Wang was personally received by the Taliban’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, according to the official state Bakhtar News Agency on Thursday afternoon.

A one-minute video posted by the agency reveals a meeting was held, with Wang and the Chinese delegation sitting on one side of a long table across from Muttaqi’s team.

Wang’s South Asia tour came as Beijing finds itself in a rapidly changing international environment, observing political and security restructuring in its neighbouring regions. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, Beijing has closely followed diplomatic reshuffling by South Korea’s newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol and is keeping an eye on the return of full-scale military drills between the US and the Philippines next week.

China has presented itself as a party eager to solve and mediate the “Afghanistan problem” and Wang repeated in his meeting with Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi this week that the Taliban government should be an inclusive one “sternly fighting against any forms of terrorism”.

While humanitarian agencies have been distributing aid to Afghanistan, Beijing has committed its own aid packages to the country, including food and coronavirus vaccines, as the United Nations warns of large-scale starvation among the 38.9 million population.

Beijing will host a meeting with foreign ministers representing Afghanistan’s neighbours – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan – this month to discuss humanitarian issues under Taliban rule, according to Pakistani officials.

During Wang’s stop in Pakistan, which represented China’s first attendance at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers’ conference, Wang attempted to build solidarity, saying China and Islamic countries were “developing countries” that had “shared goals for development”.

Afghan embassies are struggling to pay staff and bills, stay open

He said China would support Islamic countries in “exploring a developing path suitable to their own needs” and would stand with the region to defend national integrity, territorial sovereignty and autonomy.

Lin Minwang, assistant dean at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, said the unannounced trip could mean China was “checking out” the situation in Afghanistan, but it was not likely to bestow official recognition until “higher-level officials” met.

“While the Chinese government has not officially recognised the Taliban government, there have been a lot of interactions in reality. China is also one of the countries that have contributed the most in humanitarian support and has been coordinating with other neighbouring countries in the region … this is so far their official stance towards the Taliban,” Lin said.

Despite diplomatic challenges in China’s neighbouring regions, Lin said China’s attempt to boost relations with Islamic countries in the region had been consistent.

“Afghanistan is also part of the Islamic world, despite it not being officially recognised yet,” Lin said.

02:21

Heartbreak for Afghan schoolgirls as Taliban orders them back home hours after classrooms reopened

Heartbreak for Afghan schoolgirls as Taliban orders them back home hours after classrooms reopened

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was the first to visit Kabul last November, and so far has been the only head of state to do so. Britain’s special envoy for Famine Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs and envoy of the UK Mission to Afghanistan held talks with the Taliban last month.

China, which shares a border with Afghanistan, was one of the first countries to receive Taliban representatives in July, despite increasing violence in the country and before the insurgent group took control of the capital Kabul.