For now China stays out of Islamic State war

Islamist Violence in China
Victims of a Muslim bombing lie on a street near the
site where attackers ploughed two vehicles into
a market and threw explosives.
(scmp.com)

China Avoids Middle East Involvement

• Facing their own Islamic terrorism, China stays away from ISIS. 
• China is the top oil investor in Iraq, and Islamic State leaders say they have Chinese recruits. But Beijing is reluctant to get involved due to limited military capability in the Middle East and mistrust of US intentions.

One might expect China to be heavily invested in the international fight to stop Islamic State jihadists from taking over Iraq and Syria: For starters, China is the number one investor in Iraq's oil industry. Yet, Beijing is almost nowhere to be seen in anti-IS coalition discussions.

There are reasons enough for China to get involved. The Asian giant’s economy depends on the Middle East for half its imported energy. China now imports more oil from the region than the United States does, and is the largest investor in the Iraqi oil industry. 

And as the Chinese authorities step up their battle against increasingly violent Muslim separatists in the western province of Xinjiang, Islamic State leaders boast of Chinese recruits to their self-declared caliphate reports the Christian Science Monitor.

China’s contribution to the international military assault on Islamic State targets, however, is a timid offer of “intelligence sharing and personnel training” by Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

China’s rulers are reluctant to get more heavily involved for a number of reasons, say analysts here, ranging from their mistrust of American intentions to a fear of being sucked out of their depth into the Middle East maelstrom.

They are also disappointed that Western governments have been skeptical about Beijing’s hardline response to ethnic unrest among Uighurs in Xinjiang, and they are adamant that only the United Nations can authorize military action in a sovereign state’s territory.

For the first time this week, the state-run Chinese media linked Xinjiang militants to the self-named Islamic State. The Global Times, owned by the ruling Communist Party, quoted an unidentified Chinese “anti-terrorism worker” as saying Uighur militants “want…to expand their connections in international terrorist organizations through actual combat to gain support for escalation of terrorist activities in China.”
 

In July, the man who has declared himself the caliph of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, claimed that he counted Chinese citizens among his fighters, and accused the Chinese government of “extreme torture and degradation of Muslims” in “East Turkestan,” the name that pro-independence forces give to Xinjiang.

Islamist Terrorism in China 

 

More than 300 people have died in escalating violence in Xinjiang over the past 18 months, and Uighur terrorists killed 31 people in a knife attack last March on Kunming railway station in southeastern China.

Beijing blames the violence on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and the World Uighur Congress; Chinese officials are angry that Western governments do not share their analysis.

The US State Department took ETIM off its list of international terrorist organizations amid doubts over its real status and role. Outside China the World Uighur Congress is considered a peaceful minority rights group pushing for Uighur independence.

Beijing considers such tolerance incoherent. “The fight against terrorism should not have double standards,” says Li Shaoxian, deputy head of the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations, a think tank affiliated with the security forces. “It should respect the rights and wishes of all the countries involved.”

Read More . . . .

The Religion of Peace Strikes Again
Three people were confirmed dead and 79 others were injured, including four seriously injured, in a Muslim terrorist attack at a railway station in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang.
(sino-us.com)