T.M.Awan
According to media reports, Afghanistan has formally inaugurated a 121-kilometre road connecting the country with China through the Wakhan Corridor. On the map, it may look like another road through a difficult mountain region. In geopolitical terms, however, it represents something much bigger.
Wakhan once served a very different purpose. In the nineteenth century, it became a buffer between the Russian Empire and British India, separating two expanding empires that were competing for influence across Central Asia.
More than a century later, the same narrow corridor is beginning to acquire a very different significance. China is expanding its economic reach, Afghanistan is looking for new avenues of connectivity, and Central Asia is once again becoming a region where geography, economics and great-power interests intersect.
The old Great Game was largely about territory and imperial expansion. The new competition is about roads, railways, energy, trade, investment, technology and strategic influence.
The five Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Independence, however, did not erase the deep economic, political and security links that had developed with Moscow over decades.
Russia still matters enormously. Trade, migration, military cooperation, political contacts and historical connections continue to give Moscow considerable influence across the region.
But the regional picture is changing.
China has emerged as a major economic force. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has invested in infrastructure, transport, energy and regional connectivity. For Central Asian countries, Chinese engagement is not simply about investment. It also provides additional economic and diplomatic options.
That does not mean that these countries are choosing China over Russia.
They are increasingly choosing between options.
Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the other Central Asian states continue to maintain relations with Moscow while deepening their economic ties with Beijing, Europe and Türkiye. The United States is also seeking a stronger presence in the region.
This is often described as a multi-vector foreign policy. In simple terms, it means that smaller states are trying to avoid placing all their strategic interests in one basket.
The war in Ukraine has made this approach even more important.
Central Asian governments have longstanding relationships with Russia, but they have little interest in being pulled into the wider confrontation between Moscow and the West. Their response has largely been one of careful balancing.
It would therefore be misleading to say that Russia has simply lost Central Asia.
A better description is this: Russia remains influential, but the region is no longer shaped by a single external power.
China’s role is also different from Russia’s. Moscow retains particular strengths in security, migration and political networks, while Beijing’s influence is increasingly visible in trade, infrastructure, investment and connectivity.
For Central Asian governments, that difference creates room to manoeuvre.
And then there is geography.
Central Asia sits between Russia, China, Afghanistan, Iran and Europe. The five republics are landlocked, but that very geography places them along some of the emerging overland routes linking major economic centres.
A railway can change the direction of trade. A pipeline can create long-term economic dependence. A road through a mountain corridor can open an entirely new strategic possibility.
That is why the Wakhan road matters beyond Afghanistan and China. It is part of a wider movement towards creating alternative routes across a region that has historically been dependent on a limited number of corridors.
For Pakistan, this changing geography deserves particular attention.
Pakistan has a natural geographical connection with Central Asia through Afghanistan and access to the Arabian Sea through Karachi and Gwadar. Yet geography by itself does not create economic influence. Roads need trade. Borders need efficient management. Businesses need confidence. And connectivity becomes meaningful only when it generates sustained commercial activity.
This is where Pakistan’s opportunity lies.
If Central Asia is becoming more connected to China, the Middle East and wider Eurasia, Pakistan cannot afford to remain merely a country on the map between these regions. It has to become part of the economic geography that is taking shape around them.
The new Great Game, however, is not simply Russia versus China. Nor is it another version of East versus West.
Perhaps the more important development is that the Central Asian states themselves are becoming increasingly active players.
In the nineteenth century, great powers competed over Central Asia.
Today, Central Asian countries are increasingly trying to use great-power competition to strengthen their own strategic autonomy.
That is a significant change.
The future of the region will depend not only on which major power has the greatest economic or military influence. It will also depend on whether the Central Asian states can convert their geography into connectivity, connectivity into trade, and competition among larger powers into greater freedom of choice.
(The writer is a media and strategic communication professional and international relations analyst. X: @TMAwanOfficial)
