With Islamic terror attacks against Chinese projects in partner nations increasing around the world, the questions becomes “Is China ready to combat terrorism both inside China and at Chinese interests globally?”
China has long faced violence from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). A movement which seeks an independent Xinjiang. Xinjiang use to be called East Turkistan.
Early in the 20th century, Uyghur separatists and their supporters used the name East Turkestan as a symbol for the whole of Xinjiang including areas known as the the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria.
The future independent state in present-day Xinjiang was once an Uyghur Autonomous Region. They reject the name Xinjiang which means “New Frontier” in Chinese.
This is because of the Chinese perspective reflected in the name, as opposed to Turkic origin. Hence the preference for “East Turkestan” instead of Xinjiang to emphasize the connection to other, western Turkic groups.
Control of Xinjiang
To counter the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and other separatist Uighurs, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has passed laws strictly regulating the area. In some cases even restricting expressions of Islamic and Turkic identity within China’s borders.
Such levels of control have been used elsewhere in China where the CCP has felt threatened by separatist movements in the past. Since the 2014 “Strike Hard” campaign, China’s crackdown in Xinjiang has been severe.
The campaign has escalated to include internment camps, forced labor, and daily indoctrination programs. The CCP has also made great use of technological advancements to surveil and monitor all Xinjiang residents’ activities. This is under the umbrellas of managing islamic terrorrism.
Along with surveillance cameras equipped with facial recognition, the government also collects additional information on residents. Information which may deemed privacy sensitive is also collected such as biometric data, data usage, and location.
This sweeping approach is used to combat what China considers to be a serious terrorism threat by Islamic extremism both globally and within China.
Chinese Counterterrorism
As China continues to develop the new ways to counter terrorism at home, it has also begun to export its version of counterterrorism methods outside of China.
In addition to selling surveillance technology to foreign governments, China has also become a more active player in the international counterterrorism space.
It has increased its involvement with bilateral and multilateral counterterrorism institutions and has used its power to suppress criticism of its tactics.
This heightened involvement in counterterrorism activity abroad combined with China’s increasing economic influence, has made Chinese nationals and projects larger targets of terrorism abroad.
China and The West
While China has never been a particularly strong counterterrorism partner for the West. Recent tensions in trade with the United States as well as political riffs with Canada, have put thrm at odds with China.
As well as ongoing rhetoric between China and the West has made cooperation to fight terrorism especially between all the parties unlikely in the near to medium term.
Differences in approaches to technology usage and oversight as well criticisms of China’s human rights violations have added to the tension.
While the United States and other liberal democracies are still setting the global counterterrorism agenda, China has found opportunity to independently strengthen ties with states facing terrorism threats such as Russia.
If China moves towards taking a leadership role in countering terrorism and its policies become the future standard, counterterrorism could become an additional area of contention between Beijing and Washington.
