China puts fight against extremism on regional security summit agenda
Russian President Vladimir Putin among the leaders to attend gathering in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao
China will seek to bolster the fight against extremism at a regional security summit this weekend with some of its closest diplomatic allies, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jointly led by Russia and China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was launched in 2001 to combat radical Islam and other security concerns in their own countries and across Central Asia.
It added two new members, India and Pakistan, last year and Iran has been knocking at the door. Tehran is now an observer rather than a full member of a bloc that also includes four ex-Soviet Central Asian republics.
“One of the pressing tasks facing the SCO is to continue fighting against militants of Islamic State who, following the extremist group’s defeat in Syria and Iraq, have returned to their native countries, some of which are SCO members or observers,” China’s official Xinhua news agency said this week.
It said member countries destroyed more than 500 training bases for armed militants and arrested some 2,000 members of “international terrorist organisations” between 2013 and 2017.
China says it faces a threat from Islamist militants in its far western region of Xinjiang, where hundreds have been killed in unrest in recent years.
