Is China Making Its Own Terrorism Problem Worse

Is China Making Its Own Terrorism Problem
Worse?
Beijing says radicalized members of its Uighur minority are
terrorists with ties to the Islamic State and al Qaeda, but its
repressive policies may be helping to fuel the violence.
BY JUSTINE DRENNAN-FEBRUARY 9, 2015

When an SUV crashed through a crowd at Beijings Tiananmen
Square in late 2013, killing two bystanders and injuring 40, it didnt
take Chinese officials long to name culprits. The attackers, they said,
had been members of Chinas Uighur Muslim minority, with links to
many international extremist terrorist groups. Police said they found
a flag bearing jihadi emblems in the crashed vehicle and blamed the
East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, a group named after the
independent state China says some Uighurs want to establish in
the far-western region of Xinjiang. After the attack, Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Hua Chunying called ETIM Chinas most direct and
realistic security threat.
Beijing has long characterized cases of Uighur violence as organized acts of
terrorism and accused individual attackers of having ties to international
jihadi groups. Back in 2001, China released a document claiming that
Eastern Turkistan terrorists had received training from Osama bin Laden
and the Taliban and then fought in combats in Afghanistan, Chechnya and
Uzbekistan, or returned to Xinjiang for terrorist and violent activities. Since
then, China has frequently blamed ETIM for violence in Xinjiang and
elsewhere.
But scholars, human rights groups, and Uighur advocates argue that China
is systematically exaggerating the threat Uighurs pose to justify its
repressive policies in Xinjiang. The regions onetime-majority Uighur
population of roughly 10 million, which is ethnically Turkic, has been
marginalized for decades by ethnic Han Chinese migrants that Beijing has
encouraged to move there in the hope that theyd help integrate the restive
region into China.
The repression has been getting worse. Since the regions bloody ethnic
clashes in 2009, the government has increased regulations on Muslim

practices, restricting veils and beards and strictly enforcing rules that
prohibit many from fasting during Ramadan or visiting mosques.
Heightened security operations have led in some cases to imprisonment,
executions, and suspected torture. Government materials about how to
spot extremists (hint: they tend to look like Uighurs) elide religiosity with
terrorism.
Now, with the rise of the Islamic State, China has again ramped up
its claims about Uighurs waging international jihad. Chinese governmentrun Global Times asserted in December that about 300 Chinese
extremists were fighting alongside ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and in January
that another 300 had traveled to Malaysia en route to joining the group.
The reports suggested that many were terrorists from the East Turkestan
Islamic Movement. On Thursday, Global Times said ISIS had executed one
of these Uighur recruits in September and two in December when they tried
to flee its control, attributing the information to an anonymous Kurdish
official.
Many experts dismiss Global Timess numbers. I assume there are Uighurs
joining ISIS, but I also assume the numbers are quite small in comparison to
other groups throughout the world, said Sean Roberts, a George
Washington University professor who studies the minority group. Were
probably talking about 20 to 30 people max. Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong-
Kong-based senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, called Chinese

medias figure of 300 implausibly high.
Its likely that the rise of the Islamic State has given a few disenfranchised
young Uighurs a cause to fight and potentially die for. Still, experts say any
increase in Uighur extremism is largely due to the fact that the very policies
China says are meant to combat terrorism have actually made the threat
worse.
Chinese reports about hundreds of Uighurs fighting with the Islamic State
are likely intended to make the Uighurs look as if theyre a threat, an
Islamist terrorist organization, said Dru Gladney, an anthropologist who
studies ethnic identities in China.
Several international media outlets haverepeated the numbers
from Chinese media. But Chinas inflated claims are ultimately
counterproductive, Gladney said. They create more fear and
marginalization, which exacerbates the problem.
China isnt wholly inventing the threat. Propaganda material from a group
China links to ETIM that calls itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) suggests
there are at least 30 to 40 Uighur jihadis in Syria and Iraq, according to
Washington Institute for Near East Policy fellow Aaron Zelin, who runs the
website Jihadology.net. TIP has an increasingly active online presence
thatincludes footage of young children firing guns in mountain valleys. In
recent years, it has also claimed responsibility for attacks like
the Tiananmen Square SUV incident via videos in which its purported
leader, Abdullah Mansour, has called for more attacks.
But many researchers doubt TIPs claims, as its accounts of attacks often
contradict facts on the ground that dont seem to indicate the sophistication
of internationally organized terrorist operations. The general consensus,
according to Georgetown professor James Millward, is that radicalized
Uighur expats, who mostly seem to be based in Pakistan rather than Iraq
and Syria, havent provided any operational support for recent violence
in China, but rather just propaganda. And any who are fighting with Middle
Eastern jihadi groups dont seem to be rising very high in their ranks,
said Raffaello Pantucci, an analyst at Londons Royal United Services
Institute.
China, however, has been quick to label moderate Uighurs who speak out
as radicals. Last year a Xinjiang court sentenced Uighur professor Ilham
Tohti to life in prison on charges of separatism, for running a website that
discussed Uighur experiences in the region. The United
States condemnedTohtis sentence, with Secretary of State John Kerry
warning that silencing moderate voices can only make tensions worse.
Indeed, acts of apparent Uighur terrorism within China have risen
sharplyover the past couple years. An attack last March by eight knifewielding men and women at a train station in Yunnan provinces city of
Kunming left 29 dead and at least 130 wounded. In April, people armed with
knives and explosives killed three and injured 79 at the railway station in
Xinjiangs capital, Urumqi. The next month, attackers crashed two cars into
shoppers at an Urumqi market and set off explosives, killing 31 and injuring
more than 90.
The Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, the leading advocacy
organization for the minority (which uses an alternate spelling of the
groups name), condemns violence but says China uses the threat of
terrorism to stifle peaceful dissent as well. Alim Seytoff, the Washington
spokesman for the group, told Foreign Policy by email that he didnt know
whether any Uighurs had joined ISIS, but if they had, they by no means
represent the vast majority of peace-loving Uyghur people, just as those
who joined ISIS from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Europe by no means
represent the freedom-loving peoples of America, Great Britain, Australia
and Europe. In order to deflect criticism of its Xinjiang policies, China is
conflating the Uyghur peoples legitimate demands for human rights,
religious freedom, and democracy with international Islamic terrorism, he
said.
Gladney, the anthropologist, said any Uighurs with ties to ISIS were more
likely driven by resentment of China than by aims of global jihad.
They may want militant training to fight China and even to establish a
Uighur state, he said, but theyre less interested in creating a global
caliphate. Analysts also note that those who do desire a global caliphate
seem to have little more than a passing interest in Uighurs relatively

parochial aspirations, despite some tokengestures, such as Abu Bakr alBaghdadis reference to Chinese violations of Muslim rights last July, and
exaggerated claims about such abuses made last fall by an al Qaeda-run
magazine.
Meanwhile, its unclear if the group Beijing singles out as the greatest
threat, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, comprises a distinct, selfidentified terrorist entity or a looser grouping of individuals. The Chinese
government first mentioned ETIM in a vaguely sourced document in 2001,
shortly after then-U.S. President George W. Bush announced his global war
on terror. In it, China called the group a major component of the terrorist
network headed by Osama bin Laden.
United States seemed to agree that ETIM posed a real threat, listing the
group as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group in 2002 and
detaining 22 Uighurs captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan at Guantnamo
Bay. Some were held for more than a decade, though the United States
lateracknowledged that it didnt have adequate evidence against them. Just
over a year ago it sent the last three to Slovakia one of a handful of small
countries that agreed to host them.
But George Washington Universitys Roberts concluded in a 2012 paper
titled Imaginary Terrorism? that Washington also may have inflated the
Uighur threat. The Uighur detainees at Guantnamo who said theyd
received jihadi training described a training camp in Afghanistan

that amounted to a small, run-down shack. The highlight, in Robertss
words: A one-time opportunity to fire a few bullets with the only
Kalashnikov rifle that was available at the camp. Although detainees
expressed anger about Chinese rule, they all denied belonging to ETIM, and
many said theyd never heard of the group.
Roberts has argued that the United States may have backed Chinas claims
about ETIM in order to cement Chinas support for the occupation of
Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. Nevertheless, various international terrorism
analysts continued to perpetuate the allegations about ETIM in work that
cited government statements as their primary sources. According to
Georgetowns Millward, China uses this echo chamber of supposed
evidence about ETIM to keep alive the idea of an international Uighur
threat,conflating ETIM with the newer, propaganda-producing Turkistan
Islamic Party.
A U.S. State Department official told Foreign Policy that the United States
designated ETIM a terrorist group after careful study, having concluded
that its members were responsible for terrorism in China and were planning
attacks on U.S. interests abroad, but declined to specify the sources of this
information. The official added that the government still maintains this
listing. Officials at Washingtons Chinese Embassy and Chinas State Council
didnt return repeated calls and emails seeking comment.
What worries Human Rights Watchs Bequelin, as several countries

including the United States move to scale up counterterrorism cooperation
with China, isnt so much that other countries believe Chinas inflated
claims. Its more that the need to cooperate on security and other goals
may mean de facto acceptance of, or even practical assistance for, Chinas
repressive policies.
The State Department official said the United States hopes to discuss how
to enhance counterterrorism cooperation with China at an upcoming White
House summit on countering violent extremism in February, and
appreciates Chinas aid to Iraq and support for U.N. resolutions aimed at
stopping foreign fighters from joining extremist groups. At the same time
we continue to urge China to take measures to reduce tension and reform
counterproductive policies in Xinjiang that restrict Uighurs ethnic and
religious identity, the official said.
But for now, there arent too many promising signs from Xinjiang. And China
isnt the only place taking a hard line. Over the past year, governments
from the U.K. to Kosovo to Jordan have been accused of clamping
down on civil liberties or political opponents in the name of
counterterrorism, some basing their actions to seize passports and detain
suspects on the U.S.-backed U.N. foreign fighters resolution. Several
Xinjiang experts draw parallels between radicalized Uighurs and young men
from other countries drawn to extremism in part due to Islamophobia or

alienation at home.
So far, the one Chinese national known to have beencaptured while
fighting for ISIS appeared to be Han Chinese despite initial Chinese
allegations that he was Uighur. But some Uighurs still face particular
suspicion about their aims. In March, Thailand detainedmore than 200
Uighurs within its borders, and although the group comprised families with
several young children, Thai police asserted that they were headed to fight
in Syria.
The families were among growing numbers of Uighurs seeking to flee
Chinese repression via Southeast Asia. Their ultimate destination is usually
Turkey, where many sympathize with Uighurs because they are also a Turkic
people. In recent years, Uighur emigrants skirting tightened border regimes
in Central Asia and Pakistan have turned up in Myanmar, Vietnam,
Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as well as Thailand. The Kunming train
station attackers may have been provoked to violence in part because
Chinese officials thwarted their attempt to cross into Laos.
Its possible that reasons other than Chinese influence caused Thai
authorities to conclude that the apprehended migrants, who claimed to be
Turkish, were headed to Syria, said Pantucci of Londons RUSI. The problem
now is that Turkey is the staging point for Syria, so the perception is if
theyre trying to go to Turkey, they must be trying to go to Syria.
Although some escaped from custody, many of the families detained in

Thailand are still in limbo. China demands their repatriation
and rejectsTurkeys offer to take them in; human rights advocates warn that
China is likely to mistreat them the same reason the United States didnt
send the Gitmo detainees back to China.
As for Xinjiang, Gladney said, there are growing concerns at all levels of
Chinese society even among some government wonks that Chinas
policies arent working. Many believe the western development strategy
meant to lift minorities out of poverty and integrate them into Chinese
society, as well as the strike hard campaign of the past several years,
have only stoked further resentment and violence, spread alarm through
the population, and drawn more international attention to Uighurs plight.
As scholars long predicted, Chinas actions against a perceived Uighur
threat seem to have actually made that threat more real. Twenty years ago
people thought I was crazy talking about Uighurs, Gladney said. Now
theres lots of interest.
Despite increased attention at home and abroad, Gladney didnt see China
making significant changes to its Xinjiang policy any time soon. But they
may tweak it, he said, and that will be the thing to watch.
Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

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Is China Making Its Own Terrorism Problem

BY JUSTINE DRENNAN-FEBRUARY 9, 2015

clashes in 2009, the government has increased regulations on Muslim

Kong-based senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, called Chinese

seem to have little more than a passing interest in Uighurs relatively

received jihadi training described a training camp in Afghanistan

What worries Human Rights Watchs Bequelin, as several countries

from other countries drawn to extremism in part due to Islamophobia or

Although some escaped from custody, many of the families detained in

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

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