10/28 Tiananmen Square: China's 9/11?
Was the jeep fire a "violent terrorist attack" in Tiananmen Square on Monday October 28th China's 9/11? The square IMHO is a similar iconic target, even if the two dead and thirty-eight injured are not comparable to 9/11.
The initial reporting was minimal, partly as the Chinese authorities moved rapidly to control information, taking images off Weibo (China's main social media site) for example and declaring martial law in the vicinity for a time.
Today China has admitted, citing Xinhua news agency:
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The police said that what happened at Tiananmen Square was a "violent terrorist attack" which was "carefully planned and organised".
Today five suspects have been detained who it is suspected come from the Muslim Uighur minority in the restive western region of Xinjiang.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-24742810 and http://news.yahoo.com/uighur-group-f...031852215.html
There is a thread which includes Xinjiang, China's Far West provinces (inc. Tibet) at:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...splay.php?f=84
ETIM blamed, they stay silent
Meng Jianzhu, chief of the commission for political and legal affairs of the ruling Communist party:
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The violent terrorist incident that happened in Beijing is an organised and plotted act. Behind the instigation is the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement entrenched in central and west Asian regions
According to the story:
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Alleged terrorist group has not claimed responsibility and critics accuse China of using its name to excuse repression of Uighurs
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...beijing-attack
A family stays silent and strikes
A CSM article title and sub-title:
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What the Tiananmen Square attack reveals about China's security state; China blames a Uighur separatist group for the Tiananmen car attack this week. But that's highly unlikely, analysts say.
The key point:
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On the contrary, say a number of Chinese and foreign experts on security in Xinjiang. In the restive far western province where most Uighurs live, they say, it may have been the attackers’ very lack of ties to any organization that helped them evade the Chinese police.
Link:http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pa...security-state
One day we will do something ourselves
An explanation for the Tiananmen Square attack, via a link in The Guardian to Radio Free Asia:
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....recollected Hesen (the jeep driver) making an emotional speech soon after some 100 police officers surrounded the mosque as workers demolished the courtyard.
Hesen made the speech as he told the mosque community to stand down after they argued with the armed police.
“At that time, Usmen Hesen jumped in and persuaded the community to disperse by saying, ‘Today they have won and we have lost because they are carrying guns and we have nothing—but don’t worry, one day we will do something ourselves’,” Turdi said.
“As Usmen Hesen finished his emotional speech, [his mother] Kuwanhan Reyim (also in the jeep) went to him crying, and hugged and kissed his forehead because of her pride in him. The crowd was also moved to tears and retreated.”
Link:http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uygh...013163042.html
The Guardian article has other views and links:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ent-repression
China's internal security problems (post Kunming)
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...03-01-13-30-50
China: Train station attack an act of terrorism
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BEIJING (AP) -- China's official Xinhua News Agency says authorities consider the attack by a group of knife-wielding assailants at a train station in southwestern China in which at least 27 people died to be an act of terrorism.
Xinhua did not identify who might have been responsible for the Saturday evening attack at the Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan province. But the news agency said authorities considered it to be "an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack."
Will China's new law tackle terror?
A BBC commentary by Raffaello Pantucci, of RUSI and close observer of China's activity in the far west Xinjiang Province. He asks:
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China's long-discussed counter-terrorism legislation, passed this week, frames the way the country will counter terrorist threats at home and abroad. But it is capable of getting to the root of the problem?
(He concludes) If China wants to be able to properly and effectively tackle its terrorism problems at home and abroad, it needs to start to think in this way too. It needs to find a way to not only disrupt terror networks but to understand why people are drawn to terror in the first place and how it can address the issue.
Link:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35199712
Trying to Keep Tiananment Alive
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/a...iananmen-alive
Amid Crackdown, China’s Dissidents Fight to Keep the Spirit of Tiananmen Alive
In
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the years following the bloodshed in 1989, during which hundreds or even thousands died, a number of surviving political activists struggled to carry on the legacy of nonviolent resistance. Their endeavors were met with merciless government suppression, and a spate of arrests ensued.
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In the spring of 2008, dissidents including the prominent writer Liu Xiaobo drafted Charter 08, a petition calling for human rights, democracy and the end of one-party rule in China, which was initially signed by a coalition of 303 Chinese citizens and posted online in December 2008. The idea of Charter 08, free for anyone to sign, was that its signatories would form a loose group with the common cause of promoting human rights and democracy in China.
The article describes how this movement was rapidly suppressed. It further illustrates that non-violent resistance has little chance of success when the state maintains control of its security forces and is willing to use oppressive measures against its own people. The West remains relatively silent because of their economic interests.
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The collective suffering of China’s dissidents, known only to a tiny population of the country, is enormous, while the concrete results of their sacrifices are difficult to see.
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All these recent developments bode ill for the future of political opposition in China. As prominent dissident Mo Zhixu wrote, “Grassroots resistance is entering the toughest period. How to cope with the increasingly frozen ‘ice age’ will be a test to all activists.”
One can continue to hope the Chinese people will rise up and compel change, but I tend to think that is a long shot, not one we should bet on.
China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness
https://www.theatlantic.com/internat...llness/568525/
China Is Treating Islam Like a Mental Illness
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Here’s an excerpt from an official Communist Party audio recording, which was transmitted last year to Uighurs via WeChat, a social-media platform, and which was transcribed and translated by Radio Free Asia:
Members of the public who have been chosen for reeducation have been infected by an ideological illness. They have been infected with religious extremism and violent terrorist ideology, and therefore they must seek treatment from a hospital as an inpatient. … The religious extremist ideology is a type of poisonous medicine, which confuses the mind of the people. … If we do not eradicate religious extremism at its roots, the violent terrorist incidents will grow and spread all over like an incurable malignant tumor.
China and Vatican Reach Breakthrough
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/22/w...version=latest
China and Vatican Reach Breakthrough on Appointment of Bishops
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Under the breakthrough, Pope Francis recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese government. Because they had not been selected by the Vatican, they had previously been excommunicated.
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But for critics loath to share any of the church’s authority with an authoritarian government, the deal marked a shameful retreat and the setting of a dangerous precedent for future relations with other countries.
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Critics of the deal, including a prominent cardinal in Hong Kong, have argued that it would send a signal that the Vatican did not stand up for those who stood up for it.
The Pope made a deal with the devil in hopes of expanding the Churches' influence by compromising with the Communist Party of China, even when his own experts in China recommended against it. I suspect the Pope will be greatly disappointed when he finds this deal does more harm than good for the Church.
Why China fears Myanmar’s Christians
http://www.atimes.com/article/why-ch...rs-christians/
Why China fears Myanmar’s Christians
China-backed United Wa State Party is clamping down on Christian churches, priests and missionaries in a move likely aimed to ferret out suspected US CIA-backed plots and operatives
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The Chinese language statement, obtained and reviewed by Asia Times, pledges to punish any local administration cadres who support missionary activities, bans the construction of new Christian churches, and requires that priests and workers in existing churches must be local not foreign.
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Hardly coincidentally, the announcement comes after John Cao, an ethnic Chinese pastor and permanent US resident of the state of North Carolina, was arrested in China in March for illegally crossing the Sino-Myanmar border. In June, he was sentenced to seven years in prison on immigration-related charges.
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It is clear that China does not want a similar situation with US missionaries emerging in the neighboring Wa Hills. With Myanmar’s broad relations with the West deteriorating over the flight of some 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas into Bangladesh amid reports of abuse, China has turned the crisis into a diplomatic opportunity to regain earlier lost influence.
From that position of strength, Beijing seems keen to export its model of Christian repression into areas of Myanmar where it has sway and historical reasons to fear Western infiltration.
China also supports Burma in the UN when it veto's resolutions concerning the mistreatment of the Rohingya by Burmese security forces.
China’s People’s Armed Police: reorganised and refocused
An IISS Military Balance blog article that opens with:
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Now with a more centralised command structure and enhanced use of new technology like uninhabited air vehicles, China’s People’s Armed Police is being transformed into a more reliable and effective force focused on three core missions – internal security, maritime security and supporting the People’s Liberation Army in times of war....(soon after)...Thirty years after the events of Tiananmen, the internal security mission remains of central importance to the Chinese government. However, it is the People’s Armed Police (PAP) and not the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that now has primary responsibility for this task, and it is a force – like the PLA – undergoing significant change.
Link:https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-.../06/china-pap?