Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

*** Uighur rebels in Pakistan.  China’s Xinjiang province, home to the downtrodden Muslim Uighurs, has suffered periodically from attacks from the independence-seeking East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim).  Pakistani intelligence sources were quoted this week as admitting that there are between 300 and 400 Etim fighters in Pakistan’s Waziristan.  China made allegations about Etim connections in Pakistan after attacks in Kashgar in July 2011.  According to Chinese investigators, the Etim attackers had learnt their trade in Pakistan.  This amounted to unprecedented criticism of Pakistan from China, and the Pakistanis were quick to reassure Beijing of their seriousness in tackling the issue.  The latest revelations, along with the release of an Etim training video of Uighur rebels training in Waziristan, will raise difficulties once again between Islamabad and Beijing.

*** Reaction against China in Africa.  There have been violent demonstrations in the Niger town of Diffa against a Chinese oil firm operating in the region.  The cause of the unrest by local youths is the employment practices of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).  The youths have been demanding the immediate employment of 5,000 workers from the Manga region, an increase in salaries, and the release of mining royalties and the allocation of 15% of the income from oil to 12 local communes.

*** Desperate measures in North Korea.  South Korean government sources revealed on 26 April that Pyongyang has been destroying villages along the border with China on the Duman River to prevent defections.  A government source said: “North Korea has been forcibly relocating villagers along the Duman River to places further from the border.”  In one village, Omsong, around 100 houses are said to have been demolished.  Omsong is a popular crossing point because the Duman narrows in this section.

*** Israeli warning on Syrian chemical weapons.  Former Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said on 29 April that Syria has begun to transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.  He said: “The process of weapons transfer to Hezbollah has began.”

*** China says Japan can’t split Russia from China.  Following the meeting between Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on 29 April, a number of Chinese media outlets carried commentaries on the “impossibility” of Japan recruiting Russia to any ’contain China’ policy.  As an example, Feng Yujun, director of the Institute of Russian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, was quoted as saying that it was “absolutely impossible” for Russia to cooperate with Japan due to its “balanced diplomatic strategy in the Asia-Pacific region”.