[EDIT: I am not sure what to make of this yet ...]
In China, Fear of Growing Islamist Threat
Apr 09, 2003
stratfor.biz
Summary
China has asked the United States to provide more cooperation in helping it crack down on the East Turkestan separatist movement. Officials in Beijing are worried not only about a conflict heating up in the western Xinjiang province, but perhaps about the emergence of discontented Muslim groups in the rest of the country as well.
Analysis
China's police minister, Zhou Yongkang, on April 8 asked U.S. Ambassador Clark Randt for more support from Washington as China battles Muslim separatists in the northwestern province of Xinjiang.
Over the past year, Beijing and Washington have coordinated efforts to suppress militant Islamic groups in and along China's borders. Efforts included Washington's censure of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETM) and a high-profile drugs-for-Stingers arrest case in Hong Kong. However, Beijing is increasingly worried not only about Uighur separatists, but also about signs of rising sympathy among China's millions of Muslims for international Islamic causes.
In September 2002, United States announced plans to freeze the assets of the ETM, and the United Nations soon afterward added the group to a list of entities and people linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban. The ETM is based in Xinjiang, a province dominated by Muslims and where the majority of ethnic Uighurs live. Beijing has accused the group of seeking to create an independent state of East Turkestan and of having direct ties with al Qaeda.
In February, J. Cofer Black -- the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism coordinator -- met with his Chinese counterparts in Beijing, where he reportedly sought the government's assistance in freezing militant group funds that could be hidden in Chinese bank accounts. Washington likely asked Beijing to focus attention on Hong Kong's highly active banks, where numerous foreign currency transfers easily could disguise the movement of illicit funds.
Hong Kong is a natural transit point not only for legitimate business in Asia, but also for militant groups and criminal gangs. Hong Kong's ports, banks and large foreign population make it an ideal location for all to do business.
FBI agents conducted a sting operation in Hong Kong in 2002, nabbing two Pakistani men and an American man who allegedly were trying to exchange 1,320 pounds of heroin and five tons of hashish for four Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The men reportedly said they intended to sell the missiles to the Taliban.
Beijing's latest request for U.S. cooperation in anti-terrorism operations is an attempt to make Washington renew its vocal support for Beijing's campaign against militant Uighur separatists. However, it also may be indicative of growing fears that China's Muslims are increasingly sympathetic to international Islamic causes.
In a Jan. 30 interview with Radio Free Asia, East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO) leader Mehmet Emin Hazret warned that although his group's expressed goal is to gain independence for Turkestan through peaceful means, a militant movement may be "inevitable." The fact that Hazret made his comments on a U.S.-funded media outlet probably was not lost on Chinese leaders.
Beijing reportedly has been trying to convince Washington to recognize the ETLO as a terrorist organization, claiming the group is responsible for a series of poison and arson attacks in 1998. Hazret's bold statements on a U.S.-sponsored radio program probably have left Beijing wondering exactly where Washington stands on the issue of East Turkestan independence, and the government's latest overtures probably are an attempt to get some clarification.
The Turkestan separatist movements are the most violent and militant of the various opposition groups in China. A string of bombings across Xinjiang and other Chinese cities have killed and injured a number of people since the mid-1990s. It is possible that Beijing fears not only the emergence of a more serious conflict in its western province, but also the specter of militant Islamists gaining a foothold in China and causing instability among the more than 13 million Muslims that live there.
There already is some evidence that Chinese Muslims are willing to join militant causes. U.S. forces in Afghanistan captured 300 Chinese nationals fighting alongside the Taliban in 2002 -- they are believed to be mostly ethnic Uighurs from Xinjiang. And in the past few months some mosques in China reportedly have called for volunteers to go to Baghdad and fight in support of Saddam Hussein's regime -- a phenomenon not uncommon in Cairo, Damascus or the West Bank, but unheard of before in China. If Muslims, who hail mainly from China's poor western provinces, begin to transcend their traditional isolation and identify more with international Islamist movements, Beijing could face a serious security challenge.
Officials in Beijing likely see East Turkestan separatist movements as the vanguard of a potentially greater indigenous Islamic threat. The government would prefer to quash that threat before it grows -- and it wants Washington's continued support when it makes its move. |
