Separatists fighting for a Uygur homeland in the far western region of Xinjiang are planning attacks in coastal and inland areas and pose the biggest terrorist threat to China in the foreseeable future, one of the country's top experts said.
The China News Weekly yesterday quoted Wang Xinjian, an assistant professor of public order at the China People's Public Security University, as saying terrorist attacks by Xinjiang and Tibetan separatists posed a serious challenge to security and law and order in border regions.
Official figures show Xinjiang separatists committed more than 200 acts of violence in China between 1990 and last year, killing 162 people and injuring more than 440. They are fighting to set up the Republic of East Turkestan, which was proclaimed after the end of World War II but crushed by communist armies.
Nationwide, the country's anti-terrorism efforts were having an effect, with the number of incidents falling and many attacks stopped during the planning stage, the newspaper said.
The exiled Uygur movement is deeply divided, with its main political leaders, based in Istanbul and Frankfurt, opposing violence.
Professor Wang, who has made seven trips to Xinjiang this year, said that since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the war on Afghanistan, the Uygur separatists had changed tactics, deciding to stage terrorist attacks in areas of China outside Xinjiang for maximum international effect.
