During the past two months, the leaders of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan have met with China’s powerful president Xi Jinping. All three south Asian states wanted and achieved with mixed results the promise of greater economic investment from China.
In addition, they want Beijing to leverage its position of economic authority to help end the decades-old India-Pakistan-Afghanistan rivalry that is allowing a plethora of terrorist groups including the Taliban to flourish. The danger of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, gaining a foothold in the region, in addition to the hundreds of fighters it has already recruited from central and south Asia, has increased concern.
In return, according to Asian and western diplomats who work closely with China, Mr Xi has demanded a harsh crackdown on the Uighur Muslim militants from the western Xinjiang province who receive training and battle experience in Pakistan and Afghanistan. China’s repressive campaign against the Uighurs as it tries to make its culture more Han Chinese than Muslim has bred resentment, leading hundreds of Uighurs to travel south in search of militant groups. In fact, the Uighurs’ own East Turkestan Islamic Movement is largely based in Afghanistan and often crosses the border into that country.