Months before Sept 11, 2001, China, Russia and several Central Asian countries established the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to promote cooperation, which quickly listed terrorism as a common enemy. When the US invaded Iraq ignoring global opposition, China was busy helping its Central Asian neighbors prevent the spread of terrorism in the region.
While fighting and helping other countries fight terrorism, China does not use double standards, because it wants to see the end of terrorism in all parts of the world. Since it knows and accepts that poverty and ignorance lead to prejudice, it has been trying to promote economic development in certain regions vulnerable to terrorism. For example, it has provided development aid to war-torn Afghanistan.
The 2014 Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia held in Shanghai in May offered another platform for countries to unite in the fight against terrorism. China's concept of common security won popular support because the participating countries knew that terrorism can be uprooted only by following this concept.
China's views on and fight against terrorism are conducive to the US' long-term interests. The two countries have indeed cooperated many times in combating the common threat. But more sincerity is needed on the part of the US; for starters, it should stop resorting to double standards on terrorism. Hailing the demon for attacking one's perceived enemy is part of outdated ideological thinking. That such a policy is flawed can be surmised from the news that terrorists who attacked Chinese people aim to join the jihad in Syria.
Therefore, China and US have no option but to combat the common enemy of terrorism together. Only when the US and China, the two biggest economies as well as major victims of terrorism, abandon their mutual prejudice and cooperate with each other can the world hope to see the end of terrorism.
The author is a researcher in Central Asian Studies at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
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