Is China planning a Military Strike beyond its borders?

SampanViking

The Capitalist
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Whether or not people recognise it, the Urumqi incident has the potential to be a game changer not unlike 9/11 in the US. I have certainly been aware of this and have been paying careful attention to the diplomatic mood music during the intervening weeks. There has certainly been a stridency which exceeds the kind of rhetoric we have heard recently and far more than was heard over the Lhasa incident of March 08.

It is in this context that I note the article written by the Chinese Ambassador to the EU and which has been published today:

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What Europe should understand about the violence in Urumqi
23.07.2009 / 04:12 CET
Behind the brutality in China.

Slashed flesh. Cracked heads. Slit throats. Charred bodies littering the streets. These were the scenes in Urumqi on 5 July. There were also buses burnt down to their frames and shops smashed to rubble, but I will not dwell on these acts of lesser villainy.

By slaying 192 men and women of Han, Uighur and Hui ethnicity, the perpetrators of the recent violence in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, staged an inhumane act of terror and committed crimes of savage brutality.

There is now evidence that this fanatical assault on innocent civilians was orchestrated by a separatist clique based outside China and organised by its branches inside the country.

Many of the assailants, after being captured by law-enforcement officials, were found to have flocked to the capital of Xinjiang from the south of the territory, a thousand miles away.

Before the incident, separatists based overseas issued calls for action – “without fear of sacrifice” – by internet or over the phone.

Does a conspiracy of such bloodthirstiness not warrant condemnation and a counter-strike? Is the effort by the Chinese government to restore social order not justified and worthy of the support of every just man and woman?

The Chinese people therefore naturally expected such condemnation and support from Europe. Many other countries sent such messages. We based that expectation on the knowledge that the spirit of humanism – and its compassion for life and peace – has been cherished in Europe since the Enlightenment. It was beyond our comprehension that anyone, in the face of the bloody atrocities in Urumqi, could look on nonchalantly as lives were lost, while voicing concerns energetically about the rights of criminals caught red-handed.

Europe's largely insouciant reaction is, I believe, partly the result of what, to our people, seemed outrageously lopsided reporting. In the aftermath of the incident, the European media focused mostly on the wailing of Uighur women, armed police on patrol and on the paltering of Rebiya Nadeer, a Uighur businesswoman jailed by the Chinese authorities in 2000 for endangering China's security. They also showed their rhetorical skills, leading to clichéd accusations about an absence of human rights in China.

I will not waste words here disputing this senseless stereotype. Here, I will ask only this: what about the rights of those slain, hospitalised, bereaved and dispossessed?

While it is a sense of frustration that has prompted me to write, fury at lopsided reporting has led my fellow citizens to pour out their feelings on the internet. Some say they will never again have any confidence in the Western media.

A similar sentiment prompted 350 people to post a protest against distorted reporting on a bulletin board at the Urumqi News Centre, an ad hoc facility set up by the Chinese authorities to assist foreign correspondents.

Reading Chinese blogs, which are unfortunately rendered inaccessible to European readers by language barriers, I found many moving stories of Han and Uighur people helping each other escape the thugs.

For example, two Uighur men protected with their bodies a police officer who had been knocked out, fending off not only bottles and stones, but also a looter who attempted to grab the officer's watch.

Checking out online surveys, I found 98% support for harsh punishment of the culprits and for the World Uighur Congress, of which Nadeer is president, to be labelled a terrorist group.

How I wish our European friends could gain such an unfiltered sense of the pulse of public opinion back in China.

However, neither sinister schemes nor slanders will prevent Xinjiang from moving forward.

The concerted efforts of all 47 ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the support of the whole Chinese nation will build a better future for the region.

An economy that is growing at a double-digit rate, numerous and large-scale construction projects, multi-lingual education and publications, 23,000 mosques in which to practise the Muslim religion, an administration in which more than half the civil servants come from ethnic minorities: these are among the reasons why Xinjiang will keep forging ahead, towards greater prosperity and harmony, and why it will remain a vibrant member of the Chinese family.

I believe that, like us, most Europeans wish the best for Xinjiang. I hope the torment and tragedy we witnessed this month will never happen again. I also hope people outside China will never again be misinformed in this way.

Song Zhe

Ambassador and head of the mission of the People's Republic of China to the EU

Brussels

The key phrase, quietly tucked away in the early paragraphs is

Does a conspiracy of such bloodthirstiness not warrant condemnation and a counter-strike?

This encapsulates not only China's outrage of not receiving the diplomatic support from Europe that is the normal protocol in such incidents between friendly nations, but also clearly hints at direct retaliation at those that it holds responsible.

This is the clearest hint yet of what Beijing must be considering and certainly pulls the threads towards a coherent position. No doubt there is still a lot of road to travel and plenty of time/opportunity to settle matters quietly, but now at least we can see where the road starts and have a pretty healthy guess at where it is leading.
 

Mr T

Senior Member
Where is China going to attack? The US? Turkey? Its neighbours? There are no foreign training grounds where Uighurs go to, as was the case with Bin Laden and his recruits in Afghanistan. Furthermore the Taliban, who faced the US' wrath in 2001, weren't a recognised government so it was a lot easier to take action against them.

The riots had little to do with foreign actions and were mostly about domestic grievances, so a military attack on a foreign nation wouldn't resolve the problem.
 

Maggern

Junior Member
Well, even if the underlying grievances are domestic, sometimes an external authority is needed to oversee and organize demonstrations on this scale, and if we are to believe Chinese authorities, this was the case here.

It is a fact that most terrorist actions are performed by domestic individuals funded and trained by forces abroad. Especailly is this true in Europe, where most terrorists are recruited in poor neighbourhoods where one finds many disgruntled youths with little to do and little to lose.

But where to strike? Yes, this is a difficult question. And I have serious doubts about China's ability to strike covertly at different points across the globe. China is not the CIA or the KGB, they simply don't have the experience, resources or experience to perform such actions. I'm simply ruling out a direct military action here, as China SURELY doesn't have that ability, and the world would never let that fly.
 

Engineer

Major
The question is not where, but who, and I believe that anyone who took part in organizing the riots will die of freak accidents.
 

Quickie

Colonel
Can we say that the retaliation of the rhetoric kind have already happened? If there's nothing much that China can do externally, she still can let off some steam by doing some sabre rattling in the form of multifold increase in defence built-up.


President Hu calls for promotion of national defense construction

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Maybe China is just tired of some western nations playing games that is detrimental to China's well-being, now and in the future.
 
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Quickie

Colonel
More like detrimental to the China Communist party/Government.

How is that so? It's the civilians that were affected - no thanks to someone's political agenda coming from outside the country. And detrimental doesn't even come close to describing how the innocent people died so tragically.
 

xywdx

Junior Member
Actually, I think the counter-strike means they are going to do a crack down on the conspirators inside the country, China just want the EU to shut up about it.

Is the effort by the Chinese government to restore social order not justified and worthy of the support of every just man and woman?

This is part of the paragraph and should be taken into account that the retaliation is aimed at restoring social order, so a foreign attack is highly unlikely.
 

Red Moon

Junior Member
I think there is absolutely NO CHANCE that China will launch a cross border military action over this question, first of all, because no country bordering China has anything at all to do with this. Moreover, China's overall strategy depends on maintaining a peaceful neighborhood, and having advanced quite far along this path, the leadership is not about to throw it all away over some provocation in Xinjiang province.
It is the US and the Europeans which cradle and support people like Rebiya Kadeer and her World Uyghur Congress (WUC), but even if China could project serious power at such distances, there is still a lot of diplomatic ground to be covered, and China is gaining some clout in this area. The only "counter-strike" that will take place is the ongoing policing and investigations going on now, plus diplomatic pressure aimed at clipping the wings abroad of the WUC and associated terrorist groupings.
China is telling the Americans that there is no boundary between the NED funded WUC and the various "East Turkestan" groups which are already labeled as terrorist by the US, and it seems this will be discussed at the upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue, along with Chinese concerns over the "value of their American investments". Note the following article from Xinhua:

US urged to prevent separatist activities

A senior Chinese diplomat on Wednesday urged the United States to prevent separatist activities against China on US territory, saying the July 5 riot in the northwestern region of Xinjiang was a grave and violent criminal incident.

"The nature of the riot is neither an ethnic problem nor a religious issue, but a grave and violent criminal incident plotted and organized by the outside forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told a press briefing on the first round of the China-US strategic and economic dialogue.

The violence in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, had left 197 people dead and more than 1,600 injured. Houses of 633 families were damaged and 627 vehicles were smashed and torched.

Some separatists, including World Uyghur Congress (WUC) president Rebiya Kadeer who flew to the United States on medical parole in 2005, were conducting separatist activities in foreign countries, said He.

"Chinese people know well about their activities and I suppose the US side did so too," He said.

Rebiya Kakeer and her WUC, which was seeking "Xinjiang independence", were believed by the Chinese to be behind the Urumqi riots and a series of protests at Chinese embassies worldwide.

"China and the United States took care of each other's core concerns, which facilitated the sound development of bilateral ties since President Barack Obama took office," He said.

"We noticed that the US government's statements were cautious in general and if this issue is touched upon during the dialogue, I think both sides could discuss in a peaceful manner," He said.

The issue, as well as the Chinese government's measures to protect the life and property, however, was China's internal affair, he said.

The dialogue will be held in Washington, D.C. from July 27 to 28. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will join their Chinese Co-Chairs, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2009)

Back in April, the US Treasury Dept froze the assets of Abdul Haq, leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Party, for his role in various terrorist incidents last year in the period leading up to the Olympics. A few years ago it would have been laughable for China to expect cooperation from the US or Europe on this, but it seems times are changing.
 

SampanViking

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Well there is a selection of good and fair points, what I cannot get away from though is that we have a senior and very experienced Chinese diplomat using the words "Terrorist" External" and "Counterstrike" in context in the same statement. Diplomatic language is very circumspect in this matter (protocol) and you do not use "counterstrike" in the context of Internal security.

Back in April, the US Treasury Dept froze the assets of Abdul Haq, leader of the East Turkestan Islamic Party, for his role in various terrorist incidents last year in the period leading up to the Olympics. A few years ago it would have been laughable for China to expect cooperation from the US or Europe on this, but it seems times are changing.

Another good point, but is this a measure of willing co-operation or an acknowledgement that China's power has grown to the point that requests from Beijing need to be taken seriously and accommodated?
 
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