China's ruling Communist Party has hardened its rhetoric on Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings about the specter of global religious "extremism" seeping into the country, and the need to protect traditional Chinese identity.

Shaerheti Ahan, a top party official in Xinjiang, on Sunday became the latest official from a predominantly Muslim region to warn political leaders gathered in Beijing that the "international anti-terror situation" is destabilizing China.

Officials from Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which has an ethnic Hui population that is predominantly Muslim, warned similarly this past week about the perils of "Islamic extremism".

Speaking at a regional meeting open to the media, Ningxia Communist Party secretary Li Jianguo drew comparisons to the policies of US President Donald Trump's administration to make his point.

"What the Islamic State and extremists push is jihad, terror, violence," Li said. "This is why we see Trump targeting Muslims in a travel ban.

Over the past year, President Xi Jinping has directed the party to "Sinicize" the country's ethnic and religious minorities.

Regional leaders in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, have also ramped up surveillance measures, police patrols and demonstrations amid fear of violence blamed on Muslim groups.

Although some scholars question whether global armed networks have penetrated China, top Chinese officials are increasingly echoing calls to counter "extremism".

News of growing anti-Islam sentiment come as the South China Morning Post published a story about the growing popularity of similar anti-Islam expressions online targeting young Chinese Muslims.

Wu Shimin, a former ethnic affairs official from Ningxia, said that ideological work must be strengthened in the region to promote a Chinese identity among its Hui population, the descendants of Muslim traders plying the Silk Road centuries ago.

"The roots of the Hui are in China," Wu said. "To discuss religious consciousness, we must first discuss Chinese consciousness. To discuss the feelings of minorities, we must first discuss the feelings of the Chinese people."

Mohammed al-Sudairi, a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong and an expert on Islam in China, said the comments by Ningxia party officials reflected the increasingly anti-Islamic rhetoric that has been rolled out over the past year by the top leadership in Beijing.

The plight of the Uighurs

"There's a strengthening trend of viewing Islam as a problem in Chinese society," al-Sudairi said.

"Xi Jinping has been quite anxious about what he saw as the loss of party-state control over the religious sphere when he entered power, which necessitated this intervention. I don't think things will take a softer turn."

In Xinjiang, where hundreds of people have died in recent years in violent attacks, the government's rising rhetoric has coincided with new security measures that activists said exacerbate a cycle of repression, radicalization and violence.

The government, meanwhile, said Xinjiang faces a grave separatist threat from Uighur fighters allegedly linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL, though it provides little evidence for such claims.
ISIL released a video in late February purportedly showing Uighur fighters training in Iraq and vowing to strike China, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

On Friday, Xi met with Xinjiang officials, according to state media, and directed them to safeguard the region's stability by erecting a metaphorical "great wall of iron", a reference to the military response following the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

PHOTO CAPTION

Dunhuang Mosque, China

Al-Jazeera