Last fortnight, jihadi forces, on the run in Iraq, Afghanistan and to an extent in Pakistan, appeared to give notice of their intention to open up a new frontier in their theatre of terrorist operations: China.

A London-based risk analysis firm revealed to its clients that an offshoot of the al-Qaeda in Africa had resolved to target Chinese interests in that continent to avenge what it called the killings of Muslims in southwestern China.

Earlier this month, Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China’s ‘Wild West’, witnessed the worst episode of ethnic riots in China’s history, with the killing of nearly 200 people — predominantly Han Chinese, but also Uighurs, the ethnic minority group that is campaigning for a homeland and against Chinese rule.

The group that has given the call for a jihad against China is a little-known outfit based in Algeria called the al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM); it has in recent weeks and months stepped up its attacks on foreign interests in the continent, and analysts reckon that its numbers have in fact been strengthened by the return of jihadi fighters from Iraq and other fronts. Just last month, AQIM had targeted a security cordon around Chinese engineers working on a construction project in Algeria.

In fact, this isn’t the first time that al-Qaeda forces have set their sights on China, although there is little evidence that the group or its offshoots have ever engaged in active operations in China. Last November, barely 10 days before the Mumbai terror attacks, Arabic-language news services in Central Asia were abuzz with the sensational announcement that the group’s undercover leader Osama bin Laden had appointed a new leader for the jihadi group in China.

Al-Qaeda’s championing of the Uighur demand for self-determination is more than a little hard to reconcile. Turkic-speaking Uighurs do not practice radical or jihadi Islam: in fact, theirs is a moderate Sufi version of Islam — somewhat similar to the ‘Kashmiriyat’ identity of Kashmiris — which is very far removed from fundamentalist jihadism of the al-Qaeda, which abides by a more orthodox Salafist Wahabi tradition.

In fact, analysts reckon that the al-Qaeda’s embrace of the Uighur’s cause could be the “kiss of death” for the Uighur self-determination movement. Given the general low level of tolerance worldwide for jihadism anywhere, al-Qaeda’s action could provide China the legitimacy it has thus far lacked in its brutal crackdown of Uighurs and its dismissal of even their legitimate demands for a fairer share of economic development.

Much like the Tibetan people, Uighurs believe they are being reduced to a minority in their traditional homeland, and feel a sense of cultural and economic alienation.

That’s because although the mineral-rich Xinjiang region has indeed developed economically in the past six decades, the fruits of that economic advancement have largely gone to Han Chinese settlers from other parts of China, who have reduced Uighurs to second-class citizens.

For China, the AQIM threat to target its interests in Africa comes at a time when Beijing has been escalating its economic engagement with the continent. China has been expanding its diplomatic footprint in Africa, using to its advantage the Western powers’ preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan and neglect of Africa.

And since China makes a virtue of its “non-interference” in the internal affairs of nations and does not offer lectures on “human rights abuses”, it has been welcomed in Africa, including by tinpot dictators.

The AQIM threat is a direct and open challenge to China’s growing influence in Africa, and a serious source of concern given China’s high visibility in projects in the continent.

The al-Qaeda’s targeting of China also represents a curious comeuppance for the country, which has for long mollycoddled Pakistan, wilfully ignoring that country’s record of providing a base for jihadi operations in Afghanistan and India.

Over several decades, China has persisted with its strategy of cultivating Pakistan as a counterweight to India, and assisted in its clandestine nuclear weapons acquisition programme, even carrying out Pakistan’s secret nuclear test.

Even after last November’s terror attacks in Mumbai, when there were calls within the Indian political framework for a military strike against Pakistan’s terrorism infrastructure, Chinese strategists said that in the event of an Indian air attack on Pakistan, Chinese forces should “support Pakistan” by launching action along the Tibet border to “liberate” Arunachal Pradesh.

Now that the chickens of Pakistan-sponsored jihadism are increasingly coming home to roost within that benighted country itself and across the border in China’s northwest, China may yet wake up to the folly of its failed investments in Pakistan. It’s a fair bet that when Pakistan-based jihadism begins to hurt China in the same way it’s been hurting India, China will step in to clean up the mess that it actively abets today.