Military

DATE=10/11/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

NUMBER=2-281651

TITLE= CHINA TERRORISTS L

BYLINE=JIM RANDLE

DATELINE=BEIJING

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Officials in Beijing are vowing to keep terrorist groups from

disrupting next week's APEC Summit meeting in Shanghai. It is the highest-profile

gathering of world leaders since September's deadly attacks in the

United States and could be a tempting target for terror groups. V-O-A's Jim Randle reports from Beijing.

TEXT: Foreign ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi says China's government is

fighting several terror groups, including one in its northwest

Xinjiang, bordering Afghanistan. Afghanistan is home to the organization

headed by Osama bin Laden -- blamed for the deadly attacks on U-S targets last month.

Mr. Sun says Chinese officials have what he calls "conclusive evidence"

operatives from "East Turkestan" -- another name for Xinjiang -- are

responsible for terror attacks including bombings, assassinations,

poisonings, kidnappings and robberies.

/// SUN ACTUALITY IN CHINESE, ESTABLISH AND FADE UNDER TEXT ///

Mr. Sun says the East Turkestan organization is getting support from

outside China and calls Beijing's struggle against the group "part and

parcel" of the international community's fight against terrorism. He

would not say where the foreign support was coming from.

The East Turkestan movement is made up of ethnic Uighurs -- a Muslim

group that resents Beijing's rule and the influx of ethnic Han Chinese

into their traditional homeland.

Experts say Uighurs have staged occasional bombings and attacked

Chinese government officials, but do not appear to be nearly as well equipped,

sophisticated, active or dangerous as the terrorists who leveled the

World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

Mr. Sun says Chinese police are on high alert in Shanghai, site of the

APEC gathering of world leaders.

/// SUN ACTUALITY IN CHINESE, ESTABLISH AND FADE UNDER TEXT ///

He says Chinese police "have adopted strict security measures" and that

China "will do everything it can to guard against any disruption by

terrorists."

Previous gathering of APEC officials in China have seen participants

and journalists screened by airport style x-ray machines, put through

elaborate procedures to issue credentials and watched over by throngs

of uniformed and plainclothes police.

Mr. Sun says China is also working with the international community on

the terrorism issue and sharing relevant intelligence information with

the United States.

In the past, Washington accused Beijing of violating human rights in its years-long crackdown on dissident Muslims in Xinjang. Foreign human rights groups have said they are worried China will intensify its efforts to crush the Muslim separatists in

the wake of the attacks in the United States. (Signed).

NEB/HK/JR/WD