KABUL: Worried about militants sneaking into a restive Chinese region fromwar-torn Afghanistan , Beijing is in talks with Kabul over the constructionof a military base, Afghan officials say, as it seeks to shore up itsfragile neighbour.

The army camp will be built in Afghanistan´s remote and mountainous WakhanCorridor, where witnesses have reported seeing Chinese and Afghan troops onjoint patrols.

The freezing, barren panhandle of land — bordering China´s tense Xinjiangregion — is so cut off from the rest oflink>Afghanistanlink>that many inhabitants are unaware ofthe Afghan conflict, scraping out harsh but peaceful lives.

However they retain strong links with neighbours in Xinjiang, and with sofew travellers in the region local interest in the Chinese visitors hasbeen high, residents told AFP on a recent visit there.

China´s involvement in the base comes as President Xi Jinping seeks toextend Beijing´s economic and geopolitical clout.

The Chinese are pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure in SouthAsia. With Afghanistan´s potential to destabilise the region, analysts saidany moves there would be viewed through the prism of security.

Beijing fears that exiled Uighur members of the East Turkestan IslamicMovement (ETIM) are passing through the Wakhan into Xinjiang to carry outattacks.

It also worries that Islamic State group militants fleeing Iraq and Syriacould cross Central Asia and Xinjiang to reachlink>Afghanistanlink> , or use the Wakhan to enterlink>China link> ,analysts say.

Afghan and Chinese officials discussed the plan in December in Beijing, butdetails are still being clarified, Afghan defence ministry deputy spokesmanMohammad Radmanesh said.

‘We are going to build it (the base) but the Chinese government hascommitted to help the division financially, provide equipment and train theAfghan soldiers,’ he told AFP recently.

A senior Chinese embassy official in Kabul would only say Beijing isinvolved in ‘capacity-building’ in link>Afghanistan link> .

NATO´s US-led Resolute Support mission inlink>Afghanistanlink> declined to comment. But USofficials have previously welcomed China´s role inlink>Afghanistanlink> , noting they share the samesecurity concerns.

Joint patrolsMembers of the Kyrgyz ethnic minority in Wakhan told AFP inOctober they had been seeing Chinese and Afghan military patrols for months.

‘The Chinese army first came here last summer and they were accompanied bythe Afghan army,’ said Abdul Rashid, a Kyrgyz chief, adding that he hadseen vehicles flying Chinese flags.

The Afghan army arrived days earlier ‘and told us that the Chinese armywould be coming here’, he said, adding: ‘We were strictly told not to gonear them or talk to them and not to take any photos.’

Rashid´s account was confirmed by other Kyrgyz, including another chief JoBoi, who said the Chinese military spent almost a year in Wakhan beforeleaving in March 2017.

Both Chinese and Afghan officials deny the claims, with China´s defenceministry telling AFP that the ‘Chinese army is not engaged in any militaryoperation in the Wakhan Corridor’.

With little access to the corridor, Kabul provides almost no services tothose who live there — but the Chinese, Boi said, have been bringing ‘alot of food and warm clothes’.

‘They are very good people, very kind,’ he told AFP.

After their March visit, he said, they returned in June for roughly amonth. ‘Since then they come every month… to distribute food.’

Economic interests link>Chinalink> fears militancy could threaten itsgrowing economic interests in the region, Ahmad Bilal Khalil, a researcherat the Kabul-based Center for Strategic and Regional Studies, told AFP.

‘They need to have a secure link>Afghanistan link> ,’ he said, estimatingBeijing had provided Kabul with more than $70 million in military aid inthe past three years.

It recently flagged the possibility of includinglink>Afghanistanlink> in the $54-billion China-PakistanEconomic Corridor (CPEC) linking western link>China link> to the Indian Ocean via Pakistan.

‘The anti-terrorism motivation is an important one but it´s not asimportant as the bigger move to boost the CPEC,’ said Willy Lam, apolitical analyst in Hong Kong.

Kabul is also keen for Beijing to have a ‘more active role’, Andrew Small,author of The China-Pakistan Axis, told AFP.

It hopes link>Chinalink> will use its ‘special relationship’ withIslamabad to encourage the Pakistani military, who wield significantinfluence over Afghanistan´s insurgents, to ‘force the Taliban into peacetalks’, Small said.

‘In the end link>Chinalink> has vastly greater financial power thananyone else. So having them engaged… may end up being critical to thecountry´s basic economic viability,’ he said.