Is the jihadi ideology spreading in the Muslim community of China -- geographically as well as ethnically? Has it started infecting Muslims in provinces other than the Xinjiang Autonomous Region? Has it started affecting the Huis and other non-Uighur segments of the Chinese Muslim community? Is the Uighur separatist movement becoming part of the global jihadi movement? What has been the influence of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban on the Chinese Muslims? What role has the Internet, which has spread spectacularly in China, been playing in facilitating the self-radicalisation of sections of the Chinese Muslim community?
These are questions which China analysts will be increasingly confronted with as they study the scanty information coming out of Xinjiang and other areas where there is a Muslim community. This is a sensitive subject for the Chinese. Their analysts rarely pose these questions and seek answers for them. The Chinese media merely repeats the government propaganda-- the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is the source of all evil; it operates from the Af-Pak region; it is associated with Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban; it exploits the economic grievances of the UIghurs for achieving religious objectives; there is no religious anger in Xinjiang; people are happy as Muslims; the Government gives them all the facilities they need as Muslims; their grievances are mainly because they are economically not as advanced as the Chinese in the other provinces; the Government has decided to pour money into Xinjiang for its economic development; once that happens the Uighur splittist problem will be over. So the people in the rest of China and the international community are told. These are not lies, but these are not the whole truth either.
There has always been religious anger in Xinjiang over issues such as restrictions on people going on Haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. curbs on the observance of the holy fasting period, ban on private Koranic schools and classes, the requirement of Government's prior approval for religious sermons in mosques, the alleged imposition of Islam in Chinese colours etc.New religious issues have come up after the violent riots of July last year. One such issue is the alleged practice by the Chinese police of cremating the dead bodies of Muslims whose relatives cannot be traced. Another is the on-going replacement of exclusively Uighur quartiers in Urumqi by mixed quartiers where the Uighurs are forced to live side by side with Han Chinese in order to break their religious solidarity.
These grievances are keeping the anger against the government alive. Is the anger also showing a tendency to spread--geographically and ethnically? It is difficult to answer this question definitively in the absence of data, But one occasionally finds tits-bits of information here and there as one monitors the Chinese media for information regarding the Chinese Muslim community. One such bit of information was found in an article published by the China Daily on July 3 on the joint Sino-Pakistani counter-terrorism exercise. It quoted Mr. Li Wei, a Beijing-based anti-terrorism researcher, as saying that besides the Xinjiang Region, the ETIM has also made its presence felt in central-eastern China, including in the Henan and Shanxi provinces. He said:
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"After the July 5 riot last year, China beefed up border security checks in Xinjiang, so instead of getting out of China through that region, more ETIM terrorists are now fleeing to the southwestern parts of China and getting out of the country there."
He added that another new challenge for all countries is that terrorists have turned to the Internet where they recruit and brainwash new members.
"This kind of prevention is even harder to do."
He spoke generally about the problem faced by the rest of the world due to dangers of radicalisation through the Internet, but he did not say specifically whether there have been such instances in the Muslim community in China itself.
