By Shannon Tiezzi
The U.S. and China should be working together to root out militant groups, particularly in Pakistan. So why aren’t they?
On April 30, the U.S. State Department released its annual country reports on terrorism, including an assessment of each country’s efforts to fight terrorist activities. The part of the report dealing with East Asia and the Pacific concluded that “China’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism issues remained marginal, with little reciprocity in information exchanges.”
The report also said that China’s government “did not provide detailed evidence of terrorist involvement” in incidents of violence involving Uyghurs in 2013 (it should be noted that the report only covered the events of 2013, and thus did not mention the March attack at Kunming Railway Station or the recent bombing in Urumqi). Regarding 2013′s most infamous attack, the fatal car crash in Tiananmen Square, the State Department concluded “there was no independent evidence to suggest ETIM involvement.”
Comments calling into question the legitimacy of China’s descriptions of terrorism will never play well in Beijing. This year, the timing, while coincidental (the U.S. report is released April 30 each year), was particularly bad. April 30 saw the latest terrorist attack on Chinese soil, with suspects reportedly attacking bystanders with knives before detonating explosives at Urumqi’s South Railway Station.
Read the full story at The Diplomat