West must drop double standards on terror

London witnessed a terror attack Wednesday afternoon local time near the Houses of Parliament. An Asian- looking middle- aged man mowed down pedestrians while speeding in an SUV along Westminster Bridge, and after it crashed, he ran and stabbed a police officer to death. Including the attacker, who was shot by police, four people died and 29 people were treated in hospital. The attack shocked Europe and the world.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday Beijing time sent a message of condolence to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Xi strongly condemned the terrorist attack, mourned the innocent victims and extended his sincere sympathies to the injured and the bereaved families.

The latest tragedy in London is very similar to the 2013 Tiananmen Square terror attack, in which a car crashed into a crowd near the Jinshui Bridge and left two passers- by dead and about 40 injured. The vehicle with a license plate from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region then burst into flames and the three people inside it died.

We sympathize with London for the similar terrorist attack. However, we cannot help but recall how the Western media, including those in the UK, showed little sympathy for the Chinese victims and their niggardly condemnation of the attack in China.

CNN even used the headline “Tiananmen crash: Terrorism or cry of desperation?” to cover the news and described those attackers as an oppressed minority.

Having double standards is a long time habit of the West when it comes to terrorism. About three years ago, when there had not been many terror attacks in Europe and the US, Western public opinion tended to point the accusing finger at China’s policy over ethnic groups in terms of Xinjiang’s terrorist assaults.

Yet since 2015, there have been a spate of terror attacks across Europe. The increasing number of refugees who are flooding to Europe from the Middle East and consequent security issues have become a severe challenge across the entire West. Along with these problems, Western opinion showed restraint when terror attacks took place in China, but the Western media still resorted to double standards. In 2015, France experienced the deadly shooting at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and then a series of deadly terror attacks in Paris. However, in the same year French newsmagazine L’Obs published an article written by its Beijing correspondent, which slammed China’s Xinjiang policies, claiming that the Uyghurs are suffering from ruthless repression.

In February, there was another terror attack in Xinjiang. Mainstream Western media deliberately put quotation marks around the three attackers and cited the World Uyghur Congress, which defended the attackers.

Now the terror attacks in the West are not confined to the traditional pattern of terrorism. The attacker at Westminster was a knife- wielding man, who resorted to the same tactics as the attackers in Xinjiang. More and more terrorists are using vehicles to target people, similar to many attacks that happened in Xinjiang.

In face of the London attack, those who blamed China’s ethnic policies on the terror attacks in the country should feel ashamed. They put their own values above those of others and are actually encouraging terrorism in China from behind the scenes.

Hopefully, the constant terror attacks in Europe could wake up those who advocate double standards. When terrorism prevails, the whole of mankind must unite to fight against it, regardless of geopolitical rivalry and ideological divergences.

We sympathize with London for the similar terrorist attack.