China sought to prove its capabilities through major projects in South Asia, but those same projects now challenge its image as a rising power.
Over the past two decades, China has expanded its footprint across South Asia, presenting itself as a reliable provider of infrastructure and stability. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 further elevated expectations that Beijing would fill the emerging power vacuum.
However, recent evidence, from stalled China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects to persistent security threats in Afghanistan, and even Beijing’s inability to facilitate meaningful progress in Taliban-Pakistan negotiations, suggests a widening gap between China’s ambitions and its on-the-ground performance.
This raises a critical question: How much do these mounting project disruptions erode Beijing’s claim to regional leadership and its prestige as Asia’s rising power?
Since 2013, the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) region has become the point at which China’s internal contradiction is laid bare – the attempt to project geopolitical influence through economic development without accepting the costs and security foundations required to sustain it.
Several structural and security factors make Pakistan and Afghanistan a particularly challenging environment for China, far more than in Africa or the Middle East. In other regions, threats tend to be primarily structural and political rather than explicitly anti-Chinese.
In the AFPAK region, China is often perceived as a guarantor of stability and security, rather than merely an investor. Furthermore, unlike the US, China lacks the capacity for external security operations and has never undertaken a foreign mission of this kind.
It is therefore unsurprising that any setback quickly translates into a blow to Beijing’s prestige. Moreover, China lacks the geopolitical tools and relevant experience for crisis management, especially in nations long regarded as safe havens for terrorists.
This highlights what can be called the “security-development nexus“: wherever security collapses, the legitimacy of BRI also suffers. Indeed, China’s decline in prestige in the AFPAK region is the result of Beijing’s inability to translate economic power into governance capacity. The gap has become the principal vulnerability of the Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia.
China’s economic influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan is substantial, centered largely on the more than $60 billion committed to CPEC and on additional high-value resource and infrastructure concessions in Afghanistan.
These investments serve a dual purpose: driving China’s economic growth while deepening Beijing’s strategic and geopolitical influence. Successful project completion would advance both objectives.
Nonetheless, these very investments also represent China’s vulnerability: when projects stall, security deteriorates, or timelines slip, Beijing’s credibility as a capable regional power comes under scrutiny.
More precisely, project disruptions appear in several ways. Delays, security challenges and rising costs directly call China’s operational capabilities into question, with tangible repercussions for its prestige and political and media image.
CPEC in Pakistan, for example, represents over $60 billion in investment, spanning 3,000 kilometers of road and rail networks. By 2025, however, only $27 billion, or roughly 40%, had been realized over 10 years (2015–2025), reflecting both slow progress and delays partly due to political instability and security threats. The importance of this issue is that Beijing’s geopolitical credibility is tied to the success of CPEC.
Focusing on Balochistan, the most critical unfinished projects lie in this province: the Gwadar East Bay Expressway, the Hub Coal Power Project (1,320 MW), and the Nokundi-Mashkhel-Panjgur Road, all repeatedly targeted by the so-called Baloch Liberation Army.
Between 2013 and 2023, this insurgent group carried out at least 14 direct attacks on Chinese nationals in Balochistan, killing at least 20 and injuring 34. By May 2025, the group claimed responsibility for 71 attacks across 51 locations in Pakistan.
This is precisely what China fears, as such developments could significantly hinder the execution of its projects. The success of the BLA in this regard may also serve as a model for extremist groups in Xinjiang, potentially inspiring similar tactics in other sensitive regions.
Such groups do not need to conduct operations inside China; coordinating with or supporting groups against China and its projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan may be more efficient for achieving their objectives of inflicting strategic costs on Beijing.
In Afghanistan, China’s infrastructure investments exceed $10 billion. Key projects include investment in the Aynak copper mine in Logar province, home to the world’s second-largest copper reserves. Initiated in 2008, the project was delayed 16 years due to insecurity stemming from NATO-Taliban conflicts before Chinese engineers officially began extraction last year.
Other strategic initiatives include the 25-year Amu Darya oil contract across Northern provinces (Faryab, Sar-e Pol, Jowzjan) and the Wakhan border corridor project in Badakhshan, signed in 2022, both of which carry significant geopolitical importance.
Perhaps the most strategic is China’s $10 billion investment in lithium in Afghanistan. Yet, many projects are located in unstable regions under security threats, such as the Amu Darya oil contract and the Wakhan corridor.
In Pakistan, portions of CPEC face financial and security challenges, while in Afghanistan, Chinese infrastructure projects have repeatedly been affected by political instability, security threats and advancing cautiously.
Two consecutive attacks on Chinese people on the Afghan-Tajik border on November 26 and 30 are a clear example of the insecurity for the Chinese and their projects in Afghanistan, during which five and two Chinese nationals were killed, respectively.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has highlighted the risks to Chinese investments in Afghanistan, citing instability and fragile governance. These disruptions not only diminish local confidence but also give regional and global competitors the opportunity to propagate negative narratives about China’s inefficiency in leading the regional and global order.
Another critical factor can be the role of media and competitors in shaping strategic prestige, as negative narratives can amplify the effects of disruptions. This is why China controls the narrative to maintain its official image and credibility.
According to the Brookings Institution, by controlling narratives, China seeks to safeguard the international credibility of its projects, signaling that Beijing’s concerns extend beyond mere economic interests to its global prestige. China understands that its hegemony depends not only on economic resources and technical capacity but also on strategic management and regional policy.
Managing Afghanistan after the US withdrawal in September 2021 and completing projects in both Afghanistan and Pakistan represent a critical test of Beijing’s strategic management, hegemony and regional leadership.
Economic power alone, without precise strategy and effective policy, cannot guarantee sustainable prestige or leadership. Ineffective crisis management inevitably damages both regional and international standing.
Moreover, the recent inconclusive Taliban-Pakistan negotiations may reflect China’s limited influence, insufficient regional leadership and lack of proactive crisis-management initiatives. China now faces a dual challenge that tests both its operational capabilities and its soft power. Success or failure will shape the future of its regional hegemony and leadership role.
In addition, US interest in rare minerals in Balochistan and the Pasni port may further complicate China’s geopolitical objectives and strategic prestige. What is unfolding in CPEC today is not merely a series of technical delays or financial problems, but a deeper crisis in China’s model of external power projection.
Beijing has long sought to build prestige on efficiency, benevolent mediation, rapid project delivery and politically unconditional development. Yet ongoing disruptions in Afghanistan and Pakistan – from financial opacity and insecurity in Balochistan to local dissatisfaction and project delays – challenge this image.
Contrary to official narratives, Chna remains vulnerable to the complex realities of governance, host-country politics and rising geopolitical costs. The failure of Taliban-Pakistan negotiations has indirectly heightened the costs to China’s prestige.
A country aspiring to act as a stability provider in South Asia now faces difficulty in exerting effective influence over its two key partners to mitigate tensions and safeguard its economic projects.
If CPEC, intended as the flagship of the Belt and Road Initiative, faces such sustained tension, delays and uncertainty, what message does this send to other countries? More importantly, how can China maintain credibility and prestige in other regions where its control is even more limited?
Behrouz Ayaz is an Iranian analyst who has published analytical commentaries on The National Interest, The Diplomat, RealClearDefense, Daily News Hungary and other outlets.