
Editing/Lacquer
The "Chinese in Afghanistan" used to be a small group of just over a hundred people. In August last year, the situation in Afghanistan was turned upside down, with the vast majority of Chinese leaving with the evacuation plane, leaving only single digits at one point.
Now, nearly half a year into power by the Afghan Taliban government, some chinese businessmen who left have returned to Afghanistan, and others who remain behind are exploring new opportunities in this "neighbor that cannot be moved."
A number of Chinese businessmen and researchers in Afghanistan told Phoenix Weekly that the Taliban government is very grateful to the Chinese businessmen who have stayed behind in the chaos and has a very positive attitude towards Chinese projects, but due to the current severe economic and financial crisis in Afghanistan and the loss of purchasing power after the withdrawal of Western countries, it is still unknown to what extent the new government can help the development of China-Arab economic and trade relations.
When pine nuts were acquired, they had a "narrow road encounter" with the Taliban
The mountains stretch long, with tall, dense pine forests stretching down the slopes to the foothills, covered with snow, revealing towering tree tips, and the air in early winter is cold and fresh.
Chinese Wang Han (not his real name) saw this in November 2020 when he traveled to the mountains of Afghanistan's Khost province to buy pine nuts. This is the western edge of the Suleiman Mountain in the Hindu Kush Mountains, with an average altitude of more than 1,000 meters, plenty of sunshine, and the southwest monsoon blowing from the Indian Ocean makes the mountain snowy and watery, suitable for the growth of pine trees.
The mountainous areas of more than 10 provinces, including Horst and Paktika, are known for producing pine nuts with full pine nuts and excellent taste, and there are several pine nut dried fruit distribution centers scattered in the mountain towns. Among them, Khost Province accounts for more than 40% of the country's pine nut production, and many families have been engaged in pine nut picking, packaging and marketing for generations.
Wang Han came to Afghanistan as early as 2018, having worked with the Afghan government for two years, and was eventually exhausted by several lengthy and inefficient contracts. Later, he discovered the business opportunity of pine nuts under the introduction of a friend.
Pine nuts from Khost Province, Afghanistan
In the early winter of 2020, Wang Han and his friends decided to go to the mountains of Khost Province to select goods. Khost province borders the Waziristan region of western Pakistan, where the complex mountainous terrain has become a natural sanctuary for bin Laden's al-Qaida militants trained since the last fall of the Taliban regime. At the same time, the Taliban controlled a large number of rural areas across the country, and the mountainous areas were scattered and brave territory.
Wang Han and his friends hired a local driver, and the three of them got into an unremarkable old car and set off at 9 p.m. the first night. Wang Han explained that in order to avoid unexpected situations on the road, long-distance buses often have to take the night road straight to the destination. The journey from Kabul to Khost was not very long, and according to his recollection, it was almost all gravel roads, plus the snow was thick in winter, the road was not in good condition, and the 250-kilometer journey was a full eight-hour journey.
Eventually, they reached a mountain village. The houses of the mountain people are scattered on the slopes of several neighboring hills, and here there are about a dozen households, walking a mile or two, and eight households and ten households. Coinciding with the season when pine nuts are ripe, the old and young in the village are out of action, Wang Han described, "young and strong climbed to the tree to beat pine cones, knock pine nuts." The pine nuts knocked down, some people in the village collected them door to door, collected them and then used them for us to buy."
After the regime change, the homepage of the Afghan Pine Nut Production Union social media showed "closed"
It was early in the morning after he and his friends had finished picking pine nuts and loading them. The sky was dark, and the group set off again. Halfway through, an armed man with a gun blocked the way of a carload of people, and Wang Han thought to himself, "It's over, I've met the Taliban."
"I was so scared that my heart was racing. I thought to myself, 'I'll give you what you [the Taliban] want.' Just don't hurt my people. At that time, Wang Han had never "confronted" the Taliban head-on, and he had prepared for the worst in his heart, "If more than ten tons of pine nuts were all withheld to the Taliban, I would also recognize it."
Fortunately, the other party did not ask for his goods, but collected a "toll" of 50,000 Pakistani rupees (about 1,800 yuan) according to the amount of goods and then released them.
Wang Han explained that Khost province is close to Pakistan, and transactions on the Afghan side are mostly carried out in rupees. In fact, a few years ago, "Afghan pine nuts" were not yet named in the Chinese market, and were even named "Brazilian pine nuts", that is, pine nuts produced in the mountains of western Pakistan. This is not only because pine nuts are also produced in the mountains of western Pakistan, but also because afghanistan did not have direct transportation channels to China in the early years, and could only be exported to other countries through Pakistan.
Mountainous region of Horst Province
Afghan pine nuts are on the hot search, but business is not so easy to do
It was Wang Han's first and last trip to the Horst Mountains.
Pine nuts are a seasonal crop. He had planned to buy goods in the mountains the following winter, but in August 2021, the Taliban seized power with a bloodless force, and Afghanistan "changed the sky" overnight. Wang Han was worried about danger, and he never left Kabul after the political situation was stable.
Since then, Mr. Wang has entrusted local buyers, who buy pine nuts from farmers in the mountains and transport them to factories in Kabul. The factory employs female workers, hand-selects the good pine nuts, transports these pine nuts to the country, and then the domestic factory stir-frys and sells them, the whole process usually does not exceed 20 days.
Wang Han relies on the "Pine Nuts Sky Corridor" opened in November 2018 between China and Argentina. This route from Kabul direct flight to Shanghai, pine nuts from Kabul in the afternoon to load the plane, after six and a half hours of flight can reach Shanghai, domestic time early in the morning to receive goods, customs clearance, immediately after the customs can enter the factory, the convenience is obvious.
Afghan pine nuts. Images courtesy of respondents
The annual production of Afghan pine nuts is 23,000 tons, but in the past it was often slow to sell due to civil wars and inconvenient transportation, or could only be smuggled to Pakistan at very low prices. According to statistics, only 400 tons of pine nuts were exported to China in Afghanistan in 2017. Afghanistan's Economy Ministry has predicted that if the smuggling of pine nuts through Pakistan is stopped, Afghanistan's annual income from pine nuts will increase to $1 billion.
When the "Pine Nuts Air Corridor" project was launched, in less than three months, more than 1,000 tons of Afghan pine nuts flew directly to China.
A year later, Afghanistan's Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock, Hashmatullah Ghafoori, announced an ambitious plan: In the five years from 2019, Afghanistan will export 62,000 tons of pine nuts to China, which will generate $2.2 billion in revenue for farmers, traders and the country's finances. Since then, the annual export volume of Afghan pine nuts has remained between 3,000 tons and 5,000 tons.
However, the good times were short-lived. After the Taliban seized power in August 2021, Afghanistan's official channels for foreign exchanges were almost completely disrupted. Subsequently, the United States imposed financial control on Afghanistan, with cash shortages in Afghanistan, a rapid depreciation of the local currency, soaring prices, and a serious economic and humanitarian crisis.
So the Taliban government asked China for help, hoping that China would help them. The special office of the Chinese side renewed the charter flight permit and once again opened the "Pine Nuts Air Corridor" between China and Argentina. In November of the same year, Chinese e-commerce anchor Li Jiaqi partnered with CCTV reporter Wang Bingbing for the first time on the e-commerce platform to "bring goods" for Afghan pine nuts, and after a link, 120,000 cans of pine nuts quickly sold out. Soon after, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian also "endorsed" Afghan pine nuts at a foreign ministry press conference.
For a time, "Afghan pine nuts" appeared on the hot search list of China's social platforms. With the concern for the political changes in Afghanistan and the concern for "people from afar", many netizens flocked to the online shop selling dried fruits and asked, "Is there any Afghan pine nuts?" ”
Pine nut selection factory
Of the first 120,000 cans of pine sold by Li Jiaqi, Wang Han shipped goods to China through the first route after the restoration. He is very grateful to the Internet celebrity anchors for "bringing goods", thinking that this has indeed helped open up sales channels for Afghan pine nuts, but overall, the business this year is not as easy to do as the outside world imagines.
He admitted that 2021 is a big year for pine nut production, but the fruit is small, the price is low, and more fatally, after the WITHDRAWAL OF the United States, the logistics subsidies originally given by the US government to afghan airlines are no longer issued, and the freight of pine nuts once soared from $1.5 per kilogram to $4.50, and only fell back to about $4 at the beginning of this year.
Compared with the shipment price of pine nuts, such a high transportation cost made Wang Han feel stressed: even the best quality of large fruits, the price of pine nuts at the beginning of the season was only 185 yuan per kilogram; the price of small fruits was 100 yuan per kilogram, but the lowest fell to 80 yuan.
On the other hand, the "Pine Nuts Air Corridor" has limited positions, and Wang Han sometimes has to "grab the position", otherwise he will have to wait for the next batch. He thought about transporting pine nuts back to China by sea through Pakistan, but the sea travel is long and there are many uncontrollable factors, "Pine nuts are a very delicate fruit, floating at sea for a long time, prone to moisture and mold." When a problem occurs in one link during shipping, the quality of pine nuts is greatly reduced."
Compared with Chinese merchants with manufacturer channels, the pine nuts purchased by local businessmen in Pakistan and Afghanistan can only be put into cold storage once they are unsalable, so that these pine nuts will lose moisture, and the loss of quality is the loss of money.
Wang Han said that in the trolleys of Kabul street vendors, there are usually small, not-so-good quality pine nuts, which used to be sold cheaply and loved by locals, "but since they found that they can be sold to China to make money, the price has risen year by year, and everyone is reluctant to eat it, and they take all the good quality to export."
On November 6, 2018, at the launch ceremony before the first pine nut charter flight took off, then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said, "With the export of pine nuts to China and other countries." Our goal is to turn Afghanistan into an exporter. ”
Ghani's speech was ambitious, but in fact, years of war have made Afghanistan, with its weak economic base, extremely dependent on imports and a huge trade deficit with other countries. In 2018, Afghanistan's annual exports reached a record $875 million, but imports from China alone exceeded that figure ($978 million).
In 2021, after the Taliban came to power, the income of little pine nuts became more precious. Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Afghanistan Research Center of Lanzhou University, pointed out to Phoenix Weekly that the value of pine nuts is high, and the price has risen year by year, and now that there is an economic crisis in Afghanistan, the cash flow brought by pine nuts can alleviate the liquidity crisis to a certain extent.
But he also reminded that pine nuts, as a small pillar industry, have great significance but limited room for expansion: Afghanistan can meet the export standards of only 7,000 to 8,000 tons of pine nuts per year, and in the natural state, a pine tree grows for more than 20 years to bear fruit, picking wild pine trees that rely on mountainous areas, and the benefits generated at the moment are difficult to be copied on a large scale.
Pine forests in Khost Province, Afghanistan
Zhu Yongbiao believes that in the future, in addition to the trade of dried fruits, there are many areas that can be explored in the light industry projects between China and Argentina in the "short, flat, fast, small and beautiful", such as epidemic prevention materials and food processing, while the former has not yet been stationed.
The new government's finances are tight, and everyone "tightens their belts"
In November 2021, Meng Xiaoli, who had been away from Afghanistan for nearly a year, returned to Kabul.
Ms. Meng runs an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and voltage regulator business, a device that protects computer servers from power outages. Afghanistan's power infrastructure is inadequate, and power outages are commonplace, but digital offices cannot be without computers. In the past, many of the international organizations, foreign companies, and public institutions such as the Afghan government, schools, and hospitals in Afghanistan were Ms. Meng's clients.
Meng Xiaoli quit her job in China in 2003 and came to Afghanistan with her husband to start a business. The husband was a power supply engineer, and the two quickly set the business direction. At that time, there was no concept of warranty period for products sold in Afghanistan, and Meng Xiaoli added a three-year warranty service to her equipment. Because of her integrity and dedication, she has gradually become a celebrity in the Afghan IT market, and the power supply brand she runs has become a local unknown existence. She herself became president of the Afghan Chinese Businessmen's Association.
In August last year, Meng Xiaoli, who was in China, was unable to witness the scene of Afghanistan 'changing the sky' overnight. Unable to put down her business, she returned to Afghanistan in November.
Meng Xiaoli, who has short hair, never wore a headscarf in the past, and before she set off this time, her heart was straight ahead, so she prepared a headscarf. On the day she arrived in Kabul, Meng Xiaoli found that the men on the street all grew beards, and the clean and tidy faces of young men in the past had not seen a single one, and she suddenly felt, "This is no longer the Afghanistan of the past."
When she went out for the first time, Meng Xiaoli put on an Arab-style lady's robe, but felt extremely inconvenient. On the street, she saw some local women wearing no robes, but colorful coats. So she no longer wears a robe, but wears a headscarf when she goes out.
Soon after, Meng Xiaoli went to the bank to run an errand, and she was received by a female employee wearing a headscarf, who chatted with her and told her that the Taliban had come a few days ago and asked her to cover her nose and mouth and wear gloves, but she refused on the grounds that wearing gloves was inconvenient for work.
A few days later, she went to the bank again and saw the female employee, who was wrapped in a headscarf but still had her face exposed. Meng Xiaoli speculated that this was because the Taliban wanted to restore sharia norms on the one hand, and on the other hand, they had to cater to the opinions of the outside world, so they only made "suggestions" for the dress code. Most of the local young people have heard from their parents about the harshness of the Taliban when they last came to power, and they will often do it out of fear.
In September 2021, a Taliban militant patrolled the streets
But today, the economic situation across Afghanistan can only be described as "dismal.". Meng Xiaoli's shop is located in The Computer City in Kabul, and it sells IT equipment such as computers and printers around it. When the regime changed last year, many shopkeepers suffered losses, and some of the bills signed with the previous government had not yet been settled, and the government collapsed, and some merchants even lost more than $1 million.
As international agencies pulled out, she also lost a large number of customers, and order volumes fell by 70%-80%. The new government's business is not easy to do, Meng Xiaoli said, "now the government at all levels are Taliban officials, they are not highly educated, the demand for computers is not large, naturally will not come to configure the power supply."
In her view, the new government's financial situation is also extremely tense, and it is "tightening the belt to survive" from top to bottom. She happened to catch a glimpse of the new government officials eating lunch, only rice and beans on the plate, "Before I went to the government to talk about things, the other side would entertain tea and candy; recently, when I went again, the other party only provided tea, not even candy."
Due to the severe cash shortage in Afghanistan, the Taliban government imposed controls on banks, allowing each person to withdraw up to $200 per week (later relaxed to $400) and corporate accounts to withdraw only 5% of the total amount per week.
As soon as the capital control was implemented, Chinese businessmen in Afghanistan were bitter. Meng Xiaoli did not dare to deposit money in the bank account anymore, and could only lock the earned cash in the safe. She was told that if she wanted to withdraw a large amount of cash at once, she had to turn to the black market — for example, to withdraw $20,000 from an account, she would have to pay a $2,000 "benefit fee" to the "manager." Although she has never verified it, she believes that such operations must exist, "now everyone is too poor, in order to withdraw money, any way will be used."
Meng Xiaoli recently heard that a local bank's bidding was not attended, and the bidding was eventually dropped because it was necessary to deposit a deposit with the bank to participate in the bidding. She calculated, "Assuming that the profit of a business can be 20%, now afghanis are depreciating very quickly, and when the government pays, the money is no longer worth it, and it is likely that it will not be able to get out of the account, which means that it will lose a sum of money."
In September 2021, people lined up outside banks to withdraw money on the streets of Kabul
Meng Xiaoli, who has been in business in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years, admits that the recent situation is almost to the limit of what she can bear, "I don't know if the future will be worse than the present, but since I am back, all I can do is wait."
Three Afghan employees at her company are still holding on, and they all cherish the job, "Now in a family of seven or eight people, it is better to have an adult to earn money." Ordinary people do not have the luxury of quality of life, can survive the most difficult time, do not starve to death is very good. ”
But she still has a glimmer of hope for Afghanistan's future, "if the Taliban government can be more inclusive, and there are governments in the world that recognize it, embassies and international institutions may come back." But it all depends on the actions of the current government, and if it makes the world slowly accept it, things will get better little by little. ”
The streets of Kabul, a little girl begging outside the car window
"Everyone else ran away, only you Chinese still alive"
Speaking of the bridgehead for Chinese companies to enter the Afghan market, we cannot fail to mention Chinatown.
Located in the center of Kabul, Chinatown is a 11-storey building with a construction area of 20,000 square meters, including shopping malls and offices. When Afghanistan "changed the sky" in August last year, most of the Chinese in Afghanistan left with the Chinese evacuation plane, and several managers of Chinatown stayed, which once became an important channel for voices from Afghanistan to the country.
Chinatown was established in 2015, and after several years of preparation and investment promotion, it began trial operation in September 2019 and was officially opened in July 2020. According to Executive Director Yu Minghui, the main products of the mall are injection molding machines in Zhejiang, wire and cable in Tianjin, daily chemical products in Hebei and shoes, clothing and coatings made in Jiangsu.
Li Xijing, director of operations in Chinatown, told Phoenix Weekly that in the past, Afghan businessmen came to China to purchase goods, and the quality of goods was uneven, mainly cheap small commodities, resulting in a generally poor impression of "Made in China" among Afghans; they hoped to introduce high-end products into Afghanistan through Chinatown to attract white-collar workers and people with higher spending power.
Chinatown, Afghanistan
Li Xijing has been based in Kabul since September 2019. But not long after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Chinese businessmen's outbound inspection activities have been greatly reduced, which has a huge impact on his work. He believes that he has made a full investigation of the Afghan market before he came, and he has a prejudgment of the situation, but he still did not expect the outbreak of the epidemic and lasted for so long.
Since the spring of 2021, the Taliban's "counter-offensive" has put the whole country into a state of tension, Western countries and international institutions have withdrawn, and the entire market has fallen into weakness. Although he had already made plans for regime change, Li Xijing still did not expect the situation to change so suddenly.
On August 15, upon learning that the Taliban had entered Kabul, Li Xijing immediately demanded that merchants in Chinatown put away their supplies and close the roller shutters to prevent social unrest from impacting the shops. The employees also lowered the three flags of China, Afghanistan and the mall at the entrance of the mall.
To be on the safe side, Chinatown suspended operations for a few days, but soon resumed operations. Li Xijing said that because the mall faces high-end customers, the mall security guards in the past almost do not conduct body searches on customers, and for a period of time after the Taliban took power, the mall strengthened security and conducted body searches on all outsiders. But when the situation was relatively stable in mid-to-late September, the body search also stopped.
Outside The Chinese City of Kabul are erected three flags of China, Afghanistan and Shangcheng
Like other businesses, merchants in Chinatown are facing the problem of declining purchasing power of Afghans in the face of the economic crisis. In the past six months, the Afghani has lost half of its value against the dollar, so much so that prices have risen by 50 per cent or even doubled. Due to multiple factors, Afghans are struggling to survive, let alone the purchase of consumer goods.
In the past six months, Li Xijing has received no less than ten door-to-door or telephone inquiries, all of which have come to look for jobs or volunteered to be translators, including many young people who have received higher education and even studied in China. Due to poor business conditions, Chinatown did not accept them. On the other hand, after the Taliban came to power, the mall, fearing trouble, laid off four Afghan female employees and wanted to wait until the business situation stabilized before hiring them.
During the Ghani government, Chinatown applied to the government to install a guardrail in the square, and the procedures were still in progress, and the government collapsed. Li Xijing recalled that when the formalities were completed, the mall sent Afghan colleagues and the Taliban to contact, and when the other party heard that it was sent from Chinatown, he immediately reported to the superior, who personally received the colleague, asked the Chinese side what troubles and difficulties there were, and promised that if necessary, he could find him, and he would come forward to deal with it.
Li Xijing said that after the regime change, many people approached the management of Chinatown to establish contacts, but they remained cautious and refused one by one. It was not until the formation of the Interim Government that they began to resume external contacts.
After this battle, the Afghan Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Public Works and Railways and other departments have all "changed blood", and only the "National Trade Office", which assumes government functions but is a non-governmental organization, has not changed its personnel.
To Li Xijing's relief, these departments have expressed their gratitude for the work of Chinatown, "Some people say, 'People from other countries have all run away, only you Chinese are still here, which is in itself our support.'" We will also support your work'. As a result, the 300 MW coal-fired power project pledged by the Chinese side to invest in Afghanistan in May 2021 has been able to continue to advance, and a shipping container stuck at customs during the regime change has also been smoothly cleared with the assistance of the new government.
Li Xijing also remembers that when meeting with the new minister of public works, the other party said that the Chinatown project was doing well, and they had heard about it earlier. But in addition, merchants in Chinatown have not yet felt the substantial change in the business environment after the "change of day". Li Xijing speculated that this was because the new government was busy with national construction and people's livelihood issues, and other aspects could not be taken care of.
At the beginning of 2022, half of the employees in the Chinatown team have returned to work. Next, Li Xijing and his colleagues will organize the first China Commodity Technology Exhibition and the second China-Arab Business Fair in Afghanistan. Last year's expo attracted 156 Chinese enterprises to participate, exhibiting goods including electric vehicles, heaters, fans, plastic products, furniture, daily chemicals and other Chinese goods, attracting the attention of foreign companies in Afghanistan, and this year will join the technical exchange link.
When Mr. Li talked to Afghans, he hoped to introduce Chinese technology or promote production and foreign trade by co-founding companies with Chinese. In his view, the Minghai Iron and Steel Plant invested and built by the Chinese side in Afghanistan in 2008 is one of the best examples - since the Minghai was put into operation, Afghanistan has gradually established 25 steel mills, "It can be said that the steel mills we Chinese have driven the development of an industry in Afghanistan." ”
Chinese have their own set of "rules of survival"
In the past, Wang Han sat in an office in Kabul and dealt with the Afghan government every day. The Chinese enterprise he worked in at that time contracted the local photovoltaic energy project, but none of the civil servants had relevant professional backgrounds, and they could not put forward targeted modifications when approving the project, but often paid attention to some unrelated core technology issues.
"According to the idea of Chinese, the power station must be designed to be rectangular, and the internal space can be reasonably arranged for equipment." But they had to change the square roof to a circle, but I had never seen a house with a round roof in Kabul. Wang Han felt that the other party seemed to think that the more questions they asked, the more they appeared professional.
Wang Han remembered that every time the revised plan was submitted, the other party's reply time was as long as two or three months, and the reply that finally waited was always accompanied by new revisions, which meant that it might take another two or three months to wait. In this way, the two projects that Wang Han's company took up for trial were not approved until the collapse of the former government.
In Wang Han's eyes, nepotism, corpse vegetarian food, and low efficiency within the Ghani government can only enter the government department to work if they drag their relationships and have a background.
When he switched to the pine nut trade, he saw the staggering gap between rich and poor in Afghanistan. The pine nuts purchased by Wang Han are usually handed over to a sorting factory in Kabul, and the female workers involved in the sorting work 8 hours a day, the daily wage is 250 afghan afghanis (about 16 yuan), which is more than 300 yuan a month. ”
Women workers pick pine nuts in the factory
But he felt that Afghans knew how to be happy, "buy a bun, eat it for two or three people, and pair it with some tea, it's a breakfast."
In the past six months, Wang Han feels that there have been fewer frequent explosions and terrorist attacks in the past, but because ordinary people's lives are sloppy, petty theft and robbery have become more and more common. The driver he hired was recently robbed of his phone, watch and wallet. For safety, his "survival rule" is the same: people get on the bus in the courtyard, try not to go out except for errands, and never go out at night.
Although the current situation is not good, he still plans to stay in Afghanistan to do business, and when there is no pine nut, he will do some dry fruit and saffron business. He did not set a time limit and a target for his stay, "depending on the output of Afghanistan, on domestic demand, on the security situation here, some of which are difficult to predict."
"It's hard for anyone to say how long they'll be here. There is business to do, there is work to do, just stay," Wang Han said with a smile, "it's all for life." ”
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