Afghan Militants Have China in Their Crosshairs

Haiyun Ma

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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “China dream” is actually “China’s daydream of imperialism,” according to a recent article published by the Islamic State-Khorasan—the Afghanistan-based branch of the Islamic State terrorist movement. China has been a relatively low-value target for Islamist movements—but that may be changing. The Islamic State-Khorasan criticized China’s global economic expansion and maltreatment of Uyghurs in a Sept. 2 article in its English-language Voice of Khorasan. The article appeared shortly following the Aug. 31 United Nations report detailing China’s repressive policies targeting Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. It is a major renewal of war rhetoric after the Islamic State previously stopped talking about China.

This critique of Chinese imperialism marks a new development in the Islamic State’s militant rhetoric against China’s rising economic clout in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Islamic State released several notable statements, including a condemnation of China’s Uyghur policy in 2014, the execution of Chinese hostages in Pakistan in 2015, and direct threats against the Chinese government in 2017. Since then, however, the Islamic State has almost entirely ignored the plight of the Uyghurs and made no further claims calling for attacks on Chinese interests in its propaganda and media channels.

The Islamic State-Khorasan article signals a new level of attention being paid to Chinese actions among Islamist groups, shifting from an initial religious perspective toward political and economic factors. Notably, the article uses “imperialism” to refer to Chinese global expansion, elevating its critique from a narrow focus on Muslim persecution to accusations that China—like other past superpowers, such as the United States, Russia, and Britain—seeks global hegemony. Echoing the global narratives of the China threat, the Islamic State-Khorasan presents a jihadi perspective on the imperial overreach of China’s global economic expansion. The article describes Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as tantamount to contemporary imperial expansion—no different than the British East India Company’s historical role in Western colonization.