China did not train Uyghurs to fight the Soviets

Some high-profile international sources on ETIM suggest that its ideology was influenced by Uyghurs who had been trained by the PRC to fight alongside the mujahideen against Soviets during the 1980s, but there is no evidence PRC ever trained Uyghurs for that purpose.

For articulations of this argument, see

• Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda;
• Gunaratna, Acharya, and Wang, Ethnic Identity and National Conflict in China;
• Martin Wayne, ‘Inside China’s war on terrorism,’ Journal of Contemporary China, 18:59 (2009), 249–261.

The assertion that the PRC trained Uyghurs to join the mujahidin is most extensively promoted in John Cooley’s book Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism (London: Pluto Press, 2002), but the author gives no sources for this argument.

Gunaratna’s 2002 book on Al-Qaeda that echoes this assertion does so with reference to one brief report from a 2002 Jane’s Intelligence Review report (Bedi, ‘The Chinese Connection’), which cites none of its sources.