Chinese cooperation in the global war on terrorism...

Chinese cooperation in the global war on terrorism depends on Western support and understanding for Beijing's widely criticized attempts to resolve its own Islamic terrorist problem.
China's foreign policy is rarely transparent, but the price of its involvement was the only inference possible from statements by Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi in Beijing.
With rare use of the separatists' own term for China's northwest frontier province of Xinjiang, Mr. Sun said the violent activities of the East Turkestan elements not only threaten the stability and security of China, they also threaten the stability and security of the whole region.
"We hope that efforts to fight against East Turkestan terrorist forces should become part of the international effort, and should also win support and understanding," he said.
Beijing believes that dissident groups fighting for an independent homeland in China's distant west are galvanized by militant strains of Islam seeping over Xinjiang's 3,355-mile border with eight countries, including Afghanistan.
For over a decade, Xinjiang's native Uighur people, some 8 million strong, have responded with anger and bombing campaigns to an influx of Han Chinese settlers from the east, now totalling at least 7.8 million.
Without detailing any evidence, Mr. Sun added: "We also have evidence which suggests that [East Turkestan militants] have acted in collusion with international terrorist forces."His remarks drew a worried response from human rights groups.
Amnesty International fears that the Chinese "may use the opportunity of 11 September to provide further justification for their harsh repression of Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which they accuse of being separatists, terrorists or religious extremists," Amnesty spokeswoman Isabel Kelly said.
As Beijing rushed rapid-response units to its remote mountain border with Afghanistan and to China's now-closed border with Pakistan, state media announced a renewed campaign to wipe out terrorism and separatist activity.
In Xinjiang, the ongoing, nationwide Strike Hard crackdown on crime had already become an assault on anyone whose loyalty was doubted. Within three months of the campaign's start in April, Xinjiang police had detained nearly 10,000 suspects, executed at least 200 of them, and boasted of destroying six ethnic-separatist and terrorist organizations.