The Three Evils (Chinese :三股势力; lit.'three streams of forces') is a political slogan of the People's Republic of China defined as terrorism, separatism (or "splittism") and religious extremism. The phrase refers to declared counter-terrorism operations undertaken by China, Central Asian republics, and Russia, primarily as related to Xinjiang. [1] [2] The Chinese government views each of the Three Evils as interrelated phenomena driving persistent instability in the westernmost province of Xinjiang, and the slogan has been deployed extensively in support of Xinjiang internment camps since 2017. [3]
Xinjiang is the westernmost province of China and the historical home of the Uyghur people, who speak a language unrelated to Chinese and predominantly practice Islam. The region has been the site of significant tensions under Chinese rule, and attempted to declare independence first as the short-lived First and Second East Turkestan Republics in 1933 and 1944, respectively, ultimately being occupied by the People's Liberation Army in 1949. [4]
China first seriously faced issues of ethnic violence in Xinjiang beginning in the 1990s, such as with the 1990 Baren Township riot, though such incidents were generally classified as "social unrest" until after the September 11 attacks, when the government began to refer to them more in terms of terrorism. [5] Much of the Uyghur discontent stemmed from economic inequality between Uyghurs and Han Chinese migrants, suppression of Uyghur religious practices, and state preference for Han over Uyghur culture, among other issues. [6] Counterterrorism became a much larger Chinese government priority overall after the ascension of Xi Jinping in 2012; following a lull from 2001-2007, militant and terrorist activity had increased notably. [7]
Human Rights Watch has criticized counter-terrorism cooperation by members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in targeting the three evils, accusing the members' governments of violating international laws regarding human rights. [1] Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, "For many years SCO governments have been criticized for their poor human rights records. The SCO's policies could worsen human rights conditions and seek to justify abuse. It's therefore imperative that the European Union and the United States place even greater emphasis on human rights issues in the region." [1]
The Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) is a Uyghur Islamic extremist organization founded in Pakistan by Hasan Mahsum. Its stated goals are to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
Human rights in China are periodically reviewed by international bodies, such as human rights treaty bodies and the United Nations Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), their supporters, and other proponents claim that existing policies and enforcement measures are sufficient to guard against human rights abuses. However, other countries, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Human Rights in China and Amnesty International, and citizens, lawyers, and dissidents inside the country, state that the authorities in mainland China regularly sanction or organize such abuses.
The East Turkestan independence movement is a political movement that seeks the independence of East Turkestan, a large and sparsely-populated region in northwest China, as a nation state for the Uyghur people. The region is currently administered by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Within the movement, there is widespread support for the region to be renamed, since "Xinjiang" is seen by independence activists as a colonial name. "East Turkestan" is the best-known proposed name as it is the historical geographic name of the region and the name of the two independent states that briefly existed in the region in the first half of the 20th century.
Freedom of religion in China may be referring to the following entities separated by the Taiwan Strait:
The East Turkestan Liberation Organization (ETLO) was a secessionist Uyghur organization that advocated for an independent Uyghur state named East Turkestan in the Western Chinese province known as Xinjiang. The organization was established in Turkey in late 1997 to fight against the Chinese government in Xinjiang, a territory of ethnic Uyghur majority.
The January 2007 Xinjiang raid was carried out on January 5, 2007, by Chinese paramilitary police against a suspected East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) training camp in Akto County in the Pamir plateau.
Terrorism in China refers to the use of terrorism to cause a political or ideological change in the People's Republic of China. The definition of terrorism differs among scholars, between international and national bodies and across time and there is no legally binding definition internationally. In the cultural setting of China, the term is relatively new and ambiguous.
The threat of terrorism in Kazakhstan plays an increasingly important role in relations with the United States which in 2006 were at an all-time high. Kazakhstan has taken Uzbekistan's place as the favored partner in Central Asia for both Russia and the United States. Kazakhstan's counter-terrorism efforts resulted in the country's 94th ranking among 130 countries in the 2016 Global Terrorism Index published by the Institute of Economics and Peace. The higher the position on the ranking is, the bigger the impact of terrorism in the country. Kazakhstan's 94th place puts it in a group of countries with the lowest impact of terrorism.
The national security of China is the coordination of a variety of organizations, including law enforcement, military, paramilitary, governmental, and intelligence agencies that aim to ensure China's national security. China considers three factors in its national security: national sovereignty, security, and development interests.
The 2008 Uyghur unrest is a loose name for incidents of communal violence by Uyghur people in Hotan and Qaraqash county of Western China, with incidents in March, April, and August 2008. The protests were spurred by the death in police custody of Mutallip Hajim.
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is an international organization of exiled Uyghur groups that claims to "represent the collective interest of the Uyghur people" both inside and outside of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The World Uyghur Congress claims to be a nonviolent and peaceful movement that opposes what it considers to be the Chinese "occupation" of 'East Turkestan' and advocates rejection of totalitarianism, religious intolerance and terrorism as an instrument of policy. It has been called the "largest representative body of Uyghurs around the world" and uses more moderate methods of human rights advocacy to influence the Chinese government within the international community in contrast to more radical Uyghur organizations.
The 2011 Hotan attack was a bomb-and-knife attack that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, China on 18 July 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur men who opposed the local government's campaign against the burqa, which had grown popular among older Hotan women in 2009 but were also used in a series of violent crimes. The men occupied a police station on Nuerbage Street at noon, killing two security guards with knives and bombs and taking eight hostages. The attackers then yelled religious slogans, including ones associated with Jihadism, as they replaced the Chinese flag on top of a police station with another flag, the identity of which is disputed.
Anwar Yusuf Turani is a self proclaimed ethnic Uyghur nationalist and separatist leader. Born into a family branded counter-revolutionary by the Chinese government, Turani was raised in a labor camp where he faced economic hardship and political oppression. He attended Kashgar Teacher's College and graduated from the Department of Physics in July 1983. Turani came to the United States on August 12, 1988 and became the first Uyghur political asylee. In 1995, he established the East Turkistan National Freedom Center (ETNFC), a non-profit human rights organization based in Washington, D.C. He is the first person to start the East Turkistan independence movement in the United States. Having spearheaded the formation of the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) on September 14, 2004 in Washington, D.C., Turani went on to become the first Prime Minister of the entity.
The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict, is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkistan. It is centred around the Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group who constitute a plurality of the region's population.
The East Turkistan National Movement also known as the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement is a non-profit human rights and political advocacy organization established in June 2017 in Washington D.C. Salih Hudayar, a Uyghur American consultant and graduate student founded the group after pre-existing Uyghur organizations failed to openly call for East Turkestan independence deeming it "controversial".
The Xinjiang internment camps, officially called vocational education and training centers by the government of China, are internment camps operated by the government of Xinjiang and the Chinese Communist Party Provincial Standing Committee. Human Rights Watch says that they have been used to indoctrinate Uyghurs and other Muslims since 2017 as part of a "people's war on terror", a policy announced in 2014. The camps have been criticized by the governments of many countries and human rights organizations for alleged human rights abuses, including mistreatment, rape, and torture, with some of them alleging genocide. Some 40 countries around the world have called on China to respect the human rights of the Uyghur community, including countries such as Canada, Germany, Turkey and Japan. The governments of more than 35 countries have expressed support for China's government. Xinjiang internment camps have been described as "the most extreme example of China's inhumane policies against Uighurs".
In May 2014, the Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched the "Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism" in the far west province of Xinjiang. It is an aspect of the Xinjiang conflict, the ongoing struggle by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese government to manage the ethnically diverse and tumultuous province. According to critics, the CCP and the Chinese government have used the global "war on terrorism" of the 2000s to frame separatist and ethnic unrest as acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. Chinese officials have maintained that the campaign is essential for national security purposes.
Uyghur nationalism is a nationalist movement which asserts that the Uyghur people, an ethnic minority in China, are a distinct nation. Uyghur nationalism promotes the cultural unity of the Uyghur people, either as an independent group or as a regional group within a larger Chinese nation.
Since 2014, the Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang which has often been characterized as persecution or as genocide. There have been reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor, sexual violence, and violations of reproductive rights.
The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is a permanent organ of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) tasked with coordinating counterterrorism efforts across member countries and advancing cooperation on SCO initiatives to mitigate the "Three Evils" – terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. The organization is meant to lay the groundwork for a future enforcement capability within the SCO, which aspires to develop its own transnational police and military forces.