Some of the larger villages are connected by a single dirt track, often made impassible by the waters of the River Panj.
Some villages are more than four days' walk to Ishkashim. The nearest big town from here — Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan — is a three-day drive. The isolation keeps the corridor like a time capsule. We look over to the border towards Tajikistan, with its electricity, paved roads and mobile phone signal, and say that it's like looking years into the future.
For more than 2, years, the Wakhan Corridor has been the homeland of the Wakhi people and is now home to a population of around 12, Here, women do not wear the burqa, and there are no mosques; instead, the Wakhi visit jamatkhanas houses of prayer that also serve as community halls for conducting village business.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan that would be unthinkable. The Wakhi are farmers, cultivating wheat, barley, peas, potatoes, and apple and apricot trees in the semi-arid conditions of the corridor; their fields fed by melt water from mountain glaciers. Wealthier families have sheep and goats along with a few camels, yaks, horses and donkeys. We also have the 'Chinir', which is our festival in early August to celebrate the start of the barley harvest.
In the towns of Afghanistan, the five daily prayers form the structure of the day, but here, we feel a great connection to the land, and whilst we pray daily, the rhythm of life revolves more around the fields, the seasons and nature. One of the most distinctive traditions of the Wakhan is the centuries-old game of buzkhasi, sometimes described as rugby on horseback with the body of a goat as a ball.
Thought to be an early pre-cursor to polo, buzkashi has no rules and no sides. There is certainly no sense of "fair play", as competitors will punch and whip each other in an effort to steal the goat, and broken bones are not uncommon. You've successfully subscribed to Harvard International Review.
Next, complete checkout for full access to Harvard International Review. Welcome back! You've successfully signed in. Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content. Villagers in the Wakhan Corridor. Header photo by John Winnie, Jr. By Chris Devonshire-Ellis. International media has focused on Afghanistan these past few days and rightly so as the appalling situation left behind continues its descent into utter chaos.
While the Russians will largely provide security in the region, China will provide the financing and help build the infrastructure and encourage industrialization and trade in return for peace and security.
There are several options for China to instigate trade routes with Afghanistan. In this article I discuss the Wakhan Corridor, the finger of Afghanistan that reaches east to the Chinese border, existing trade routes via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the potential to further develop the Karakorum Highway route through the Khunjerab Pass and ultimately via Peshawar to Kabul. The Wakhan Corridor, the narrow stretch of Afghanistan that reaches to the Chinese border with Xinjiang has often been cited as a solution with an assumption it can be opened to trade.
I have been to this region. It was also the route used by Marco Polo to enter China. It runs between the Pamir Mountains to the north and the Karakoram Mountain range to the south. The Wakhan Corridor itself is about km long and 13—65 kilometers wide as a natural valley between the two mountain ranges.
From this mountain valley the Panj and Pamir rivers develop and combine to form the Oxus River, which ultimately flows into the Aral Sea. A trade route through the Wakhan Valley has been used by travelers to and from East, South and Central Asia for thousands of years. Marco Polo is said to have used this route and to have stayed at Taxkorgan Fort, which is now ruined but can be seen at the Chinese village of Taxkorgan, on the Chinese border with Pakistan on the Karakoram Highway.
Immediately to the east lies the Taklimakan Desert. The border with China stretches 92 kilometers and is characterized by unstable, slate rock with constant slippages. The entire border is marked by a barbed wire fence, with a Chinese border guard outpost at Keketuluke just 20 kilometers east of the pass. There are border crossings discussed later but much of the border area is impassable, prone to landslides and dangerous.
Temperatures during the winter can reach and include deep snow drifts. It is administered from the Provincial capital of Fayzabad, a city of 50, recently taken over by the Taliban. As of , the Wakhan Corridor had 13, inhabitants. The northern part of the Wakhan, populated by the Wakhi and Pamiri tribes, is also referred to as the Pamir.
There are three main border crossings between Afghanistan and China, although the entire region is crisscrossed with difficult, single donkey tracks. These routes are all generally inaccessible during the winter months. None of the three main crossings are developed, except to provide border security access, although they do permit the summer cross-border passage of locals.
We discuss these as follows:. The Chalachigu Valley is about km in length and is the source of the Taxkorgan River, which runs into China and is a significant water source, ranging from 1 km to 5 km wide.
India wants to use Afghanistan to extend its strategic reach because the country circles Pakistan in the north and west.
India's relationship with the Taliban was bad and it is eager to resume contact with it given the latter's rising influence, which indicates Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan, Qian said. Some Western countries have described China and Russia's effort to engage in Afghanistan's reconstruction as the "next empires" to enter the "graveyard" of Afghanistan. In a report published on the website of The Hill, it said China plans to "swoop in" and "fill the vacuum" left by the withdrawal of US troops and said that China will be the "next empire to enter the Afghan graveyard.
Both China and Russia stressed that the Afghan issue should be dealt with by the Afghan people, while the US bluntly interfered in Afghanistan's internal affairs, analysts said.
And Taliban has expressed its welcome to China over help with reconstruction, and it would strive to maintain stable relations with China and other neighboring countries if it takes power, observers said.
As for the possible threat of the resurgence of terrorism evolving with China's engagement with Taliban on the reconstruction work, Chinese analysts said that the Taliban is unlikely to deliberately export its ideological thought, but China should maintain its alert over threats from extremist groups which voluntarily accept the Taliban's fundamentalism and attempt to affect Xinjiang. The Taliban is fragmented as many of its senior leaders are not in Afghanistan, thus some branches of the Taliban in Afghanistan have taken in members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement ETIM , Qian said, noting that no matter who forms the Afghan government, continuing anti-terrorism is Afghanistan's international responsibility as well as the significant foundation of future China-Afghanistan relations.
The Taliban in Afghanistan has gradually transformed to a "regional government" which is more willing to participate in governing the country rather than just harboring terrorist groups, but even if it still adopts extremist means in the future, China could deal with it with its comprehensive domestic anti-terrorism mechanism and regional cooperation as well as international law. Observers said the US will not offer any helping hands to Afghanistan's reconstruction work despite the ongoing suffering of the country was purely caused by the US.
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