The Wakhan Corridor, once part of Chinese territory, is now part of Afghanistan. The area is also the only link between China and Afghanistan, and the map clearly shows a narrow corridor connecting China and Afghanistan. In the late Qing Dynasty, it became one of the lost territories, and although the area is not large, its crucialness cannot be ignored. The Wakhan Corridor was a section of the ancient Silk Road, and Tang Xuanzang crossed this area on his way to Tianzhu, and Marco Polo also entered China through the Wakhan Corridor.
After quelling the Dzungar rebellion and the Daxiao and Zhuo rebellions, the Qing ** unified the northern and southern regions of the Tianshan Mountains and consolidated the legal status of the Pamirs in China. However, since the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty has been constantly invaded and has lost a large amount of territory, including not only the outer northeast and outer northwest, but also the Pamir plateau. It is worth noting that Afghanistan's acquisition of the Wakhan Corridor was not dominated by Afghanistan, but was closely related to Tsarist Russia and Britain.
In the nineteenth century, ** had already expanded its influence into Central Asia and North Asia, and was eyeing Central Asia. Faced with the relatively weak khanates of Central Asia, Tsarist Russia quickly invaded and easily conquered. However, Britain has stood up against it, not out of concern for China, but out of its own interests. The British established a British Indian colony in India and were not satisfied with this, gradually invading Burma, Nepal and China. The Anglo-Russian rivalry over the Pamirs became a symbol of antagonism, and eventually the two sides established a military buffer zone in the Wakhan Corridor to avoid conflict.
In 1895, Britain and Russia signed the Agreement on the Pamir Sphere of Influence, ceding the Wakhan Corridor to Afghanistan as part of the military buffer zone of the Great Powers. Afghanistan, while not the dominant player in this dispute, has acquired the Wakhan Corridor in a puzzling way.