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Ethnic Uighur fighters with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)
China and Pakistan are pressuring the Taliban to make a clean break with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terror groups, many of which have sanctuaries in the northeastern and southwestern parts of Afghanistan.
That pressure is building as certain of the groups launch new assaults on Chinese interests in neighboring Pakistan, including the US$60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project that Beijing seeks to extend to Afghanistan for greater Central Asian connectivity.
China sees the ETIM in particular as a "direct threat to its national security", Foreign Minister Wang Yi told a Taliban delegation at a recent meeting. The militant group bent on destabilizing China's western Xinjiang region is also a threat to China's interests in Pakistan.
Beijing's request to the Taliban came after a joint China-Pakistan investigation showed
ETIM and TTP colluded in a July 14 bus bomb attack that killed nine Chinese engineers working on the CPEC-related Dasu hydropower dam project in Pakistan's upper Kohistan region. The attack, which used explosive-laden cars to ram into the bus which sent it hurtling down the side of a mountain, also killed two Pakistani security officials and two others.
The ETIM, comprised of ethnic Uighurs and categorized by the UN and others as a terror organization, is committed mostly to destabilizing China's Xinjiang region, which it has said it aims to turn into an independent state known as "East Turkestan."
Comment: Favourable polling figures for a great many politicians across Europe have been plummeting for years now; what with the continued deterioration of living standards people can no longer ignore the brazen hypocrisy of those in power nor can they turn a blind eye to the havoc they're wreaking on the society that voters want to raise families in. And, with the recent ramming through of emergency laws and looming threats of further power grabs, it's possible that some significant pushback will occur, and this is reflected in the figures detailed above, but the establishment don't seem to realise, or don't care, that they're backing demoralised, but not yet sufficiently deadened, people into a corner: