Wait, what? You mean they misunderstand Islam in Xinjiang the same way they do in Iraq and Syria? How did this misunderstanding of Islam get so widespread? Can Obama get someone over there who knows the true Islam, and explain to the Uighurs how they’re misunderstanding the Religion of Peace? If John Kerry’s schedule is too busy, maybe Maria Harf or Fr. Dwight Longenecker could make the trip.
“Chinese militants get Islamic State ‘terrorist training’: Media,” Reuters, September 22, 2014:
BEIJING – Chinese militants from the western region of Xinjiang have fled from the country to get “terrorist training” from Islamic State fighters for attacks at home, state media reported on Monday.
The report was the first time state-run media had linked militants from Xinjiang, home to ethnic minority Uighur Muslims, to militants of the Islamic State (IS), a radical Sunni Muslim group which has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq.
China’s government has blamed a surge of violence over the past year on Islamist militants from Xinjiang who China says are fighting for an independent state called East Turkestan.
“They not only want to get training in terrorist techniques, but also to expand their connections in international terrorist organisations through actual combat to gain support for escalation of terrorist activities in China,” the Global Times cited an unidentified Chinese “anti-terrorism worker” as saying.
Many Uighurs in Xinjiang resent what they call Chinese government restrictions on their culture, language and religion. Human rights groups say heavy-handed treatment of Uighurs leads to frustration but authorities deny imposing such restrictions.
In the latest violence in the region, which borders central Asia, state media said two people were killed and several injured in at least three explosions on Sunday.
The Global Times, which is run by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, said militants from Xinjiang had recently been involved in IS activities in Syria and Iraq as well as with IS “branches” in Southeast Asia.
The newspaper said in the report on its website that four suspected militants from Xinjiang were arrested in Indonesia this month. Indonesian police said last week four foreigners were being questioned but did not identify them.
The four fled to Cambodia from China, and then went to Thailand where they obtained fake Turkish passports, before flying to Indonesia through Malaysia, the newspaper said.
Indonesia has raised concern about a possible spillover of IS support after revelations that Indonesian citizens had travelled to Syria and Iraq to join fighters there.
“Terrorists, separatists and extremists” from Xinjiang have often slipped abroad through mountainous provinces in southern China with porous border areas, because border control in Xinjiang was strict, the newspaper said.
“Their ultimate goal is still to fight back into China,” Pan Zhiping, a former head of Central Asia studies at Xinjiang’s Academy of Social Science, told the Global Times.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said on Monday that Uighur separatist groups had sent members abroad to work with militants.
“East Turkestan forces have dispatched people to other regions to carry out so-called jihad and collude with international terrorist forces,” said ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
Hu said she could not provide specific details on the content of the Global Times article.
Fears of domestic militants getting help abroad are likely to lend urgency to a nationwide “anti-terrorism” operation that President Xi Jinping’s administration has launched following attacks that Beijing has blamed on Islamists and separatists from Xinjiang.
– See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/world/chinese-militants-get-islamic-state-terrorist-training-media#sthash.yaVdi4vp.dpuf
Kepha says
Mazo, with all due respect for Hui people’s Chinese patriotism (which I’ve seen firsthand myself–including how it can morph into Taiwanese patriotism after two generations, and even Thai patriotism once allowed to become actual subjects of the Chakkri monarch), the NYTimes, WashCompost, etc. and other “Jewish” rags originally cheered for Communist China against all reactionary holdouts, and did so right down to June 4, 1989. That was the same day when a number of my Pan-blue supporting Taiwanese acquaintances started saying, “现在,我们都是台独分子“ (We’re all for Taiwan independence now)。I remember the likes of Harrison Salisbury and Scotty Reston just gushing about Mao back in the 1970’s. Back then, if those folks even knew what an Uyghur was or about Grandpa Ma beaten to death by Red Guards for refusing to raise the “black bug” (pig) or for having served in the Guominjun, they would’ve approved in the names of “progress” and “bringing China and Central Asia up to date”.
Don’t get me wrong. I love freedom of the press and freedom of speech. I think there are a lot of American politicans who ought to be impeached, then disbarred from legal work of any kind (including courtroom translation, if they’re polyglotts) over these issues. But a free press can sometimes be the home of intellectual wh*res.
But, to get back to China, I strongly suspect that one dynamic driving the current fad of supporting the Dalai Lama and the Uyghurs in large sections of the American and other media–or even alienating numbers of people who might otherwise admire and like China–may have a lot more to do with the gangsterish “I live; you die” (我活你死) attitude of too much of modern China’s politics than with any perfidy of Americans, Japanese, Russians, English, or JOOOOOOZ (as if a few hundred folks in Kaifeng and a handful of aging, formerly ultra-Red “foreign friends” going frum in old age could make much of a difference in China).
Also, was it not the Communist State itself that told the Turki people that both the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria were their “national homeland”, and that they were the great “Uyghur nation” descended from those pre-Mongol khanates? After all, 斯大林伯伯 , that Great Father of the Peoples, couldn’t be wrong, could he? Sounds a little like the Dutch giving the Javanese the idea that they’re the rightful rulers of all Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Ambon, and Papua; or the Brits giving the Arabs of the Middle Nile the idea that they’re the rightful owners of everything and everybody between the Umpteenth Cataract and a few degrees above the Equator; or the French putting it in the head of a certain young Mr. Nguyen Sinh Cung/Nguyen Tat Thanh that the Kinh people should head a Greater Indochina–oops, Viet Nam–stretching even into most of Thailand’s Isan, doesn’t it?
This being said, I’ll back you up in your statement that there just aren’t Hui, Salar, Bonan, Dongxiang, or Tsat terrorists running around–although I have met quite a few Hui people who might be called dissident (albeit in the context of seeking political change in the Chinese state rather than separatism).
Kepha says
While I’m at it, 马老兄,I will also note that whatever my theological issues with the Jews (I believe M’shiach came 2,000 years ago) and political issues with many of them, I refuse to impugn their American patriotism or deny their positive contributions to the USA. Indeed, Jews are as politically divided and contentious as any other group in America.
And, as for the Great Ancient Jewish Conspiracy to put the World Under the Rule of a Jewish King (GAJCTPTWUTROAJK, or whatever), I myself am part of it. It’s other name is Christianity.
Salah says
“Human rights groups say heavy-handed treatment of Uighurs leads to frustration”
That’s probably because this “heavy-handed treatment of Uighurs” wasn’t heavy enough!
duh_swami says
There must be a way to blame Geo Bush for this.
When Islam is out of power it takes an iron fist to keep it that way. When the iron fist is lifted what you get is a failed Arab Spring and a brutal Caliphate. The Chinese gov not burdened by PC, is perfectly capable of the iron fist.
Kepha says
duh_–unfortunately, the Chinese government treats everyone with an iron fist.
umbra says
Not everyone, only those it finds disagreeable.
mralstoner says
Rule #1 about Chinese state-run media: never trust it. As a source of trustworthy journalism, it ranks zero.
While this article may be true, it may alternatively just be a propaganda piece by the Chinese government to demonise the Uighurs, as a pretext to further crackdowns and occupation of their territory.
The Chinese dictatorship are opportunists, who would jump at the worldwide outrage against ISIS, as cover for further encroachment into Uighur territory. And while we should be rightly concerned about ISIS, getting so fixated on Islam as to quote known unreliable Chinese state-run news sources, is amateur hour. I generally agree with Spencer 99% of the time, but quoting Chinese media is crazy talk.
Kepha says
@mralstoner–Having lived a couple of years in Mainland China, I agree with you. The PRC media will demonize EVERYONE it finds disagreeabel–and that’s just about everyone who organizes outside the Party’s aegis.
Kepha says
Mazo, rest assured that I believe Li’s nonsense to be nonsense. As a Christian, I have little time for Falun Gong. However, I am also a firm believer that the framers of the American Constitution got it right when they defended right of peaceable assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. Hence, as an American (of admittedly checkered ancestry), I learn to put up with a certain amount of nonsense. We are, after all, the homeland of radical feminism, EmCeePeeCee, and the great sexual pervert whine.
But I will also say that I think 20th century totalitarianism, whether of the socialist, nationalist, or hybrid variety, to be a great swindle. Unfortunately, given that China’s current government and ruling Party are the last, best hope of that swindle, I mistrust the Chinese Communist Party and government–much as there’s a lot about China that I frankly admire and feel privileged to have shared in.