Threats to China from Al Qaeda

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of the terrorist threat to China from Al Qaeda and its associated and affiliated groups. Despite the pervasiveness of its global jihadist ideology, the threat from Al Qaeda to China has so far been assessed to be low. However, most of these assessments fail to take note of the developments in the global jihadist landscape, especially involving the ideology that is now the strategic center of gravity for Islamist terrorism. Besides, assessments tend to focus on jihadists’ current enemy, which for groups like Al Qaeda is the United States primarily and the West generally. What is ignored is the fact that objectives of the jihadists are zero-sum and for them there is no fixed enemy or fixed set of grievances. Besides, as Al Qaeda has demonstrated repeatedly, wherever there is a conflict involving Muslims, it comes to the aid of co-religionists. This assistance involves commitment of trained fighters to actually taking part in the local conflicts and other types of support such as money, logistics, and training facilities. That is how the group got extensively involved in conflicts in Kashmir, Chechnya, in countries in Southeast Asia and North Africa, and in the Middle East, especially in Iraq.