Talking Terror in Xinjiang

THE gang which stabbed 29 people to death and injured over 100 others at Kunming railway station early in March was praised by Abdullah Mansour, leader of the rebel East Turkestan Islamic Movement, in a rare video interview given to Reuters.

His Waziristan-based organisation is dedicated to separating the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region from China and setting up an extremist Islamist state there.

“The fight against China is our Islamic responsibility and we have to fulfil it,” he said from an undisclosed location.

“China is not only our enemy, but it is the enemy of all Muslims.

“We have plans for many attacks in China,” he said, speaking in the Uighur language through an interpreter.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that Mansour’s video “exposes the true nature of his terrorist organisation.”

The Kunming attackers were dressed in black, presumably to identify each other. Such black-clad knifings of innocent people in China have happened before.

Another tactic is for the attackers to wear a white glove on the left hand.

Mansour did not explain why other Muslim peoples in China, such as the Hui, who number in the millions and have their own autonomous region, seem to have no problem living with their non-Muslim neighbours.

Island of Dreams

BEIJING aims to transform Pingtan Island into a special economic zone for industrial co-operation between China and Taiwan.

Pingtan is located in the Taiwan Strait and is the nearest People’s Republic of China territory to Taiwan, which calls itself the Republic of China and considers itself the continuation of the Nationalist-led Chinese state overthrown in the communist revolution of 1949.

Beijing has earmarked 260 billion yuan (£25bn) under its 12th five-year plan to attract Taiwanese skills and investment to Pingtan.

Taiwan residents will be able to serve in the island’s local government, drive Taiwan-licensed cars and enjoy tax incentives and investment profits.

The move comes as the latest in Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy, under which Hong Kong and Macao acknowledge that they are part of China but control their own immigration, lifestyle and finances.

The Pingtan experiment is expected to show Taiwan residents that the one country, two systems policy can work in their favour too.

Protecting China’s kids

A DOZEN lawyers are calling for specific and detailed regulations to protect kindergarten children in China from unauthorised medicine after dozens of children at private kindergartens fell ill.

Hongji Xincheng and Fengyun kindergartens in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, are accused of having administered antiviral drugs to children since 2008.

The two kindergartens, which had a combined 1,455 students this school year, have been shut down by the local government. Five staff members have been detained.

A third kindergarten was closed in Jilin province, also on allegations of medicating children, and its head was arrested.

It turns out that private kindergartens in China offer to return tuition fees if a child is not in attendance because of illness.

So they often dose the children regularly with untested medicines, which they may obtain cheaply.