In October 2013, a jeep ploughed through a crowd of pedestrians on the edge of Tiananmen Square, crashed and burst into flames, killing five people. The authorities identified the driver as Uighur, a member of an Islamic ethnic minority hailing from China’s northwest region of Xinjiang. Six months later, eight knife-wielding Uighurs rampaged through a packed railway station in Kunming in southwest China, killing 29 people and wounding more than 140 others — an attack described by the national media as ‘China’s 9/11’.
Beijing blamed both attacks on radical Islamist organisations pursuing what it calls the ‘three evils’: terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. It claims terrorists are attempting to create an independent Islamic state in Xinjiang, directed by hostile foreign forces aligned with al-Qaeda and the Taleban. Since the World Trade Center attacks in New York in 2001, Beijing has explicitly linked its crackdown in Xinjiang to the US’s global war on terror, portraying China as a fellow ‘victim of international terrorism’.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in