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Media Report
April 23 , 2017
  • The Washington Post reports: "Many don't speak Arabic and their role in Syria is little known to the outside world, but the Chinese fighters of the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria are organized, battled-hardened and have been instrumental in ground offensives against President Bashar Assad's forces in the country's northern regions. Thousands of Chinese jihadis have come to Syria since the country's civil war began in March 2011 to fight against government forces and their allies. Some have joined the al-Qaida's branch in the country previously known as Nusra Front. Others paid allegiance to the Islamic State group and a smaller number joined factions such as the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham. But the majority of Chinese jihadis are with the Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria, whose vast majority are Chinese Muslims, particularly those from the Turkic-speaking Uighur majority native to Xinjiang in China. Their growing role in Syria has resulted in increased cooperation between Syrian and Chinese intelligence agencies who fear those same jihadis could one day return home and cause trouble there. The Turkistan Islamic Party is the other name for the East Turkistan Islamic Movement that considers China's Xinjiang to be East Turkistan."

  • Reuters reports that the World Bank Group and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank said on Sunday they agreed to deepen their cooperation with a framework for knowledge sharing, staff exchanges, analytical work, development financing and country-level coordination. The memorandum of understanding signed at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in Washington comes a year after the two multilateral lenders established mechanisms for cost-sharing and co-financing of investment projects. Since then, the AIIB and the World Bank have co-financed five projects, supporting power generation in Pakistan, a natural gas pipeline in Azerbaijan, and projects in Indonesia to rebuild slums, improve dam safety and develop regional infrastructure. They said in a joint statement that they are discussing more projects to be co-financed in 2017 and 2018. "Signing this memorandum of understanding fits into our vision of a new kind of internationalism," AIIB President Jin Liqun said in a statement. "It deepens our relationship with the World Bank Group and sets up the mechanisms through which we can more easily collaborate and share information." A World Bank spokeswoman said the knowledge-sharing memorandum was similar to one that was in place during the AIIB's early development stages, but which ended when the Beijing-based institution was formally launched in January 2016.
  • Bloomberg writes that People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said the nation's expected 6.5 percent growth target for this year is "within reach" and financial risks are well under control.China is fully confident of preventing and eliminating systemic risks, and will keep pursuing a prudent and neutral monetary policy, the central banker said in a statement dated April 22 on the International Monetary Fund's website during his Washington D.C. meeting with the IMF committee. The country will keep applying a "full range" of monetary policy tools to keep liquidity broadly stable and to guide market interest rates in a reasonable manner, Zhou said in the statement, adding to a reiterated pledge on active fiscal policy. Zhou's statement struck a positive tone, saying that the nation's corporate and financial risks are in check and economic growth resilient. Figures released on April 17 showed China's economy accelerated for a second-straight quarter as investment picked up, retail sales rebounded and factory output strengthened amid robust credit growth and further strength in property markets.
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