Islamic State has released a slickly-produced recruitment song in Mandarin Chinese calling on followers of Islam in China to take up arms and sacrifice themselves on the battlefield.
Some of the lyrics of We Are Mujiahid include "Wake up Muslim brother, now is the time to wake up", "Pick up your weapons and revolt" and "No power can stop our advance".
The song, a nasheed, or an a cappella song extolling Islam, was posted on the Jihadology website. There are said to be around 300 Chinese nationals fighting with Islamic State, also known as Isis.
China has not been actively involved in the fight against the terrorist group, but last month, Islamic State killed its first known Chinese hostage in Syria, prompting President Xi Jinping to label terrorism humanity's common enemy and calling for international co-operation to fight it.
Some of the song’s lyrics are also directly addressed at Chinese concerns, talking about how China was “enslaved for a century” and “a century of humiliation”, popular concerns in China relating to the colonial era.
Three men working for China's state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation were killed when gunmen attacked a hotel in the capital of the West African nation of Mali on November 20th. An African jihadi group, Al-Mourabitoun, claimed responsibility for that attack.
Zhu Yongbiao, assistant director of the Institute of Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University, told China's Global Times that Islamic State sees China as one of its major enemies considering Beijing's increasing efforts in cracking down on terrorism, not only in the restive Xinjiang province but also in seeking co-operation with neighbouring countries.
“Another reason for claiming China as one of its main enemies is that as a self-claimed spokesperson of its religion, the IS always includes China’s Xinjiang region as part of its ambitious plan to built a global caliphate, which the Chinese government’s policies make it hard to realise,” Mr Zhu said.
China claims the West does not condemn violence in Xinjiang strongly enough. In the past three years, hundreds have died in violence that Beijing blames on Islamist militants and separatists, prompting a major crackdown by authorities.
However, human rights groups believe Beijing exaggerates the threat to justify harsh controls in the region, which has seen tensions between Uighurs and Han Chinese settlers moving into the resource-rich province.
China says its fight against the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (Etim), a UN-listed terror group, should be recognised as an important part of the international fight against terrorism.
Western nations have not co-operated with China on intelligence-sharing or provided other resources, saying China has provided little evidence to prove that the terror attacks are a coordinated campaign orchestrated by Etim.
"A Chinese-language propaganda song will remind the rest of the world that China is also a victim of terrorism. Some countries need to abandon their double-standards on anti-terrorism issues in China," Wu Shaozhong, an intelligence expert from the People's Public Security University of China, told the Global Times.
