Terrorist Organisations and Conservative Islamic Influencers are Capitalising on Sinophobia in Central Asia

As China deepens its economic and political footprint across Central Asia, it has also found itself entangled in the region’s evolving religious and ideological currents. Among the most sensitive, and potentially volatile, of these is the role of Islamic extremists and conservative clerics in stoking up Sinophobia in the region.

The Straightforward Roadmap from Solution to Problem

Chinese policymakers have long warned that jihadist groups, particularly those with roots in Central Asia and linked to the country’s Uyghur population, present a serious threat to domestic stability and regional security on its western horizon. But while terrorist organisations have increasingly targeted Beijing in their rhetoric, the actual scale and immediacy of the threat remains limited. Instead, it is Beijing’s securitised posture, its sweeping repression of Uyghur Muslims, its entanglements in weaker, neighbouring states and its framing of Islam as a political danger, that has made China a more prominent target of radical narratives.

Jihadist groups have clearly taken note of China’s rise. In Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), the regional offshoot of ISIS created in 2015, has sought to undermine the new Taliban government, with their propaganda contrasting images of friendly meetings between the Taliban and China with photos of the repression of Muslims in China. In Voice of Khorasan, a propaganda outlet of ISKP, a 2022 article accused China of imperial ambitions and warned that the ‘tyrants’ in Beijing would soon be unable to shield themselves ‘from the sharp knives of the caliphate’s soldiers.’ This threat builds on earlier declarations by ISKP leadership that vowed to liberate ‘all Muslim lands from Andalus to East Turkistan.’ In 2017, Islamic State’s Iraq-based media arm even released a video showing Uyghur fighters threatening to spill ‘rivers of blood’ in China. These threats, while often rhetorical, have become more frequent and explicit as Beijing expands its global presence.

Since largely losing its territory in Syria in 2019 and then in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021, Islamic State affiliates have shifted their focus towards foreign attacks. So far, there have been no attacks by Islamic State in China or targeting China’s presence in Central Asia. The most prominent incident, the 2016 suicide bombing of the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, was linked to Uyghur militants affiliated with Al-Nusra, but no group ever claimed responsibility and the investigation was riddled with inconsistencies. While there have been no attacks within China, Chinese citizens have been targeted. ISKP attacked a hotel in Kabul, targeting Taliban and Chinese officials who were meeting there, in December 2022. Another Chinese citizen was killed in an attack in Takhar province in February 2025.

Despite this limited threat, the Chinese government continues to frame transnational jihadist threats as both imminent and existential. Leaked speeches from Xi Jinping’s 2014 tour of Xinjiang, later reported in international media, revealed that Beijing fears instability in the region could derail its Belt and Road Initiative. In particular, the Chinese leader warned that Uyghur militants returning from Syria or Afghanistan could threaten domestic peace. But the very measures China has taken to prevent this, mass internment, forced assimilation campaigns and the global pursuit of Uyghur dissidents, have arguably amplified its exposure to risk. Rather than deter extremist groups, these repressive actions have become part of the radical narrative. Propaganda channels now frequently depict China as the ‘enemy of Islam,’ and its crackdown on Uyghurs is cited alongside grievances against Israel, the US and other perceived oppressors of Muslims.

The Spread Beyond

Even more striking and consequential is how anti-China sentiment has penetrated broader Islamist discourse in Central Asia. While terrorist organisations have a tiny online following in the region, conservative Islamic preachers, unaffiliated news channels sympathetic to violent extremist groups and fundamentalist movements like Hizb ut-Tahrir command much larger online audiences. Banned in many Central Asian states, Hizb ut-Tahrir continues to operate semi-clandestinely, distributing articles that frame China’s economic presence as a form of capitalist exploitation of Muslim lands. Recent pieces in response to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in September 2025, when all five Central Asian presidents visited China, frame the organisation as ‘nothing more than a colonial trap set for Muslims.’ ‘The organisation fights Islam, Islamic communities and Muslims under the guise of combating “terrorism and extremism”’, the op-ed continues. In one widely circulated piece, the group accuses Beijing of ‘colonial expansion,’ looting mineral resources and pushing Central Asians into economic servitude. The solution, it argues, lies not in nationalist revival but in Islamic unity: a global caliphate that would protect Muslims from ‘Zionist powers’ and Chinese imperialism alike.

Telegram channels and YouTube videos with millions of views push similar narratives. Popular content often focuses on China’s repression of Uyghurs, positioning it as emblematic of a broader anti-Muslim agenda. A series of three videos about China’s role in the country and treatment of Uyghurs published by Uzbek-language channel Sunan TV, the channel of cleric Fazliddin Shahobiddin, received over four million views in six months. The videos tapped into popular concerns over growing dependence on China in the region, framing China as a coloniser and atheist regime bent on crushing Islam. Indeed, some religious voices are now echoing the same critiques traditionally voiced by nationalist protest movements: that China’s presence primarily benefits elites, exacerbates environmental degradation and undermines national sovereignty.

Beijing, meanwhile, has responded to the perceived threat of extremism by embedding security cooperation into nearly every aspect of its foreign engagement in Central Asia. In Tajikistan, China has constructed security outposts and conducted joint border patrols. In Syria, Chinese officials reportedly worked with Assad’s intelligence services to monitor Uyghur fighters. In Afghanistan, Beijing has maintained quiet but active diplomacy with the Taliban, encouraging the group to suppress Uyghur militancy within its borders.

Yet while China points to a web of ‘East Turkestan’ threats emanating from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the actual operational capacity of Uyghur militant networks remains unclear. Leaked intelligence and regional reports indicate that most fighters affiliated with the Turkestan Islamic Party have been marginalised or relocated away from the Chinese border. Others remain in Syria, with little capability to project force. In fact, China has arguably been more successful in managing this threat than it has let on – partly through intelligence cooperation, but also through diplomatic deals with regimes willing to do its bidding in exchange for loans, infrastructure, or political support.

Overreach and Erosion

The paradox, however, is that by securitising its engagement with Central Asia, emphasising surveillance, repression and counterterrorism, China is reinforcing the very narratives that radical groups use to recruit and radicalise. The Chinese presence is now more politicised than ever. Islamist and nationalist actors alike portray Beijing as a foreign hegemon, exploiting resources and trampling on religious values. In places like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Chinese infrastructure projects have been met with over 100 protests between 2018 and 2023, sometimes violent and often infused with both Islamic and anti-colonial rhetoric.

This dynamic is not lost on jihadist strategists. Their messaging may have limited reach compared to anti-Western content, but their growing attention to China signals a shift. As Beijing becomes more entangled in conflict zones, fragile states and contested regions, it becomes both a more attractive target and a more vulnerable one. Even when China is not directly attacked, it is being drawn into security dilemmas, forced to choose between neutrality and intervention and increasingly portrayed as a belligerent actor on the global stage.

In short, the threat posed by jihadist groups to China in Central Asia is less about current operational danger and more about long-term reputational erosion and strategic overreach. China’s own policies, its repression in Xinjiang, its alliance with authoritarian regimes and its growing security presence have made it a fixture in the propaganda of violent extremists. Yet Beijing continues to present itself as a neutral partner, one that promotes development without interfering in local affairs. This narrative is becoming harder to sustain.

As terrorist groups and conservative Islamic influencers continue to adapt their messaging, tapping into nationalist grievances and regional resentments, China will need to reckon with a reality that is far more complex than it admits. The terrorist threat is real – but it is also, in part, a by-product of China’s own repressive policies against its own Muslim citizens. If Beijing fails to recognise this, it risks not just local backlash, but a broader ideological confrontation in which it will be seen not as a partner of the Muslim world, but as one of its adversaries.

© RUSI, 2025.

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