China’s envoy to UN urges Taliban to take action amid terrorism threat

Zhang Jun tells United Nations meeting that security vacuum in Afghanistan provides ‘opportunity for terrorist forces to take advantage of the chaos’

Remarks follow UN Security Council report that some ETIM fighters had frequently visited the Wakhan Corridor ‘calling for a return to Xinjiang for jihad’

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Zhang Jun, China’s ambassador to the UN, called for more efforts to address the threat posed by ETIM. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:17pm, 10 Feb 2022

China is facing a heightened threat from terrorism, its top envoy to the United Nations said, after a UN report that members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement had called for jihad, or holy war, in Xinjiang.

Speaking at a UN meeting on Wednesday, ambassador Zhang Jun also urged the Taliban government in Afghanistan to take further action to combat terrorism.

“In Afghanistan, the withdrawal of foreign troops has created a vacuum in the security situation, providing an opportunity for terrorist forces to take advantage of the chaos,” Zhang said at the meeting on threats to international security from terrorism.

“Any passivity and negligence on counterterrorism, any tolerance of terrorism … and the use of terrorist forces for geopolitical gains are a betrayal of the victims of terrorism and will have serious consequences,” he said, according to the official China News Service.

Beijing is concerned about the Taliban’s historic ties to Uygur militants, particularly ETIM, also known as the Turkestan Islamic Party – a Uygur separatist group that Beijing partly blames for ethnic tensions in its far western Xinjiang region.

Weeks after US forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told Chinese state tabloid Global Times that many ETIM members had left the country.

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