Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets Chinese President Xi Jinping as Xi officially arrives for the G20 summit in Antalya on Nov. 15. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP)
President Xi Jinping has called for an end to "double standards" on global terrorism as China reacted angrily to accusations it would use the Paris attacks to erode Muslim rights in Xinjiang.
Xi spoke on the sidelines of a G20 summit over the weekend in Turkey, the main destination for Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs fleeing stricter measures as Beijing responds to spiraling violence in Western China.
"The terrorist attacks in Paris are yet another reminder that the impact and danger of terrorism are not to be underestimated and that terrorism has become the most serious and pressing security challenge for us," Xi said in a speech in Antalya on Nov. 15.
"It is especially important to address both the symptoms and root causes of terrorism and reject double standards."
Xi's comments were made to other members of the informal BRICS — a grouping that includes five major emerging national economies: Brazil, India, China, South Africa and Russia — as media reports suggested Beijing might be ready to join Moscow in attacks against the Islamic State (IS) group.
China's security forces issued a rare series of pictures on Nov. 14 showing armed police preparing to storm a house in Xinjiang after a 56-day battle against terrorists, without disclosing further details.
"Paris was hit by its worst terrorist attack in history, with hundreds dead and injured. On the other side of the world, police in China's Xinjiang, after 56 days of pursuit and attacking, carried out a full attack on the terrorists and got great results," read a micro-blog post posted and later removed by the Ministry of Public Security.
At least 500 people died in Xinjiang-related violence in China in 2014, one of the bloodiest years on record.
In response, China last May initiated tougher measures in the region, deploying thousands of additional soldiers and police, banning burqas and cracking down on underground madrasas.
"They [the Chinese government] want to convince the world that people in East Turkestan [Xinjiang] are terrorists," Seyit Tumturk, vice-president of the World Uyghur Congress, told ucanews.com by telephone from Istanbul.
Media including the BBC and Reuters ran comments from the World Uyghur Congress over the weekend accusing Beijing of violations against Uighurs, prompting angry responses on Chinese social media.
"The West is accusing other countries' antiterrorism efforts while being attacked itself. Terrible double standards," Gao Cheng, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, wrote on microblogging site Weibo.
Only one Chinese national was reported among the hundreds injured and killed in Paris. An audio message by the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the attack was delivered in a number of languages, including Uighur, fueling Chinese claims it is being targeted. Recent maps put out by Islamic State leaders show parts of western China as intended targets for the eastern frontier of the caliphate by the year 2020.
Rights groups and Uighurs overseas previously accused Beijing of exaggerating terrorist threats linked to Xinjiang, both inside China and from overseas. Videos and arrests in Syria and Iraq since last year have shown Chinese citizens fighting for the Islamic State group.
Uighur fighters have also operated out of Pakistan, which borders Xinjiang, although security operations by the Pakistani military over the past year have reportedly caused their numbers to dwindle to just a few hundred.
Senior Chinese military officials coincidentally arrived in Islamabad on the same day as the Paris attacks in a visit state media said strengthened antiterrorism measures between the two countries.