Trust me China does NOT want the Taliban. They might like it that Taliban weakened the West a bit for China but ultimately China would not want the Taliban either. China has its own Islamic separatists the Uyghurs to deal with within China and these separatists are connected with the Islamic fundamentalists including the Taliban. With US withdrawn, China and Russia would eventually have to deal with the Taliban, the same as the West. Before China builds this "one belt one road", they would want to clean out these bandits that had been giving merchants lots of problems in the past when they traveled on the original silk road centuries ago. China would not want to see this happening again.
It's both. And that means the land is fertile for agriculture if they just plant the correct crops. And besides the precious metals and rare earth metals, there is also oil.
The US and the West should've In hindsight, the US and the West should've just flattened the whole entire place, the caves, the mountains, the whole nine yards, then all those who hid in the caves would've been dead. F*** humane treatment! The humane thing to do is to rid of terrorists under the guise of religion.
They do plant the correct crop, nothing brings in more foreign currency, except maybe coca plantations, but the climate isn't suited for these. Mining will be carried out by chinese companies... Afghans just know herding, agriculture and waring.
the root of the root cause of this opium thing is the buyer. If there is no buyer, the opium price will be zero. Afghanistan is the world's biggest opium producer. Who is the biggest buyer? We just need a small quantity for medical use actually.