MOSCOW (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov — As the United States looks to bolster the anti-Islamic State coalition with potential allies in Asia, the largest player in the region, China, is unlikely to join, experts told Sputnik on Tuesday.
The US Department of State reported Sunday that the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter Islamic State John Allen would travel to Malaysia, Singapore and Australia to conduct talks on anti-Islamic State cooperation.
However, the key player of the Asian region, China, is highly unlikely to join the US-led coalition. And there are several reasons for that.
China and Islam
Joseph Bahout, a visiting scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Sputnik that only "Sunni" states have any legitimacy to efficiently fight islamists, at least to avoid a clash between Sunnism and the West or with Shiism."
Besides, according to Bahout, China "has a problem with its own Sunni Muslim population," taking into consideration the internal conflict between Beijing and the Xinjiang's Uyghur population.
As the senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Michael Kugelman, told the news agency, "Beijing’s concerns about this [Islamic State] threat have become sharper in recent years after rising incidents of terrorism in China."
Chinese officials blame Uyghur militants for the terrorist attacks. Besides domestic terrorism, Kugelman said that according to various reports, "Uyghur militants have fought alongside Islamic State in the Middle East."
Why Stand Out?
There is one more major reason why China is not keen to take active steps against the Islamic State.
"China's willingness to contribute substantively also depends on whether such contribution will increase the IS threat to China's security or make China stand out and become a bigger target of Islamic State than it currently is," Yun Sun, fellow with the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, told Sputnik.
Sun added that the country "has no intention to turn itself into a bigger enemy by doing more than its fair share."
As of February 2015, the Islamic State has not captured any Chinese nationals. However, there have been reports that Chinese militants, fighting for the Islamic State, were executed for attempting to flee.
Other Than China
Returning to the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter Islamic State John Allen's Asian tour, crucially, China is not on the "to-be-visited" countries' list.
From the other countries of the region, which could help the US-led coalition, Joseph Bahout marks Singapore as a country "known for its excellent intelligence services, and for the good knowledge they have on this Eastern Jihadi networks."
Michael Kugelman, from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said that "there really isn’t any other East Asian country as likely as Australia to participate in the coalition."
Kugelman continued saying that "Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines are nations that could help out, owing to the deep relations and in some cases security treaties they have with Washington."
The expert concluded that direct military support from these countries is unlikely and that financial and humanitarian aid is "the most we could expect."
Given such circumstances, the US special presidential envoy's tour cannot bring any new members that are able to provide military support to the coalition.
