Posted by By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian on AXIOS Nov 10, 2020

The U.S. war on terror and its vague, overexpansive definition of terrorism have allowed authoritarian leaders around the world, and especially in China, to attack domestic groups under the guise of fighting terrorism, argues a George Washington University scholar in a new book.

Why it matters: Beijing has claimed its campaign of cultural genocide against China’s Muslim minorities is a form of counterterrorism.

In “The War on the Uyghurs,” Sean Roberts, a cultural anthropologist at George Washington University, writes that in the early days of the U.S.’s war on terror, China successfully lobbied the U.S. and other nations to add a small group of Uighur militants in Afghanistan to the terror designation list.

Read the full article at AXIOS