Profile: China’s own ‘War on Terror’ in Xinjiang province

The appeal has been made by China in the wake of the Paris atrocity but human rights campaigners remain doubtful whether Islamist militants are behind all the unrest in Xinjiang where hundreds of people have died over the last few years.

The province is home to the Uighur people who are mostly Muslim. China claims some have recently made their way to Iraq and Syria to join jihadis.

Party bosses claim the violence in Xinjiang has been caused by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) which is demanding an independent state and has links to al-Qaeda.

“China is also a victim of terrorism, and cracking down on ETIM should become an important part of the international fight against terrorism,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. “The UN’s leading role should be brought into full play to combat terrorism, and a united front in this regard should be formed.”

OPPRESSIVE

While China maintains that ETIM is quickly becoming an international threat, the West appears wary of co-operating in a crackdown on the organisation.

After 9/11, Washington and the UN did agree to put it on the list of terrorist organisations but are unlikely to give any more support.

“Nobody wants to cooperate closely with a government that is so oppressive at the religious level,” said Nicholas Bequelin of Amnesty International.

Their reluctance has angered China and, speaking at the G20 summit in Turkey on Sunday, President Xi Jinping called on the international community to abandon “double standards” in the war on terrorism. Yesterday an influential newspaper and voice of the government attacked the “hypocrisy” of the West’s attempts to combat terrorism.

“Objectively speaking, the pressure Western countries are facing from international terrorism is on the increase, and over the long-term it will be in the West’s interests to strengthen anti-terror cooperation with China,” said the Global Times.

Meanwhile, the China Daily wrote: “China is facing the same threats from IS [Daesh] as France and must prepare for similar terror attacks.”

BACKLASH

Human rights campaigners remain sceptical over whether the violence in the region is fuelled by Islamic extremism or whether it is a result of ethnic tension and a backlash against government oppression.

Xinjiang is the biggest of China’s regions and borders eight countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia. Until recently the population was mostly Uighur whose language was related to Turkish and who identify ethnically and culturally with the Muslim-dominated Central Asian countries surrounding them like Kazakhstan.

Under Chinese rule since the 18th century, Xinjiang had some short-lived independence as an East Turkestan state after the Second World War but became an official part of Communist China in 1949.

The collapse of the Soviet Union increased support for independence groups in the 1990s but demonstrations were suppressed by Beijing and the campaigners went underground.

SWAMPED

Since then economic growth has brought an influx of mostly young, technologically skilled Han Chinese who dominate among the best jobs. Now only around 45 per cent of the population, Uighurs fear their traditional culture is being swamped and claim they are being economically marginalised.

Ethnic conflict has been fuelled by government restrictions on religious and cultural expression and the perception that the region’s natural resources, such as its great mineral wealth, is being squandered.

Each outbreak of violence results in a greater crackdown on religious expression to the extent that beards and the veil are banned while all those aged under 18 are banned from mosques. There is also a ban on any officials, including police officers, from praying in mosques while Muslim civil servants have been banned from fasting during Ramadan following another outbreak of violence.

International criticism also followed the detainment of high-profile Uighur academic Ilham Tohti in 2014 on charges of promoting separatism.

Human rights groups and exiles claim the repression is only increasing tension and the prospect of more unrest.

RANDOM

Many analysts believe there is no single group responsible for all the outbreaks of violence as the Uighurs appear divided on whether they want independence, more autonomy or just more freedom of expression.

They also point to the fact that few of the killings could be classed as acts of terrorism as the violence tends to be targeted against the state rather than random acts aimed at killing civilians and instilling terror in the population.

For their part, government officials continue to maintain that Islamist militants are behind much of the unrest, claiming that the young are being brainwashed by militant Islamist propaganda which floods across the border from Afghanistan and Pakistan on the internet and in DVDs.

In a recent counter-terrorism campaign, officials said that thousands of videos encouraging terrorism had been confiscated and that online instructions in terrorist techniques had been blocked.

A video pledging Holy War appears to have been found after the Tiananmen Square suicide attack in 2013 which killed five people and Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has condemned Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang and told all Chinese Muslims to pledge allegiance to him instead.

However, foreign observers who have visited the region have noted intense security and a community with very limited freedom of religion, speech and movement.

If there is a war on terror, China seems to be winning.