Life and Media Under the Taliban: A View from China --[Reported by Umva mag]

The latest draconian decree issued by the Taliban on Monday was a gradual media ban on all images of living things in news coverage. Repression of the media and civil rights may be even harsher under the Taliban than under the CCP, but there has recently been a growing exchange of ideas between Chinese and Afghan media and officials that sheds light on deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan and their relation to China. This week, the WeChat official account “正面连接” published a 10,000-word series of letters from an Afghan woman named Khadija Haidary who described life under the Taliban. Haidary is a contributor to Zan Times, an Afghan media outlet in exile. She and her family fled to Pakistan this month. When the outlet asked what Chinese readers can do for her, Haidary replied, “I don’t really know what can be done. I just hope that people can understand our situation.” In her letters, Haidary noted the dynamics of government censorship and citizen resistance, which include some strong parallels with the situation in China: 

Women can still access the internet, and most use WhatsApp and Facebook. Perhaps the Taliban don’t yet have the technology to control this domain. But social media is not a safe place to speak. For example, if they found out we were communicating, they could arrest me for writing against them in overseas media.

The Taliban have imprisoned and killed many women journalists. Now, everyone uses a pen name to hide their identity. Initially, I wrote under my real name, which really scared my family. Later, I took a pen name for myself. This was also a form of resistance to Taliban censorship. 

[…] We have no choice but to put up with it and hope that it’ll all end soon, but international organizations and big powers are negotiating in a way that scares us. If they recognize the Taliban, we’ll have more oppression and harsher laws. [Chinese]

Writing for Zan Times in May of last year, an anonymous Afghan journalist and university professor in Kabul described their receding freedoms as a journalist under the growing shadow of the Taliban and stated, “I even read reports that Taliban intelligence are employing Indian and Chinese technicians to track opponents and journalists on social media.” The threat of surveillance cooperation extends beyond the media: In October of last year, Ruth Ingram at The China Project reported on the Taliban’s agreement with Huawei to roll out facial-recognition cameras in every province of Afghanistan, which would also allow the group to more easily track Uyghurs and potentially repatriate them to China upon request. 

Haidary described how under the Taliban Afghan women have been forcibly pushed out of the public sphere due to a range of new policies preventing them from exercising basic rights. By contrast, some Chinese women who appear to be traveling in Afghanistan for tourism have posted pictures of themselves online posing—without the conservative full-body covering required of local women—with members of the Taliban. These pictures and other videos of Chinese travelers posing with members of the Taliban are part of a trend of Xiaohongshu-style tourism in “obscure” destinations.

In August at China Media Project, Dalia Parete interviewed Afghan researcher Dr. Hazrat Bahar, who was in Kabul writing his Ph.D. dissertation about the impact of social media on public policy when the Taliban took over. Bahar outlined the Taliban’s restrictions on media in Afghanistan—some of which again resemble the CCP’s restrictions on media in China—and then described how China is seizing the opportunity to bolster its media presence, while acknowledging that it had “still made notable contributions to Afghan media”:

The Taliban has issued around 11 directives outlining what media can and cannot report. These rules largely restrict reporting on internal Taliban affairs, including corruption within their ranks. Reporting on issues that might negatively impact the Taliban’s image, such as security concerns or internal conflicts, is also prohibited.

[…] Overall, the regulations are vague and open to interpretation, contributing to a climate of fear and uncertainty among journalists. The Taliban’s approach appears to intentionally create this ambiguity to suppress bold reporting and maintain control over media narratives.

[…] Due to heavy censorship, local media cannot produce accurate or critical information. This lack of diverse perspectives means that people mostly rely on the Taliban’s narrative and what is propagated by supportive bloggers. The public sphere is thus highly controlled, with limited opportunities for critical discourse.

Attempts to provide critical information from outside the country are often met with hostility. Those who challenge the Taliban are frequently labeled as foreign agents or traitors, further stifling dissenting voices. This environment fosters misinformation and disinformation, reinforcing the Taliban’s narrative and suppressing alternative viewpoints.

[…] Even now, Chinese media continues to support the current Afghan regime. They use carefully chosen terms to describe the situation, such as “the acting government of Afghanistan,” instead of referring to it as the “Taliban regime” or similar terms. This terminology aligns with the language used by Chinese officials and reflects the close relationship between China and the Taliban. Unlike Western media, which often has a critical stance, Chinese media portrays a more positive image of the Taliban. [Source]

China’s cautious increase in trade and investment ties with Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 has extended to government relations in the media and communication sectors. This week, the head of Afghanistan’s state-run Bakhtar News Agency and acting deputy minister of information and culture attended the sixth World Media Summit hosted by Xinhua in Urumqi, where speakers and attendees praised Uyghurs’ freedoms in Xinjiang and criticized Western media coverage of the above. Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Zhao Xing also met with the Taliban’s acting minister of communications and information technology in Kabul in May. In August, the Taliban announced that 41 employees from nine ministries and the civil service administration traveled to China for training. Zhao separately stated that China has arranged for 600 Afghan officials to come to China for training this year.

These training opportunities appear to be producing positive impressions of China among Afghan media workers. In May, a delegation of leaders of Afghan media outlets, including the Afghan National Radio and Television, Toro News, Ariana News, Bakhtar News Agency, Shamshad TV, and Kabul Times, visited Xinjiang. According to a Chinese government summary, the delegation met with China Media Group and held discussions on practical cooperation, program sharing, and talent training. The delegation spoke highly of China’s economic achievements and Xinjiang’s governance strategy, and expressed their willingness to “tell the true story of China to the Afghan people.”  For more details, other media accounts of the trip are available online, and the Stimson Center publishes monthly updates on China-Afghanistan relations.

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