Kashgar attacks

Much to the chagrin of the western media, China has categorically rejected the insinuation that the recent clashes in Kashgar could negatively impact its relationship with Pakistan. Reacting to the slanted media coverage, the China's foreign ministry on Wednesday praised Pakistan 'as a firm partner against terrorism and religious extremism'.
"Pakistan is an important front in the international fight against terrorism, and has made an outstanding contribution to battling terrorism," said the spokesman of the ministry. On Monday, Foreign Office issued a statement offering Pakistan's full support to China, following the terrorist attacks during the week in the historic city, killing 19 people. No doubt the media used a local Chinese official's statement to the effect that the assailants behind one of the attacks that killed six persons had learned explosive-making skills in terrorist-run camps in Pakistan. But he certainly stayed clear of implicating the government of Pakistan in any manner, mentioning the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as the source behind the mischief.
That terrorists from a number of countries had gathered in the wild west of Pakistan during the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad and some of them are still ensconced in that inhospitable terrain is a well-known fact. And that Pakistan has been battling them for the last ten years or so, in order to get rid of that menace the fact widely known to everybody.
One of the early casualties at the hands of the Pakistani forces was the then-ETIM chief Hasan Mahsum and last year Abdul Haq - the world also knows. To claim that the Kashgar incidents can undermine the Pak-China friendship is no more than the product of a scheming mind. The question is: Did anybody accuse Washington of masterminding the 9/11 attacks just because the perpetrators got their training on the airfields of the United States?
Terrorism is becoming increasingly an international phenomenon, almost invariably breeding on extremist ideologies and mindsets and only in rare cases drawing sustenance from state patronage. To think that Pakistan could be indifferent to what terrorists have done in Xinjiang is sheer nonsense. One may recall a terrorist incident in Xinjiang way back in the 90s, at the time that the president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, was in Beijing as chief guest at the opening ceremony of the Asian Games. Around midnight, news broke that a retired Pakistani army officer could be involved in a terrorist attack in Urumqi.
shaq Khan was so upset over the report that he immediately asked the foreign secretary to clarify Pakistan's stand on the issue, and next day after Friday prayers in Beijing's principal mosque he asked the Chinese Muslims that their first loyalty should be to China and none else. Perhaps, a more cogent explanation to what has happened in Kashgar has been offered by the Global Times, Beijing. Noticing that "these kinds of terror attacks have been increasing recently" the paper in its editorial says, "Overseas extremists have been stirring up conflict between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese, while some western media have shown sympathy for the terrorists".
The newspaper concedes the fact of 'ill-feelings between the two ethnic groups' and this kind of discord among people of origin as in Southern China "but what is unusual is that this social issue is usually painted differently when happening in Xingjian". According to the Global Times, perfect harmony may be wishful thinking but the existence of these problems does not give any legitimacy to these atrocious attacks".
The ETIM is older than Communist Party of China and has sympathisers in the West. Whatever little of it had surfaced in Pakistan in the wake of the Afghan Jihad, has been wiped out by the military operations carried out by the Pakistan Army, and of late in the drone attacks.
That the Chinese government did not make any communication to its Pakistani counterpart, following the Kashgar attacks, amply suggests Beijing's complete trust in Pakistan's commitment not to allow its soil, as a safe haven to foreign-origin terrorists. Obviously, Beijing has lost no time in snuffing out the insinuation that the Kashgar attacks can undermine the strength of the Pak-China multi-faceted bilateralism.