Has the Taliban Unwittingly Opened a Back Door for Chinese Missionaries?
The Taliban is turning to China for help after taking over Afghanistan last month, according to a Tweet by the Taliban Spokesman for International Media (English), Suhail Shaheen, yesterday. The Taliban is excited about China’s potential economic ‘One Belt One Road’ investment, without realizing the spiritual implication of the Silk Road strategy of the underground house church missionaries.
While most of the world is turning away from Afghanistan, China has become their “main partner” to halt an economic collapse, according to Zabihullah Mujahid. The Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan is only a few days old, but has already become dependent on China.
The United States and its European allies have closed all of their diplomatic missions and do not currently officially recognize the Taliban government – this has stopped all economic aid to Afghanistan which was given to the previous government. Most governments have also frozen all access to bank accounts and cash for the new Afghan government.
The international community is withholding aid and demanding that the Taliban allow people to leave the country, enable access of humanitarian aid, make a complete break with international terrorist organizations, and respect human rights, especially for women. The Taliban is denying that they are violating any human rights, all while inflicting some of the most horrendous atrocities against the people every day.
China, however, is ready to invest, but they will want a few things in return. China will want access to mining, precious metals and minerals, and the rights for the transportation of goods and services. And it seems that the Taliban is ready to play ball. “China is our main partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” Mujahid told La Repubblica yesterday, putting his cards on the table. “We own rich copper mines, which, thanks to the Chinese, will be modernized. Finally, China represents our ticket to the markets around the world.”
What Mujahid doesn’t know is that China’s One Belt One Road investments also represent a ticket to Chinese Back to Jerusalem missionaries as has never been available before. As Chinese businessmen and contractors begin to flood into Afghanistan by the thousands, laced in those numbers will be Back to Jerusalem missionaries armed with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Could a back door to Afghanistan be opening up for the first time in our life time? Could the most evil power that the world could ever imagine be unwittingly preparing the way for the Good News? Could the nightmare of the rise of the Taliban today, like the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949, be the beginning of the largest house church movement ever experienced in Afghanistan’s history?
Afghanistan has been labeled as the graveyard of empires. No world power has been able to defeat and rule over Afghanistan, but perhaps that is because Afghanistan has yet to be invaded by the armies of the living God.
7 Comments
Praying for those Chinese missionaries
Hi Eugene
We miss you in Nampa, Idaho. We’re having prayer & praise at the Prayer House at 6:30 tonight. I’ll mention you, and we will pray for you and BTJ.
We love you in Jesus Our Lord for Jesus Christ is Lord!!
Gregory
Good news! I will be there next month! looking forward to seeing you again soon!
Wow Eugene, that’s God’s strategy!
You can’t be serious. Why would you post this kind of claim on the open internet? The Beijing gov’t is well aware of this strategy and is actively looking for these B2J missionaries. I personally know several Chinese pseudo business people/missionaries who were called back home for questioning in 2019-20. One doesn’t hold a passport any longer. After the international fiasco in Pakistan in June 2017, do u really think the OBOR leadership won’t vet these contractors? Also, the Taliban may be a brutal extremist regime but they aren’t stupid. Chinese missionaries posing as businessmen will be easy to find.
It is difficult to know which of the contradicting claims to address – the one where you are appalled that this information was shared on the “open Internet” or the one where Chinese government already knows who the these Chinese missionaries are and are calling them back home.
I’m certain you have a reason to pose two opposing positions.
Fortunately, the Chinese that we are working with do not listen to you or me. They are doing what the Lord has called them to do regardless of how useless or vain you think that it is. I am NOT writing this message from the comfort of home in a western country, instead I write this reply from the Middle East tonight where I just sat down with more than 20 Chinese Missionary business owners that have been running their companies in the most closed nations on earth. None of them were new business owners. Most of them have been operating here for more than a decade. As missionaries. Planting churches.
….soooo there goes your theory.
There will be those that get caught. There will be those that are called back home. There will be those that fail. Feel free to point out an example or two. I’ve been there when it has happened. I’ve also been there when it has happened to western missionaries.
Does that stop the missionaries?
No!
I was in Wenzhou when the church wrote a song to take the Gospel to Pakistan to honor the 2 martyrs that gave their life – you know – the one that you called a fiasco. I was with the next teams that were shipped out to replace them – spurred on by one of the martyr’s mothers who gave one of the most amazing sermons at the funeral.
As a former US Marine that served two tours in the Persian Gulf, I was reminded of my unit that was shipped out to replace those Marines coming back for the deployment cycle.
Just like the Marines, for every Chinese missionary that is taken off the field, there are 10 to replace them.
There are currently more than 60,000 Chinese living and working in Pakistan – 10,000 just in the city of Islamabad alone. Good luck finding out which ones are the missionaries. I work with many of them that have been there for years planting businesses along the ancient Silk Road.
You can retreat if you like. You can piss and moan about the vanity of it all. You can even complain about too much information being shared about a subject that you are certain the Chinese/Taliban will know anyway.
But I am watching the glorious church go forward and it looks as if the road has been paved for Afghanistan to be next!
Hi Eugene, thank you for taking the time to voice your reply. You seen a bit perturbed by my comments. My intent was not to offend, but to simply raise legitimate concerns over your claims and methods. Please understand we are fellow servants to the Chinese church. For the last 2 decades I have made over 30 visits to the believers and leaders in China, and trained Chinese missionaries in many of the same places you have been. We have shared many deep joys and agonizing tears together. I only say this so you will understand my heart for our Chinese brothers and sisters serving in the hard places of Asia and the ME. I am not complaining, retreating, pissing or moaning about the vanity of it all. I am however, asking serious questions to the whole mission enterprise… both inside China and among her western partners. Too many people are making too many outlandish claims about what the Chinese church is doing or planning to do. I am advocating for humility, transparency and reality. Thank you for your patience in hearing my reply and may God bless your work.