China’s Policies of Repression May Be Fueling Jihadism

When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, there was a small contingent of Uighurs—members of a Muslim ethnic group from the Xinjiang province of northwestern China—fighting alongside al-Qaeda. This organization has had but meager success establishing cells within Chinese borders, where radical Islam has relatively little purchase among Muslims. But, writes Thomas Joscelyn, that could very well change because of Beijing’s increasingly brutal treatment of the Uighurs—sending hundreds of thousands to concentration camps, imposing unprecedented surveillance, quartering party agents with families, and raping and torturing untold numbers. He writes: