That the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship in Beijing is obsessed with Taiwan, Tibet, and Turkestan – the “Three Ts” – is well known to most China-watchers.  Now, on the eve of the Beijing Summer Olympics, it appears that all three Ts are in play, much to the discomfort of Chinese ruling elite. 

Turkestan has been brewing for some time.  In Xinjiang (a.k.a. Turkestan a far-Western province with a large Muslim ethnic group known as the Uighurs “Wee-gars”) Chinese security officials are increasingly worried about separatists whom they say are returning home from al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The militants’ target?  The Beijing Olympics.  The well-trained guerillas are said to be entering China by crossing the rugged mountain ranges that form the border between Afghanistan and China (my book, China Attacks, opens with Chinese security forces attacking Muslim guerillas in that same area).  Recently, Chinese authorities detailed two disrupted plots involving bomb making and an attempt to blow up a passenger jet.

(more…)