China used a UN Security Council public session on counterterrorism to deliver a pointed warning about a rising and increasingly sophisticated global threat from extremist groups, naming the Islamic State, al‑Qaeda and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Sun Lei, China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, framed the trend as one of growing complexity and frequent major attacks, urging a collective, non‑selective approach to counterterrorism and stronger international cooperation.
A UN official responsible for counterterrorism told the council that over the past six months Islamic State affiliates continued to carry out and inspire attacks across a wide geographic arc — from Syria and Iraq into the Sahel, the Lake Chad basin and East Africa, and with repercussions reaching as far as Australia. The briefing described a threat that is multi‑layered and technologically adaptive, signalling that the organisation’s reach and methods are evolving even where it has lost territorial control.
Sun stressed that terrorist groups are exploiting instability in Afghanistan and Syria to expand, recruit and strike, and he called on Afghanistan’s interim government to take effective measures to prevent the country from becoming a sanctuary and logistics hub for terror networks. China’s statement explicitly condemned “selective counterterrorism” and double standards, a recurrent theme in Beijing’s diplomacy that seeks to prioritise state sovereignty and security cooperation over external regime change or unilateral military intervention.
On Syria, Sun urged the transitional authorities to fulfil their counterterror obligations as groups including Islamic State and ETIM take advantage of disorder to bolster their ranks and stage attacks. The comments underscore Beijing’s long‑standing concern about transnational extremist links that it argues can have direct consequences for Chinese security, particularly in Xinjiang and for Chinese citizens and projects abroad.
Beijing’s emphasis at the Security Council is both a security plea and a diplomatic signal. By publicly naming groups and singling out Afghanistan and Syria, China is pressing for a UN‑centred, cooperative response while also reinforcing pressure on the Afghan interim authorities and the Syrian transition. The intervention foreshadows possible increases in Chinese bilateral counterterror cooperation, intelligence sharing and security measures tied to its regional investments and global footprint.