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How has counterterrorism been leveraged as a mechanism of governance?

Writer's picture: Éléonore DaxheletÉléonore Daxhelet

A comparison of the strategies of Sweden and China



Introduction


“I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” These were the words of former US President Georges W. Bush at Ground Zero, the day after 9/11. This event did not only traumatise an entire country, it shocked people and nations globally. It sets the beginning of a new era, with the launch of the War on Terror and an increase in counterterrorism measures in many countries across the globe. 


Before going any further, it is important to understand what terrorism is. According to the 2022 Global Terrorism Index, terrorism is defined as:


“the systematic threat or use of violence, by non-state actors, whether for or in opposition to established authority, with the intention of communicating a political, religious or ideological message to a group larger than the victim group, by generating fear and so altering (or attempting to alter) the behaviour of the larger group.”


The literature has however not yet produced a commonly shared definition of counterterrorism. The term can be simply defined as “actions to ameliorate the threat and consequences of terrorism” or “a set of measures that states apply in response to acts of terrorism”. Based on these considerations from the literature, counterterrorism thus encompasses all measures, policies, tactics, and strategies aimed at responding to, preventing, and combating terrorism. It encompasses defensive and offensive aspects. Counterterrorism measures are often taken or reinforced in response to an emergency or “to the possibility of terrorism”, and supposedly last for as long as danger from and fear of terrorism is present. It is however difficult to settle when this situation is over. Thus, counterterrorism measures often tend to last, raising concerns whether or not they are becoming a new mechanism of governance. The concept of governance is one that is often difficult to define with precision. According to the conventional understanding, it encompasses the notion of “patterns of rule or practices of governing”. It refers to the way policies are governed and implemented. One can therefore wonder whether and how has counterterrorism been recently leveraged as a mechanism of governance?


To answer, the cases of Sweden and China will be compared. A Most-Different-System-Design method is interesting; it enables us to show the similarities between very different cases. According to the Democracy Index 2021, Sweden is a full democracy and belongs to the top-five, with an average score of 9.26. China, on the contrary, is defined as an authoritarian state, with an average score of 2.21. 


Based on this comparison, this article argues that the way counterterrorism can be leveraged as a new mechanism of governance depends on the regime type. It seems easier for a dictatorship, as public scrutiny and human rights compliance are weaker than in a democracy. This however does not mean that a misuse of counterterrorism in a democracy is not possible but it is weaker. To demonstrate this point, the threat situation of both cases will be presented. Then, the preventive measures put in place to counter terrorism will be depicted. Finally, the way both countries respond to attacks and prosecute the alleged terrorists will be analysed.


Threat Situation


According to the Global Terrorism Index, the impact of terrorism in Sweden and China is very low. Sweden has been largely spared from large-scale attacks, unlike many other European countries. It has historically one of the lowest rates of terrorist activities, and is spared from violent separatism. Therefore, “modern Swedish governments have had only limited experience in dealing with actual attacks”. As for China, the country also had a limited experience with terrorism before the 1980s. However, some religious and ethnic conflicts have increased the risk of terrorism, especially in the Xinjiang region which is home to approximately 12 million repressed Uyghurs, and where the increased risk has been the most considerable since 2001. On the contrary to Sweden, China must face separatism in some regions, viewed by Beijing as a major challenge to the political stability and unity of the state, as indicated in the White Paper of 2019. 


Despite these statistics, both countries have developed a counterterrorism strategy and view terrorism as an important security issue. Sweden considers the overall terrorist situation in Europe to have an impact on its own security. Furthermore, Sweden has often been used as a base to conduct diverse terrorist related activities. The country also has one of the highest numbers of foreign fighters going to the Middle East per capita in Europe, which has turned into an issue regarding returnees, considered a non-negligible risk. Therefore, the primary concern for the Swedish government is transnational Islamist terrorism. This perception has been further enhanced by the mid-2010s migration crisis, during which Sweden received the largest number of asylum applications in Europe, making the total rate of its Muslim population 4.9% of its total population. Sweden is often described as welcoming, having implemented several multicultural policies over the years. However, this minority tends to live in clusters, socio-economically less privileged and with a quite strong exclusionary identity and some resentment against their host country.   


Despite this emphasis on radical Islamism, it is worth to note that most of the terrorist attacks in Northern Europe had no connection to it. The largest such incident in Norway was conducted by a native Norwegian in 2011. Far-right xenophobia is a concerning ideology and a security issue. An increase in political extremism has been observed in recent years, rising at the same time the risk of political violence. Sweden has a strong far-right movement and is considered as the “Nordic hub” for these groups. It has gained in popularity recently due to the influx of immigrants and fear of Islamism, which has raised anti-immigration feelings, “despite the continuous high support for multicultural policy”. These xenophobic feelings reinforce in return the resentment of the Muslim minority, which feels discriminated against. Both movements have thus a “symbiotic relationship”. Nevertheless, only violent Islamist extremism is traditionally associated with terrorism, while far-right extremism is view as “domestic countersubversion movements”. 


China also sees its Muslim minority as a potential hotbed of terrorism. The Uyghurs in Xinjiang are indeed a “large and less assimilated minority population”. China also considers this population as vulnerable to jihadist discourses from the Middle East. However, it is likely that this rhetoric from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) serves to justify its modern colonialism in the region. Indeed, the CCP has struggled with the Uyghurs minority for a long time and has exercised “state violence and a strict control” in Xinjiang. It was previously framed as “counter-revolution”, but it seems that now China is using the War on Terror, launched by the USA after 9/11, and a globally shared concern regarding Islamism to legitimise its actions in Xinjiang. According to Topal (2021), instead of realism, China’s securitisation approach to terrorism is embedded in constructivism, with a focus on religion and identity. 


Prevention


Both Sweden and China have put in place preventive measures to reduce the threat of terrorism. The Swedish strategy’s aim at preventing “the circumstances in which radicalization can often occur from arising” echoes China’s “desire to prevent terrorism from diffusing” in the society. Furthermore, in both cases an important Muslim minority lives in clusters or a particular region, maintaining a strong cultural identity, separated from the rest of the population. This and the emphasis on radical Islamism has led to a dichotomy between what is considered a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ Muslim. Thus, in Sweden as well as in China, preventive measures have first and foremost targeted the Muslim population. Most of China’s measures have been implemented in the Xinjiang. As for Sweden, the government wishes to develop the possibility “to target individuals who might be involved in terrorism or are likely to be”.


Both cases have also engaged in covert coercive actions, particularly by developing massive surveillance programs. Sweden has even been criticised by the European Court of Human Rights for this. China has built a massive surveillance system, even larger and more intrusive in the Xinjiang where the government has settled “exceptional control arsenals,” such as a “compulsory software installed on cell phones”. However, the dichotomous categorisation of Muslims has been more significant in China, where this partition have been translated in “China’s religious policy”, which discriminates between normal and illegal religious behaviour.


Moreover, both cases mention the value of education. However, the CCP intends “to guide people to adopt the “correct” ideology”, building numerous “vocational education and training centres”. These centres hold many Chinese Uyghur, without trial, with the sole aim to implement a “forced re-education and political indoctrination”, operating what NGOs and human rights activists have denounced as a “cultural genocide”. This drastically differs from the Swedish strategy, which insists on the importance of human and privacy rights’ protection. Education means investing in schools, seen as a “better way to handle terrorist propaganda” and avoid having to use too often intrusive measures. In addition, these measures can only target one individual in Sweden, while China has implemented “collective detention and re-education”. The Swedish authorities intend to understand and “take into account the complex nature of social determinants of terrorism” to implement an action plan which invalidate extremists’ discourses and prevent them from finding an audience. The idea of multiculturalism is well-integrated in Sweden, which has made efforts to welcome immigrants, tempering the “dichotomous categorisation of Muslims”, unlike China. Indeed, the Migrant Integration Policy Index places Sweden in first place, with a comprehensive approach to integration, while China denies this integration. 


Preventive counterterrorist measures in China are thus harsher than in Sweden. This repression is not random, it aims “to generate the deterrent effect” as well as to collect intelligence. Swedish preventive strategy also aims at intelligence collection but more particularly it intends to limit the circumstances which favour extremism, offering better socio-economic chances to its population. In addition, Sweden, as a democracy, pays more attention to human rights than China, which does not consider them in its counterterrorism strategy. The country is indeed evolving “towards becoming the most secretive and authoritarian society in the world”. 


Respond and prosecute


The terrorist attacks sequence of the 1990s and early 2000s resulted in a widespread increase in exceptionally tougher crime policies. Sweden entered in a “punitive era” from the 1990s onwards and China implemented “more punitive laws and punishments” after 2001. In China, there have been a rise in criminalisation of terrorist acts, an expansion of police powers and an intensification of punishments. Sweden also increased the severity of the punishments for terrorism through the implementation of special laws, and the authorities have been granted more control and surveillance powers. Terrorism has thus increased coercive measures of both the Swedish and Chinese authorities as a response. These special laws aim to deter terrorism, by increasing penalties and investigative powers to find and prosecute potential terrorists. 


Nevertheless, the two cases differ in terms of intensity of the laws implemented. The Swedish, and more broadly Scandinavian, judicial system tends to be more defendant friendly, which makes North European countries different from not only China but most Western democracies. This particular system, despite the increase in special punishment laws, makes it difficult to formally arrest and prosecute people linked to terrorism, due to a “higher standard for the protection of civil liberties within the court”. Again, Sweden greatly differs from China because of its compliance with human rights. Therefore, Sweden agrees on several norms regarding the prosecution of terrorism, such as criminalisation of terrorist travels, condemnation of recruiters of terrorist organisations or even criminalization of participation in such organisation. However, the country has been reluctant to implement them and has been criticised for its lack of strong enough punishment. Sweden is instead building on its preventive efforts. 


China does not have the same concern for human rights, allowing the authorities to greatly intensify punishments. Therefore, China has been involved in extra-judicially holdings based on ethnicity. Not only are the presumed terrorists detained, but also their relatives, officially to avoid any diffusion in the population through this channel. In terms of crisis-management measures, the Chinese authorities also respond severely and fast. After the large scale Urumqi riot in 2009, during which 200 people were killed, the authorities placed the whole Xinjiang region under lockdown, launching the ““strike-hard” campaign” to crush terrorism. The criminalization of terrorism further intensified after the Beijing’s Tiananmen Square suicide attack, targeting massively the Uyghur minority. Li has however observed that these measures seem to no longer be temporary provisions and are increasingly becoming “features of the legal and political landscape”. He has also warned against “a worrying trend in Chinese legal policy to over-criminalize terrorist offences”, as shown by the new broad definition of terrorism adopted by the Counterterrorism Law of 2015.


Conclusion


Both countries face a low risk situation regarding terrorism. They also consider Islamist extremism as a primary concern; although Sweden must also face far-right extremism. They however differ in the way they conceive terrorism. In China, this topic is highly linked to religion and identity and the state’s colonialist policy in Xinjiang. In Sweden, although identity and religion play a part, they are not definitive features. The government’s framework is more embedded in the concept of “societal security”, in which the threat is envisaged as coming from the Swedish society itself. Nevertheless, both cases highlight the sensitiveness of the definition of terrorism, which is a political issue that can serve political purposes. 


On the prevention, response and prosecution of terrorism, the two cases differ greatly in terms of intensity of the measures implemented. This is due to their very different position on human rights. While Sweden recognises the importance of this norm when drafting new regulations to counter terrorism, China does not comply with it. Therefore, the Swedish police has fewer powers than its Chinese counterpart. Public and international scrutiny is also stronger in Sweden, to ensure that the state complies with its democratic standards. China is in contrast more secretive; public and international scrutiny is restrained as much as possible by the CCP. 


Therefore, it seems that the way counterterrorism can be leveraged as a mechanism of governance differs between democracies and authoritarian states. The CCP has more power than the Swedish government in this domain, as the executive power in China is not as limited by public opinion as Sweden. This allows the Chinese government to use counterterrorism to increase its control over the population in ways that are not possible for Sweden. China can implement very invasive and oppressive measures, especially in Xinjiang to crush separatist feelings. However, this does not mean that counterterrorism cannot become a new mechanism of governance in democratic states, as shown by the mass surveillance programs in which Sweden took part. It is important to note that even in a democracy, there is no guarantee against this kind of practice. Therefore, scrutiny remains an important aspect.


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Image: Flickr: Israel Defence Forces, Lotar Eilat Counterterrorism Unit Infantry Training

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