China Concerned about Olympic Security

Filed in archive Olympics on September 11, 2007

On the sixth anniversary of September 11th and the upcoming one year countdown to next year's Olympics, China is concerned about potential terrorists attacks at the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics. According to an MSNBC article, it seems the Olympics are leaving no stone unturned to prepare for the summer games.

"Although the general security situation for the Beijing Olympics remains stable, we still face the challenges of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang was quoted by the China Daily newspaper as saying.

"Terrorism in particular poses the biggest threat," Zhou told a security conference in Beijing on Monday, the paper said

Zhou proposed more information sharing between international security forces and the establishment of an early risk warning mechanism, the paper said, without giving details.

Zhou's remarks appeared on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States - an event that helped dilute U.S. and other foreign criticism of China's heavy-handed tactics toward ethnic separatists it accuses of terrorism.

Experts say the terrorist threat to the Olympics is relatively low, but warn that Beijing faces a growing long-term threat from Islamic separatists among the Uighur population in western China's Xinjiang region.

However, only one or two terrorist groups are capable of carrying out attacks in northeast Asia, and their ability to operate within China's tightly controlled society is very limited, said Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna, author of the book "Inside al-Qaida - Global Network of Terror."

"The threat (to the Beijing Olympics) is medium to low. The threat from the outside is very low," Gunaratna said.