CV NEWS FEED // The communist regime of China and the Islamist Taliban have long acted in tandem, wrote filmmaker Jason Jones and Uygher leader Salih Hudayar in a recent column.
China’s history with Islamist extremists in Afghanistan stretches back to the 1980s when it trained and armed anti-Soviet mujahedeen during the Soviet-Afghan war,” the column states:
China has waged a brutal campaign of colonization and occupation, more recently genocide, in East Turkistan (“Xinjiang”) for decades. It has frequently met resistance by local Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. Following the September 11 attacks, China tried to claim it was a victim of “East Turkistani terrorism.” On November 11, 2001, it told the UN Security Council that it was fighting against the “East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM).”
Since then China has used the rhetoric of the War on Terror to justify the brutal oppression of Uyghurs, all while supporting and regularly meeting with Taliban leaders. “China has pretended to be among al-Qaeda’s victims, and America’s allies in the War on Terror,” Jones and Hudayar wrote. “Why? To win U.S. acquiescence in its repression of Uyghurs in East Turkistan. However, the facts show that CCP has a longstanding connection with al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
In the late 1990s, China paid $10 million to Al-Qaeda terrorists in exchange for unexploded U.S. bombs which they acquired after a U.S. attack. China later “reverse-engineered” the bombs for their own military,” Jones and Hudayar wrote.
In a 1999 book authored by senior Chinese military officials, “they discussed a hypothetical second attack on the World Trade Center in New York (following the 1993 failed bombing attempt),” and “noted it would ‘open up a complicated dilemma for the United States.’ The authors specifically named al-Qaeda as the organization with the ability to carry out such an attack.”
China also opposed U.N. sanctions against the Taliban, and “continued to provide the Taliban with arms and technology” in the leadup to the Sept. 11 attacks.
In response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, Chinese state media glorified the terrorism, calling it a “humbling blow against an arrogant nation.” Similarly: “In 2009, PLA Senior Colonel Dai Xu gave a lecture at China’s National Defense University where he praised Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda for ‘keeping America busy while China developed.’” Chinese officials have also spoken out against the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
Even as China has pursued a policy of genocide against Uyghur Muslims, the Islamist Al-Qaeda and Turkey have looked to their own interests first, deliberately turning a blind eye to the atheist Chinese Communist Party’s abuse of Muslims in exchange for support from the rising superpower.
“We care about the oppression of Muslims,” Taliban leaders recently stated regarding the genocide of the Uyghurs. “But what we are not going to do is interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
“After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, many countries shut down their embassies and consulates due to security concerns. However, Chinese state media gloated that China’s embassy in Kabul was still operating and being protected by the Taliban,” Jones and Hudayar concluded:
What’s also alarming is that after China’s Islamist Taliban allies took over Kabul, Chinese state media began to replace the “Islamic” in the Chinese government fabricated “East Turkistan Islamic Movement” with “Independence.” Beijing could no longer appear to be opposing “Islamic” movements, given its open support of the Taliban.
Readers can find the full column at The Stream.