After the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept 11, 2001, the United States under President George W. Bush took its revenge by waging a war on terror of unprecedented global scale.

The US soon launched its attack in Afghanistan in the name of getting rid of the al-Qaida organization and later the all-out invasion of Iraq. In every global and bilateral meeting, fighting terrorism became an essential theme, even in events at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), where the economy was supposed to be top of the agenda.

China has been quick to condemn the terrorist attacks in the US from those in 2001 to the bombing at the Boston Marathon on Apr 15 of 2013. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China has also provided the much-needed cooperation to the US on the global stage.

But many Chinese now feel that when their country needs the same kind of moral support, the US looks quite mean.

The anger among both the Chinese government and people were obvious when the US government failed to condemn the violence against innocent civilians conducted by members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other so-called separatist and religious extremist forces.

This included the Oct 28 terrorist activity in which Usmen Hasan crashed his jeep into a crowd at Tian'anmen Square, killing five people, including his wife and mother in the car, and injuring another 40. Police later confirmed the attack as planned by ETIM and arrested five suspects.

In another violent attack on June 26, 2013, terrorists wielding knives in Lukqun township, Shanshan county of Xinjiang, killed 22 civilians and two policemen.

There have also been a string of terrorist attacks on local police stations, including the latest one on Dec 30 in Yarkan, a county in Kashgar prefecture, in which nine terrorists attacked a police station by throwing explosives and setting fire to police cars. Eight terrorists were killed and one arrested.

These were just three of a host of terrorist activities by the separatists and religious extremists, some calling themselves jihadists, targeting civilian and police officers in the past year.