Turning the world map, there is a narrow passage on the border between Afghanistan and Xinjiang, and it is the existence of this passage that makes Afghanistan bordering china, this passage is called the Wakhan Corridor, and now he also has a nickname called the Afghan Corridor.
The Wakhan Corridor is now neither built nor opened, when the United States used anti-terrorism as an excuse to justly ask NATO to suggest that China open the Wakhan Corridor was directly rejected, and now these Western countries have been looking forward to China's opening of the Wakhan Corridor, but China's attitude is still resolute: want to be beautiful!
The green part is the Wakhan Corridor
Why did this transportation fortress, which facilitates china's contact with Countries in the Middle East such as Afghanistan, once became a hot topic of international controversy? And what is the strategic significance of the Wakhan Corridor for our country? Why are both Afghanistan and my country determined not to develop or build this place?
The reason is very simple, the most critical point is to maintain their own safety, first of all, let's understand the Wakhan Corridor.
The Wakhan Corridor directly connects Afghanistan and China
The Wakhan Corridor, also known as the Afghan Corridor, is more than 400 kilometers long and about 100 kilometers long in China, and the border between Afghanistan and China is adjacent to it, in an east-west direction, with Afghanistan in the west and Xinjiang in the east.
This corridor stretches from the Pamir River and its tributary in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River in the west, to the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, china in the east, adjacent to Tajikistan on the southern edge of the Pamir Plateau in the north, and bordering Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in the eastern part of the most dangerous section of the Xingdu Kush Mountains in the south.
Pamir Plateau Tibet
According to this geographical distribution, it is enough to reflect the important strategic significance of the Wakhan Corridor, the north and south are mountains with an average altitude of more than 4500 meters, which is a natural danger, it is not only the most convenient and fastest gateway to enter the Middle East in the northwest of China, connecting South Asia and Central Asia, and its existence is equivalent to the Qin State according to hangu pass in the Warring States period.
The widest part of the Wakhan Corridor can reach 75 kilometers, so it is not as narrow as we think, precisely because the location of the Wakhan Corridor is relatively special, and the strategic significance is very important, in fact, this place was also a must-fight place in West Asia, South Asia, including our country in ancient times.
The Silk Road opened up during the Western Han Dynasty
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > historically, the Wakhan Corridor was under Chinese jurisdiction</h1>
The earliest recorded intersection in China is in the Western Han Dynasty, the Western Han Dynasty Zhang Qian opened the Silk Road, one of the roads is through the Wahan Corridor directly connect South Asia and Central Asia, so this road in the Western Han Dynasty and even the Later Dynasty is also known as the Western Regions South Road.
According to the Book of Han and the Biography of the Western Regions:
"From Yumen, there are two roads from Yangguan out of the western region, from the north of the Shanshan Mountains to the north, the Bo River to the west, to Shache as the south road, and the south road to the west over the Green Ridge is out of the Great Moon Clan to rest."
Regarding the Wakhan Corridor, both Faxian's Records of the Buddha's Kingdom and Xuanzang's Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty are both true records.
The Sui Dynasty began to operate and manage the Western Regions, the Sui Emperor once led an army to defeat Tuguhun and restore the corridor passage, until the early days of the establishment of the Tang Dynasty, the Western Turk forces were extremely powerful, this passage was blocked again, and later Tang Taizong responded to the request of Yanqi and other small countries in the Western Regions, sent Li Jing and other five-way armies to pacify Tuguhun, which reopened the Southern Route of the Western Regions opened during the Western Han Dynasty.
Territory at the height of the Tang Dynasty
In the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, Emperor Taizong of Tang sent a large army to suppress Gaochang under the pretext of not paying tribute to gaochang, took Gaochang in one fell swoop, and set up an anxi capital protectorate in xizhou, with the intention of setting up a government to garrison the area for a long time to resist the sneak attacks of the Western Turks and Uighur forces, thus ensuring the long-term occupation of the old land of Gaochang.
Later, the Western Great Food Empire rose and quickly annexed the Persian Empire, and the Western Turks' fear and pressure on the Great Food were self-evident, so that they proposed marriage to the Tang Dynasty to negotiate peace, and seeing that the Western Turks took the initiative to show weakness, Li Shimin proposed to take Guizi and Onion Ridge as dowry gifts, and later Li Shimin moved the Anxi Capital Protectorate from Xizhou to Guizi.
In the twenty-second year of Zhenguan, the Western Turks surrendered, and by that time the Tang Dynasty had effectively controlled the oases south of the Tianshan Mountains and the Tarim Basin, and its sphere of influence had affected the Central Asian states that had once belonged to the Western Turks.
Unexpectedly, the following year, Tang Taizong died of illness, and at that time, the Tang Dynasty's management of the Western Regions was in its infancy, and the newly appointed Tang Emperor Tang Gaozong, fearing huge human and financial pressure, relaxed his jurisdiction over the four towns in the Western Regions, and the Western Turks took the opportunity to rebel, and It took Tang Gaozong seven years to regain these places.
After quelling the Western Turk Ashinahelu rebellion, the Tang Dynasty, with its victory and prestige, feared the small neighboring states, easily took over the Wakhan Corridor and the Tocharian region west of it from the former Western Turks.
Later, the intervention of the Tubo state made the situation in the Wakhan Corridor area extremely complicated, and the passage was repeatedly blocked by the Tubo State with heavy troops, and because of this, the Tang Dynasty and the Tubo State experienced many wars, but later the Tang Dynasty regained control of the Wakhan Corridor area.
However, after the Anshi Rebellion, although the states of Humi and Tochara still had their hearts set on the Tang, in fact the Tang Dynasty did not have much energy to govern the western region, and then Tubo took the opportunity to move west and regain control of the Wakhan Corridor, and since then the Tang Dynasty's territory has also withdrawn from this area.
It was not until the establishment of the Yuan Dynasty to destroy Tibet that the Wakhan Corridor returned to Chinese jurisdiction.
At the end of the 19th century, due to the wanton expansion of Tsarist Russia, China and Russia had a dispute near the Pamir Plateau, while at the same time, Tsarist Russia fought with Britain in Afghanistan for control of Central Asia.
In order to avoid further deterioration of relations and ease the situation, Britain and Russia, without regard to the opposition of Afghanistan and our country at the time, openly signed the Agreement on the Pamir Region's Sphere of Influence on March 11, 1895, which not only delineated the spheres of influence of the two countries in the Pamir region, but also designated the Wakhan Corridor as a buffer zone for the two countries.
It was not until 1963 that China and Afghanistan signed an agreement formally demarcating the border between china and Afghanistan in the Wakhan Corridor area.
After the outbreak of the Afghan war in 2001, the Wakhan Corridor has always been regarded by the West as a "terrorist corridor" because of its relatively special geographical location, but in fact, since the 1990s, the Wakhan Corridor has been controlled by the Afghan Northern Alliance, not in the hands of the Taliban and Al-Qaida, so the situation in the corridor is still relatively stable.
However, the Western camp led by the United States has always demanded that China open the Wakhan Corridor on the grounds that it is convenient for the anti-terrorist activities of the US troops stationed in Afghanistan.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > why are neither China nor Afghanistan developing the Wakhan Corridor area? For our country, there are two main key reasons: one is to prevent terrorism, and the other is to prevent the United States. </h1>
The first is anti-terrorism, as we all know, the Middle East has always been too peaceful, and the Wakhan Corridor is also known as the forefront of China's counter-terrorism and anti-separatism, and through the Wakhan Corridor and China border almost all the Islamic world.
There is no shortage of radicalism, and if they want to enter our country to do things, the most convenient channel is naturally through the Wakhan Corridor, and controlling the entrance and exit of the Wakhan Corridor is to choke the throat of their free movement.
The second and most important reason is to defend the United States.
You must know that since the end of the war in Afghanistan, the United States has actually taken over the Afghan government directly, since then, the United States has continuously sent troops into Afghanistan, which has previously reached tens of thousands, and Afghanistan borders our country, which is a potential and huge threat to our country.
The real intention of the United States to open up the Wakhan Corridor for China is not as simple as we think, and the purpose of the United States in using the Wahan Corridor is not only in the Afghan battlefield, nor just in Xinjiang and Central Asia, but in the next bigger game.
The Japanese critic Masahiro Miyazaki once circled around China for a year and finally concluded that China is a country completely surrounded by geopolitics.
The encirclement is made up of nuclear-weapon states, military bases, Dupin, a wide range of military and political alliances, casinos and terrorism, starting from Japan, passing through the South China Sea region, to Afghanistan to Central Asia, and now involving the northern Mongolia region, in this encirclement, the Wakhan Corridor is an important chess piece.
Since ancient times, those who cannot seek the overall situation cannot seek a domain, and those who cannot seek the world cannot seek a moment, and the strategic layout of the United States in Central Asia has determined that China cannot open the Wakhan Corridor for the time being.
After the end of the Cold War, the famous American strategist Brzezinski devised a road to world domination for the United States, which was mainly divided into three routes: one was the Far East, the other was the European region, and the other was the Far West.
According to the current situation, the focus of the US strategy is mainly on the Middle East and the Far East, the Middle East has a large number of oil resources, the United States will certainly not give up, and there is a big country in the Far East is rising, which is not optimistic for the United States itself.
The 9/11 incident in the United States was both a disaster and an opportunity for the United States, because the United States had an excuse to stir up trouble in the Middle East, launch war, and achieve its strategic intentions.
The United States, on the pretext of counter-terrorism, unites Israel and European countries to attack the Islamic world, on the one hand, it wants to continue to squeeze Russia's living space, and at the same time, it has the other eye on our country.
In this way, Afghanistan has become very important, because the geopolitics of Afghanistan is more special, so in fact Afghanistan can also be called the combination of China, Russia and the Islamic world of the three major battlefields, the United States once withdrew troops from Iraq and stationed troops in Afghanistan, the main consideration is this.
The United States once infiltrated Central Asia and Pakistan on the grounds that it could not catch ostensible bin Laden, and the United States wanted to disrupt Pakistan and then strengthen Pakistan's dependence on the United States, so that the US military had more freedom of action in Pakistan, and the actual purpose of the United States was to control Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
Although Pakistan regards nuclear weapons as its own thing, in the eyes of the United States, Pakistan's nuclear weapons do belong to the Islamic world, and for the United States, it is a huge threat.
The United States can stabilize Pakistan, coupled with Central Asian countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, so that it can form a circle of encirclement against Iran, a disobedient power at that time, and prepare for a complete end to the war in the Islamic world.
But then the United States decisively abandoned Pakistan and chose a new ally India, in the India-Pakistan conflict, the United States blatantly betrayed Pakistan to support India, so that the relationship between the United States and Pakistan continued to deteriorate, which also promoted the formation of China's "Pakistan Railway".
In fact, with regard to the development of the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan, which has close contacts with China, has repeatedly proposed to open up this passage and establish direct contacts between the two countries.
At that time, there were many people in China (known) who actually approved of the US borrowing behavior on the grounds of economic development, I don't know what they really thought, when the US public opinion invited China to go to Afghanistan to mine, and then the US military could provide protection, just such a simple trap actually lured a lot of Chinese people to support.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > these people certainly do not know that once the United States sets up a base in China, the motive will certainly not be simple. </h1>
The northwest region is an important production base for China's energy, most of the natural gas and oil resources originating and imported are imported from these places, and the number of Han chinese in the Wakhan Corridor area is extremely rare, while the surrounding countries such as Tajikistan and Afghanistan are under the control of the United States.
And if the United States really sets up a material base in the Wakhan Corridor area, then the Taliban are likely to enter China's territory to sneak attack the US military, then at that time our country will fight or not, this is a big problem, if not to fight, it will involve the issue of sovereignty, if it fights, it will affect the relations between China and the Islamic world, in short, a dilemma.
Therefore, a small Wakhan Corridor, in the process of the great power game, actually acts as a dead hole, and the Wakhan Corridor can also be regarded as our national gate, so this place must be adhered to and not careless.