China in the Afghan Imagination

“Let China Sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world,” so states a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. The dragon may be up, but it does not seem to be interested in Afghanistan.

China though geographically close to Afghanistan, has been a distant land, politically and socially . The Afghan people have little knowledge about China. The socio-political distance extends to the era prior to the decline of China in the 18th century. Though the Silk Road had connected Central and West Asia to Chinese lands and commodities were flowing along the Silk Road, from China to Europe, passing through the Muslim world of present-day Afghanistan. However, economic exchanges brought less of China’s political influence in the region. Even with the re-emergence of China in the latter half of the twentieth century and the flow of its products into the Afghan market, the socio-political influence of China on Afghanistan remains limited. Socially, culturally and politically, China is still a far and mysterious place for Afghans.

This notion of China — a distant mysterious land — can be extended to the rest of the Islamic world as well. Such a portrayal of China goes long back to the first days of Islam. Mohammad, the Islamic prophet…