China fears 'Islamist terror attacks' from 'Uyghur militants' now that the Taliban controls Afghanis
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Source: Alternet
Mainland China's border with Afghanistan is only 47 miles long compared to borders with Russia and India that are longer than 2100 miles and a border with Myanmar that is more than 1300 miles long. But journalist Stuart Lau, in an article published by Politico on August 17, explains why that 47-mile border has become a major worry to the Chinese government in Beijing. With the extremist Taliban now in control in Afghanistan, according to Lau, Chinese officials fear that Taliban jihadists will help Uyghur separatists.
Lau explains, "Afghanistan looms larger in the mindset of China's leadership than you'd imagine from the countries' mere 47-mile stretch of shared border a curly line that you'll easily miss if Google Maps is not sufficiently zoomed in
. For China, the nightmare is Islamist terror attacks, plotted across that short border. Before Beijing turned to its more recent draconian policies like internment and forced sterilization against the Uyghur Muslims in the region of Xinjiang, which neighbors Afghanistan, Chinese anti-terrorism officials accused the Taliban of supporting Uyghur militants who they said plotted 'thousands' of attacks inside its territory since the 1990s."
According to Lau, "China attributed multiple fatal attacks in the 2000s and 2010s including one outside Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2013, as well as a train station stabbing case in the southern city of Kunming a year after to a Uyghur insurgent group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Beijing has particular concerns that regional instability could reignite Afghan Islamist support for fighters associated with ETIM. Last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Taliban's co-founder, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar who's now tipped to be the next Afghan president to cut ties with ETIM and do more."
The Taliban have a long history of alliances with fellow extremists, including al-Qaeda. When the Taliban were in control in Afghanistan from 1996-2001, they provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda training camps and following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush Administration cited those camps as one of the reasons why the Taliban needed to be removed from power in Afghanistan. One terrorist group the Taliban doesn't get along with at all, however, is ISIS (Islamic State, Iraq and Syria). ISIS, ironically, is too violent even for The Taliban, and ISIS believes that what the Taliban practices isn't true Shariah law.
Read more: https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/taliban-2654706704/
Lovie777
(12,218 posts)mpcamb
(2,868 posts)Klaralven
(7,510 posts)China's border with Afghanistan is at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, a roughly 200 mile, steep sided, narrow mountain valley sandwitched between Tajikistan and Pakistan. It is very difficult terrain for transport, and probably not much moves there that China doesn't know about.
The terrorist route is north to Tajikistan and then east across the extensive border with China. Or even further north through Kyrgyzstan to China. Which is why the US has been attempting to destabilize the former Soviet republics in Central Asia since the collapse of the USSR.
Afghanistan is also the training base for terrorists from Chechnya and the rest of the North Caucasus working against Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakhan_Corridor
jaxexpat
(6,798 posts)We'll know how dysfunctional their government really is by how long they resist the temptation to go at it in ham-handed military style like Russia and the US did. Afghanistan is not so much the graveyard of empires as it is the "litmus test" for capable long-sightedness regarding difficult objectives.
Crowman2009
(2,490 posts)Last edited Sat Aug 21, 2021, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)
I highly doubt the PLA will bode well against the Taliban.
marble falls
(56,997 posts)Koch Ebola
(831 posts)IT started with Genghis Khan all the way up to the former Soviet Union. For some reason that Guerillas in the mountain are invincible.
Let China take a crack at it.
My Blog.
https://stephenjaymorrisblog.tumblr.com/
COL Mustard
(5,869 posts)They're welcome to try and solve it. Good luck.
marble falls
(56,997 posts)Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,729 posts)Lotsa luck China.
Dopers_Greed
(2,640 posts)modrepub
(3,491 posts)Ever notice how politicians have to prop up an enemy to focus everyone's attention on? We have the Taliban, China and Russia. And us for them. It just seems they need an "enemy" to keep people from noticing how fricken inept they are about mundane things like balancing the budget, keeping basic infrastructure working, supporting education systems and maintaining some form of basic health-care.
The Taliban barely have 2 cents to rub together. They can't number more than a couple thousand hard-core members and they're half a world away from the CONUS. No one wants to live under their regime that prohibits you from listening to music, dancing or restricts free movement and forces you to listen to long-winded esoteric religious discussions.
And here we have the media and politician having hissy fits about some far flung country most people have little to no understanding of, including themselves. It's just deflection to keep folks from focusing on taking care of things that would really have an impact on most of us.
Omaha Steve
(99,493 posts)Opinion and analysis, not LBN.
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