Barrack Obama, the president of the United States and Xi Jinping, the chairman of the People’s Republic of China are planning to meet in Beijing to discuss strategies to tackle the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Sunni Muslim terrorist organization that has the entire international community on the alert. The summit meeting is scheduled to take place in November after the APEC summit meetings.
Many have predicted that the leaders of the United States and China will be talking about how to deal with ISIS. Some government insiders have announced, according to Kukmin Ilbo, that the U.S. and China have already started discussing anti-terrorist strategies as early as July this year.
It was not until last month however that the United States directly requested that China also take part in this global conflict against the Muslim Jihadists. Susan Rice, during her visit to Beijing last month, according to the Wall Street Journal, had officially requested China’s corporation. Wall Street Journal reported that China had a relatively positive reaction to America’s request.
There is no information as to what role China will play in the fight against the Islamic State. However, many political experts predict that China will be focusing on intelligence and gathering information regarding terrorist strategies with the help of both military and civilian personnel. A professor from China’s People’s University expressed that China could play a more decisive role in the conflict against ISIS, comparing the situation to the situation right after 9-11. The expert went as far as to suggest that China might be able to conduct military training for the Iraqi government and Kurdistan forces.
Despite the fact that political relations between China and the U.S. have not been the best lately, concerning several major global issues including the Russian invasion of Ukraine earlier this year where the two powers took different standpoints, it is remarkable that they had agreed to cooperate in fighting ISIS. Some have expressed that this sudden change in attitude within both global powers reflects China’s fear of an ISIS attack taking place within their own borders just as much as the United States and Europe.
