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Attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan and violence in Xinjiang should lead Beijing to realise that Islamabad can never be trusted, leave alone befriended.
Ahead of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardaris private visit to India and lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Islamabad made a rather flamboyant statement that Beijings enemies were Islamabads enemies as well. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was in China to attend the Boao Forum for Asia, said at a meeting with Vice Premier Li Keqiang that Chinas friend is our friend and Chinas enemy is our enemy. Incidentally, Mr Li is expected to replace Wen Jiabao as Chinas next Premier later this year.
This high-decibel display of friendship came weeks after a Chinese national was murdered in Peshawar. The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed that they killed the Chinese woman to avenge the atrocities carried out by Chinese security forces on Muslims in Xinjiang.
In recent years, there have been five other attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan. Three of these attacks were in Baluchistan and one each in the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Chinese nationals were killed in four of these incidents while two instances of assault took place after the commando action at Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July 2007. Three Chinese nationals were killed by unidentified persons in Peshawar and Chinese engineers travelling by bus in Baluchis-tan had a miraculous escape when there was an explosion targetting their bus. There was also an incident involving kidnapping of six Chinese sex workers working in an Islamabad massage parlour by some women students of the girls madarsa at Lal Masjid.
The increasing violence and the clamour for independence in the remote Muslim majority Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan has been an area of concern in the otherwise fraternal ties between the two countries. Yet, officially, Beijing has been maintaning a studied silence on Islamabads alleged involvement in training the Uyghur extremists notwithstanding the stand taken by the provincial Government which has openly blamed Pakistan for the troubles.
In fact, Nur Bekri, the top Govern-ment official in Chinas northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, recently told the National Peoples Congress, Chinas highest legislative body, which meets once a year, We have discovered some East Turkestan activists and terrorists from our neighbouring country have countless links. He was quick to add that Chinese officials believe the Pakistani Government opposes recent attacks directed at China. Nonetheless, the unusually explicit comments during a high-profile legislative session suggest growing concern over Islamabads inability to fight terrorism.
Following last years attack that killed 11 people on the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the restive Western region, the local Government had blamed a group of religious extremists led by culprits trained in overseas terrorist camps. The attack in Kashgar city shook the region where Muslim Uyghurs have long opposed the presence of Han Chinese and Beijings administrative control. An initial police investigation found that the leaders of the group responsible for the attack were trained in explosives and firearms in Pakistan at a camp of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, it said.
The local Government had described the attacks as another violent terrorist action by a small group of foes organised and planned under special conditions. Their main intention behind this terrorist violence was to sabotage inter-ethnic unity and harm social stability, provoking ethnic hatred and creating ethnic conflict. It said the captured suspects had confessed that the ringleaders had earlier gone to Pakistan and joined the East Turkestan Islamic Movement to receive firearms and explosives training and that they infiltrated back into China.
Eighteen people including 14 rioters were killed in an attack on a police station in Xinjiang on 18 July. In July 2009, the regional capital, Urumqi, was rocked by violence between majority Han Chinese and minority Uyghurs in which nearly 200 people were killed, most of them Han Chinese. The 2011 the Hotan Attack was a series of coordinated bomb and knife attacks that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, on July 18, 2011. While many had always suspected Pakistani involvement in terrorism in Xinjiang, the 2011 Hotan attack marked the first incident of acknowledgement of this by authorities in China. The recent murder of a Chinese woman in Peshawar was preceded by a spurt of violence in the remote Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan, where several persons were stabbed to death and some more killed in retaliation by security forces. Many of those killed were Muslim Uyghurs.
Without naming Islamabad, Chinese officials blamed East Turkistan Islamic Movement separatists, allegedly trained in Pakistan, who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan. Last week, a Chinese court sentenced an ethnic Uyghur man to death after convicting him of terrorist acts in Xinjiang. According to Pan Zhiping, a researcher with the Central Asia Studies Institute, ETIM, based somewhere along the AfPak border, is the most violent and dangerous among the East Turkistan separatist forces. The ETIM, a Waziri based Mujahideen organisation, operates in close co-ordination with Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Jihad Union from hide-outs in North Waziristan.
The violence in Xinjiang and increasing attacks on Chinese in Pakistan must serve as an eye opener for China. It is time Beijing realises that Frankenstein monsters finally turn against their own creators and sustainers. Pakistan is no exception. Washington, DC has apparently realised its mistake in nurturing a rogue state like Pakistan. Notwithstand-ing Mr Gilanis pompous declarations, China would do well to take a cue before Xinjiang is turned into another Kashmir.
China
Ahead of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardaris private visit to India and lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Islamabad made a rather flamboyant statement that Beijings enemies were Islamabads enemies as well. Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was in China to attend the Boao Forum for Asia, said at a meeting with Vice Premier Li Keqiang that Chinas friend is our friend and Chinas enemy is our enemy. Incidentally, Mr Li is expected to replace Wen Jiabao as Chinas next Premier later this year.
This high-decibel display of friendship came weeks after a Chinese national was murdered in Peshawar. The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed that they killed the Chinese woman to avenge the atrocities carried out by Chinese security forces on Muslims in Xinjiang.
In recent years, there have been five other attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan. Three of these attacks were in Baluchistan and one each in the North-West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Chinese nationals were killed in four of these incidents while two instances of assault took place after the commando action at Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July 2007. Three Chinese nationals were killed by unidentified persons in Peshawar and Chinese engineers travelling by bus in Baluchis-tan had a miraculous escape when there was an explosion targetting their bus. There was also an incident involving kidnapping of six Chinese sex workers working in an Islamabad massage parlour by some women students of the girls madarsa at Lal Masjid.
The increasing violence and the clamour for independence in the remote Muslim majority Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan has been an area of concern in the otherwise fraternal ties between the two countries. Yet, officially, Beijing has been maintaning a studied silence on Islamabads alleged involvement in training the Uyghur extremists notwithstanding the stand taken by the provincial Government which has openly blamed Pakistan for the troubles.
In fact, Nur Bekri, the top Govern-ment official in Chinas northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, recently told the National Peoples Congress, Chinas highest legislative body, which meets once a year, We have discovered some East Turkestan activists and terrorists from our neighbouring country have countless links. He was quick to add that Chinese officials believe the Pakistani Government opposes recent attacks directed at China. Nonetheless, the unusually explicit comments during a high-profile legislative session suggest growing concern over Islamabads inability to fight terrorism.
Following last years attack that killed 11 people on the eve of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the restive Western region, the local Government had blamed a group of religious extremists led by culprits trained in overseas terrorist camps. The attack in Kashgar city shook the region where Muslim Uyghurs have long opposed the presence of Han Chinese and Beijings administrative control. An initial police investigation found that the leaders of the group responsible for the attack were trained in explosives and firearms in Pakistan at a camp of the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement, it said.
The local Government had described the attacks as another violent terrorist action by a small group of foes organised and planned under special conditions. Their main intention behind this terrorist violence was to sabotage inter-ethnic unity and harm social stability, provoking ethnic hatred and creating ethnic conflict. It said the captured suspects had confessed that the ringleaders had earlier gone to Pakistan and joined the East Turkestan Islamic Movement to receive firearms and explosives training and that they infiltrated back into China.
Eighteen people including 14 rioters were killed in an attack on a police station in Xinjiang on 18 July. In July 2009, the regional capital, Urumqi, was rocked by violence between majority Han Chinese and minority Uyghurs in which nearly 200 people were killed, most of them Han Chinese. The 2011 the Hotan Attack was a series of coordinated bomb and knife attacks that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, on July 18, 2011. While many had always suspected Pakistani involvement in terrorism in Xinjiang, the 2011 Hotan attack marked the first incident of acknowledgement of this by authorities in China. The recent murder of a Chinese woman in Peshawar was preceded by a spurt of violence in the remote Xinjiang province, which borders Pakistan, where several persons were stabbed to death and some more killed in retaliation by security forces. Many of those killed were Muslim Uyghurs.
Without naming Islamabad, Chinese officials blamed East Turkistan Islamic Movement separatists, allegedly trained in Pakistan, who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan. Last week, a Chinese court sentenced an ethnic Uyghur man to death after convicting him of terrorist acts in Xinjiang. According to Pan Zhiping, a researcher with the Central Asia Studies Institute, ETIM, based somewhere along the AfPak border, is the most violent and dangerous among the East Turkistan separatist forces. The ETIM, a Waziri based Mujahideen organisation, operates in close co-ordination with Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Jihad Union from hide-outs in North Waziristan.
The violence in Xinjiang and increasing attacks on Chinese in Pakistan must serve as an eye opener for China. It is time Beijing realises that Frankenstein monsters finally turn against their own creators and sustainers. Pakistan is no exception. Washington, DC has apparently realised its mistake in nurturing a rogue state like Pakistan. Notwithstand-ing Mr Gilanis pompous declarations, China would do well to take a cue before Xinjiang is turned into another Kashmir.
China
