Will the US support a proxy war against China in Xinjiang?
In several places, the US has financed, equipped and trained Islamists for war against governments they do not control. Is China's Xinjiang province the next target for US-backed jihadists?
To control the world, US neoconservatives have developed a strategy to take over sovereign nation states that do not align with US imperialist interests. It involves bringing down states by spreading political and social chaos and collapsing national economies. Secret intelligence operations and the financing, equipping and training of internal rebel groups are important components. Extensive use of propaganda, in conjunction with major Western media channels, is a necessary component.
We have seen the results in Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. In Europe, independent Yugoslavia was dismembered in a similar way, while the recipe for weakening and destroying Russia has been described in detail by American think tanks and is openly available online. The “Free Nations of Post-Russia” forum wants to divide Russia into “41 independent, free, developed and prosperous states instead of one insane empire”. Both American think tanks and EU parliamentarians are involved.
However, it is China that is the main challenger to US hegemony in the world, and which is increasingly subject to US aggression in all forms. Can the US use the same strategy as in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria to weaken China? The fall of Assad may provide an opening to do so.
The strategic importance of Xinjiang
The Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang is located in the geographical center of Eurasia, and is a gateway to Russia, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Afghanistan. The region is central to Chinese plans for greater integration of Eurasia.
The rapid expansion of the new Silk Road, driven by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), makes Xinjiang a hub for Chinese trade. This means that the continued economic growth of China is strongly linked to Xinjiang. The trade routes through the eight neighboring countries will be crucial for selling Chinese-made goods and having access to the resources needed to further develop the country's economy.
We're talking about a region three times the size of France that is relatively sparsely populated, with an estimated 25 million people. There are said to be as many as 40 different ethnic groups in Xinjiang, the largest of which are the Muslim Uighurs, who number around 11 million. It is precisely this ethnic composition that the US can use in a divide-and-conquer strategy. Fostering ethnic and religious divisions is a classic recipe for triggering social and political unrest.
Jihadists in Xinjiang
The Western-backed Islamists who have now seized power in Syria have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with militants from the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), who want an Islamic state in Xinjiang, which they call East Turkestan. This is an armed Uighur jihadist group that was founded in Pakistan but has since established a foothold in neighboring Afghanistan. TIP is labeled a terrorist organization by China and the UN, and until 2020 also by the US.
Since threatening to attack the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the TIP has positioned itself for the separatists' cause. The group has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist acts, both in Xinjiang and outside the region, including
- a suicide car bomb attack in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in October 2013, in which several foreigners were killed
- a mass stabbing at Kunming train station in March 2014, which killed 29 people
- a double suicide bombing at Urumqi railway station in April 2014
- car bombs and explosions on a market street in Urumqi in May 2014, killing dozens of people
China attributed these attacks to the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement” (ETIM), the broader term it uses for Uighur jihadist groups, including TIP. In 2017, China announced that the country was “free of terrorist attacks”.
The “Turkestan Islamic Party” has an ideological connection to al-Qaeda and loyalty to the Taliban. Its first members fled China when Uyghur nationalism was cracked down on in Xinjiang in the 1990s. They found a safe haven in one of the few countries that would accept them - Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The US reported fighting Uyghurs in Afghanistan as early as 2001. As of 2002, the US authorities detained 22 Uyghurs in the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba. None of these Uyghurs reportedly referred to the US as an enemy. The Uyghurs, on the other hand, are said to have described the Chinese government as an oppressive occupying power. Some of the Uyghurs said they received military training in Afghanistan in order to return to China and “defend their Uyghur compatriots against the Chinese occupiers”.
As early as 2012, the Chinese “Global Times” reported an organized flow of Uighur jihadists to Syria. Many thousands of Uyghurs have fought alongside Al-Qaeda in Syria over the past 13 years. Now that Assad has been overthrown, these battle-trained Uighurs can be turned against what they refer to as “Chinese occupiers” in Xinjiang.
First they took Syria, then Xinjiang?
History shows that the US is happy to use Islamists to achieve geopolitical gains, and that Islamists are happy to cooperate with the US if they see it as beneficial.
In a video published on December 8, the same day Assad fled, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) threatened China. The video showed fighters with machine guns, wearing military gear. “Now here in Syria, in all the cities here, we are fighting for Allah, and we will continue to do this in Urumqi, Aksu and Kashgar in the future,” said a masked man, adding that ”we will chase the Chinese infidels away.”
The group has posted images on social media of blood splashing on Xi Jinping's face. Here's a propaganda video published on December 7, explaining their goal of liberating what they call “Chinese-occupied East Turkistan”.
Chinese Major General Jin Yinan has claimed that TIP is fighting in Syria to raise awareness of the Uyghur cause and to gain combat experience so that they can one day use these fighting skills against Beijing.
It is now inconceivable that a few thousand jihadists, however well trained, will be able to “liberate” Xinjiang with weapons. But if they leave Syria and head for Xinjiang, or attack Chinese interests in neighboring countries, they could use sabotage and armed terrorist attacks to create enough social and political unrest to weaken China and the development of the strategically important Xinjiang region in particular.
This could be a welcome contribution for the US in its struggle to maintain world hegemony.
Allegations of ethnic and cultural genocide against Uyghurs
The terrorist attacks that hit China a few years ago naturally led to countermeasures. Every state must protect its citizens from such attacks. But how comprehensive and brutal were the measures?
Claims that are constantly repeated in Western media, and frequently promoted by the most anti-Chinese Western politicians, are that Chinese authorities have sent more than one million Uyghurs to re-education camps since 2017. In addition, Uyghurs are allegedly subjected to intense surveillance, forced labor and involuntary sterilization. The US and other Western governments have described China's actions in Xinjiang as genocide. Others speak of a “cultural genocide”, where Uyghurs are denied the use of their own language, denied the practice of religion, denied fasting during Ramadan, etc.
We have learned from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Ukraine and Syria, among others, that the extensive use of propaganda, in conjunction with major Western media channels, is a necessary part of the preparations for war. The anti-Chinese propaganda is massive in Western media, and much of the propaganda is directly funded by the US Congress.
The Chinese authorities have said that they have not violated the rights of Uyghurs and that they closed the re-education camps in 2019. Of course, they deny that Uyghurs in Xinjiang are victims of genocide or cultural oppression. So what are we to believe?
Recent report: Nothing to substantiate claims of genocide
It is difficult to get Western media attention for investigations that refute the strong accusations against the Chinese authorities. This silence can only be understood as a form of censorship.
Why, for example, hasn't the press picked up on the “Report from the Nordic Delegation to China’s Xinjiang Province, September 7-15, 2024”, which was published on peace researcher Jan Oberg's “The Transnational”?
Journalist and former editor Arild Vollan wanted to investigate allegations of an ongoing genocide of the Uighurs. Vollan selected an independent, cross-disciplinary and cross-political delegation group consisting of people who have worked with China and who wanted to form a personal impression of the situation. After traveling to Xinjiang province, the delegation's mandate was to clarify whether observations made during the trip supported claims that a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang today.
In Xinjiang, the delegation members could talk to anyone they wanted. Parts of the program were conducted without the participation of local or regional authorities. Information was gathered by meeting people and observing cultural expressions both inside and outside local institutions, by talking to representatives from different cultural minorities and through open sources on the internet.
The delegation saw nothing to substantiate the claims that there is a genocide of Uyghurs or other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
The delegation's unanimous observations make it likely that the Chinese authorities are implementing several measures to preserve and strengthen the ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. This also applies to the Uighur ethnic minority. Xinjiang province is becoming a multicultural hub. The observation makes it more unlikely that China is carrying out genocide. The delegation saw no evidence that Chinese authorities killed members of any ethnic group in Xinjiang or inflicted serious physical or mental harm on members of such groups.
After his first visit to Xinjiang, Jan Oberg himself described the region as “free-spirited”, “safe” and “colorful”. “There is nothing that I have heard in the West that in my view were confirmed.”
Sources:
“China has cause to be terrified of rebel-run Syria”, asiatimes.com 13.12.24, “Turkistan Islamic Party”, Wikipedia.org, “Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria”, Wikipedia.org, “The Turkistan Islamic Party in Double-Exile: Geographic and Organizational Divisions in Uighur Jihadism”, jamestown.org 07.09.18, “Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay”, Wikipedia.org, “When China Convinced the U.S. That Uighurs Were Waging Jihad”, theatlantic.com 19.03.19, “Xinjiang jihad hits Syria”, globaltimes.cn 29.10.12, “Uyghur fighters in Syria vow to come for China next”, telegraph.co.uk 13.12.24, “Uyghur separatist threat could reach beyond China’s Xinjiang”, asiatimes.com 17.12.24, “Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)”, counterextremism.com, ”China’s Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang”, Council on Foreign Relations – cfr.org, 22.09.22, “Report from the Nordic delegation to China’s Xinjiang Province, September 7-15, 2024”, transnational.live 16.11.24