“Chinese state-backed media has claimed that 300 Chinese Muslims are fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and authorities have blamed the violence emanating from its restive northwest on radical Islamist ideology and residents’ ties to foreign terrorist networks. U.S.-based experts and human rights groups have disputed both claims, arguing that China’s repressive political and religious policies have caused the tensions and that, at any rate, the number of Uighur Islamic State fighters is negligible. But new documents, leaked by an Islamic State defector in early 2016, suggest that Beijing is likely correct about the scale of Uighur involvement with the militant movement — if not about the underlying cause.”
Source: Report: More Than 100 Chinese Muslims Have Joined the Islamic State | Foreign Policy