ABSTRACT
The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on 11 September 2001 simultaneously presented Beijing with both challenges and opportunities with respect to its foreign policy in Central Asia and integrationist agenda in Xinjiang. In particular, with the rapid expansion of US military, political and economic influence into the region with the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan was a contradictory development for Beijing’s position in Central Asia and Xinjiang. On the one hand it promised to end the Taliban’s control of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda’s use of the country as a base for the spread of radical Islamism, which Beijing had long perceived as a major problem to be combated. The George W. Bush administration’s prosecution of the ‘global war on terror’ also provided Beijing with the opportunity to reframe its struggle with Uyghur separatists. From 2001 onward, Beijing would increasingly paint Uyghur separatism as a monolithic force, inspired by radical Islamist ideology and supported by Washington’s bete noire, Al Qaeda. The ‘war on terror’ thus provided China with an unprecedented opportunity to legitimise its actions in Xinjiang as part of an international effort to combat ‘terrorism’. As we shall see, however, this would not be without significant complications for Beijing. The evident Central Asian tilt towards Washington in late 2001 and into 2002 on the other hand was viewed by many observers as constituting a mortal blow to the SCO and by extension the interests of its major drivers, China and Russia. Over this brief period all the Central Asian states bar Turkmenistan signed military cooperation and base access agreements with Washington and received major injections of economic aid (Chung 2004: 994-996; Rumer 2002; Yom 2002). This led prominent Central Asian analyst, Stephen Blank, to assert in August 2002 that:
In every respect, America’s war against terrorism has diminished China’s power and standing in Central Asia. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the linchpin of its strategy to fight terrorism and separatism has been discredited and shown to command no effectivemilitary resources or political support by the members.
