CHINA–AFGHANISTAN RELATIONS: Hope, Hype and More

About the Author

Vishal Chandra studies Afghanistan at Manohar Parrikar IDSA, New Delhi. He joined MP-IDSA in 2003 and is currently a Research Fellow with the South Asia Centre of the Institute. He has travelled in Afghanistan and has participated in various national and international academic forums. He has delivered talks & lectures on Afghanistan at India’s leading training academies and institutes. He is the author of the monograph, Afghans in Need: Positing India’s Continued Engagement with Afghanistan, MP-IDSA, October 2024; and the book, The Unfinished War in Afghanistan: 2001–2014, IDSA, Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2015. He is the editor of four IDSA books: Afghanistan Under Taliban, 2025; India and South Asia: Exploring Regional Perceptions, 2015; India’s Neighbourhood: The Armies of South Asia, 2013; and India’s Neighbourhood: Challenges Ahead, 2008 (co-editor).

He has recently authored a Monograph, Taliban’s Amnesty: An Assessment, MP-IDSA, August 2025; an Occasional Paper, Taliban’s “Contact Commission”: Three Years Later, MP-IDSA, July 2025; and a Special Feature, The Why and What of Non-Inclusivity and Dissensus in the Taliban ‘Emirate’, MP-IDSA, November 2024. He also had a decade-long editorial stint with the Institute’s website, including as the Editor Website from 2019 to 2022.

 

About the Book

China has been a part of the Afghan maze, but landlocked Afghanistan seemed to have factored either marginally or episodically in its geopolitical quests in the past decades. While the role of certain regional actors in Afghanistan has been far widely debated and analysed, China’s role, particularly the nature and scope of its bilateral interactions and engagements with various Afghan regimes in Kabul, from Zahir Shah to the Taliban, has remained comparatively understudied. This book is a modest effort in that direction.