China: Xi Jinping, China’s legal reform and counterterrorism

Abstract

China’s responses in the past decade has been seen in the West as an attempt to jump on the bandwagon to justify Beijing’s long-term religious, cultural, political suppression of the Uighur community, both internationally and domestically. Uighur activists and human rights advocates have long decried the liberal use of the term “terrorist” by the Chinese authorities as well as their tendency to conflate ethnic, religious and violent activities. On the other hand, China has often criticized Western approaches to counter-terrorism and attempted to promote its own measures as a better alternative. This paper seeks to address the questions raised by such developments on China’s definition of terrorism and how China’s resistance/criticism of the US-led counter-terrorism campaign reshapes the domestic conceptualization of terrorism and the subsequent implementation of counter-measures.