But, China probably still has the upper hand in the opiate business here, because fentanyl is far easier to smuggle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanis...
> The opium trade spiked in 2006 after the Taliban lost control of local warlords
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...
> Ironically, the only power that has demonstrated an ability to cripple the Afghan drug industry is the Taliban.
> In July 2000, when the Taliban controlled most of the country, its reclusive one-eyed leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, declared that opium was un-Islamic and imposed a ban on growing poppies.
> Much to the surprise of the rest of the world, the ban worked. Afraid to cross the Taliban, Afghan farmers immediately ceased planting poppies. The United Nations estimated that poppy cultivation plunged by 90 percent from 2000 to 2001.
In bad years, they don't expect any taxes.
(It does look like the Taliban has lightened up a bit, but time will tell. Every news station is bashing every aspect of the Taliban.)
Indeed! The speculation is that there are people very high up in Chinese system who are cashing up on industrial scale fentanyl production.
Syrian Assad family now makes more money on captagon than they were doing before the war from all their businesses.
Putin Vladimir, the Russian president, made his early fortune on providing legal cover to drug trade in Saint Petersburg, and later delved into the business himself. Russia now runs a state business of drug smuggling through its military missions abroad, and diplomatic missions.
And of course, most famously, Great Britain used to be the biggest narcostate in history. Fortunes of many modern day British elites were built in these times.
A sister comment already noted the mineral resources, but don't forget the main function of Afghanistan as a nation: production of heroin. Narcopolitics are so fantastically more significant than ever gets any attention from "surface" media, but this is the name of the game. Chinese fentanyl has taken over the global opiate black market, so they have every incentive to support the Taliban who will repress the rival heroin trade over the US-backed government who supported it.