Terrorism in China's northwest due to foreign forces: expert

China's Muslim-majority northwest region is suffering from terrorism supported by foreign terrorists forces that has put in danger development and peace of entire Asia region, a senior Chinese expert has said.
"Terrorism is enemy for all mankind. In North West of China, we are suffering from terrorists acts and there are evidences that they are supported by foreign terrorists forces," Li Wen, Deputy Director of the National Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told a group of Indian journalists here.
Li was apparently referring to neighbouring Pakistan- based terror groups including al-Qaeda and the Taliban who have links with the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a militant outfit fighting for Xinjiang's separation.

Asserting that collaborations among countries was needed to counter the terrorism, he said terrorists forces have put in danger China's development and also the peace of entire Asia region.
"To fight against terrorism, we need collaborations which requires China and the US, China and India, and China and Pakistan work together. This is why we established Shanghai Cooperation Organisation," Li asserted.
Pointing out that some religious problems were in the root of terrorism, he said that extreme imbalance of economic development was also one of the causes in the origin of terrorism and stressed that economic development should be pushed in affected regions to eradicate such imbalance leading to terrorism.

On the issue of China blocking India's move at the United Nations to seek action against Pakistan for releasing the Mumbai attack mastermind Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi recently, another expert said putting names of terrorists in the UN sanction list does not work in a great manner.

"Several years ago we successfully put name in the UN sanction list and it doesn't work. That's very awkward," said Hailin Ye, an expert at Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies in the Yunnan University of Finance and Economics.
"We are not supporting their (Pakistan) stance... Pakistan has so many problems and is now in a weak position while India is a strong power," he said.

Locked in a tussle with the neighbouring countries over territorial claim over South China Sea, Ye asserted that the South China Sea area belong to China and Beijing should have asserted its claim over the area "thousands of years ago".
"We are aggressive because we did it too late, we should have done thousands of years ago. We have interests in regional cooperation but we do not want to make any change in our essential interests," Ye said.