The founder of the world's most famous PMC, Eric Pierce (remember, it was this American who created Blackwater), seems to have reoriented his business interests (and not only) from the Middle East and Africa to China. This is written in the British media, citing official sources in China. In the public domain, information appeared that the Hong Kong firm Frontier Services Group, also founded by Pierce and providing services similar to Blackwater, will receive a contract to establish a training base in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

At first glance, there is nothing strange in this deal. However, taking into account the specifics of the region where Pierce is offered to expand its activities, a whole train of extremely controversial issues emerges. The location of the base, which is planned to build, is the city of Kashgar. It is located in the heart of Chinese Uiguria, a region where, unlike the rest of China, most of the population (almost 20 million people) profess Islam and, strictly speaking, are not ethnic Chinese.

Uigurs also live in the territories of neighboring Central Asian countries - Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. One should also know that in the past few years, separatist sentiments (in relation to official Beijing first of all), mixed with on religious grounds, have been extremely common among representatives of this nationality. Tightening the screws with the authorities (arresting activists of the separatist movement, creating correctional camps, tough preventive measures, dispersing spontaneous demonstrations), naturally, stirs up resistance even more.

The situation in Uiguria is actively used by terrorist organizations, IS * in particular, for their own purposes. Only during the heyday of the so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq, hundreds of Uighurs went there to fight - I saw in the liberated from the terrorists towns in eastern Syria inscriptions made by the Uigurs on the houses where they lived (this was often practiced by the radicals: “This house lives Abu is such and such with his fighters, "they wrote above the doors).

If we also take into account the reformatting of the “ministry of war” of the IG (they have the main “power department” as it is called, the terrorists have no “defense”) - until a certain moment the people from the Caucasus occupied leading posts there, but after the death of Abu Omar Al-Shishani (on the passport - Tarkhana Batirashvili, a Kistin from the Pankisi Gorge) the post of “minister of war” was taken by Central Asian Gulmrod Khalilov. Khalilov (colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who fled Tajikistan) made a rather successful career in the “caliphate”. Several times, reports of its liquidation slipped through, but there is still no reliable data on this score. According to other information, he has already been evacuated to Afghanistan along with other Central Asian terrorists, including the Uighurs.

Both the secretary of the Security Council of Russia and the head of the FSB have repeatedly stated that the IG largely reoriented their activities towards Central Asia.

The Uigur factor can be one of the main factors in setting fire to the situation in the region.

It is here that the question of the role in the whole story of the founder of Blackwater, Eric Pierce, comes upright. If the contract information is confirmed and the base for the Hong Kong PMC (with American ancestry) will be opened in Uiguria, then in fact, taking into account all the previous experience of Pierce, this institution will play the role of an independent intelligence center. If not to say broader - the center of special operations, which the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and further along the list will be able to control remotely (not theoretically).

On the other hand, the attraction of PMCs to the region also speaks of another rather alarming circumstance. In essence, this means that the Chinese security forces no longer cope with the situation in Uiguria and need additional assistance from the Pierce class specialists. I don’t think that they attract the military from outside, because the Chinese special forces have some sort of moral breakdown due to operations to maintain the constitutional order in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region — these people are not of the kind.

It would be wrong to assume that specialists are attracted in order not to do the dirty (and even discrediting army) work in the case of China. They are fine with this. This approach is peculiar to Europeans and small countries, where everything is tied to each other. Here I see the following: the official Beijing made a choice in favor of PMCs (or, at least, expressed its intention to attract them) because of the understanding that the situation really risks getting out of control - and then it will not seem like much to anyone.

Another question is whether to get into such a problematic region Eric Pierce and provide the Americans with another platform for the realization of their branded geopolitical (read: military) intrigues in the spirit of controlled chaos. Considering that the relationship between the US and the IG is still covered with a strong veil of secrecy, I don’t dare to argue that the American secret services created the Caliphate, but the fact that sometimes the radicals and the Yankees played the same game does not cause no one. Yes, and how serious IS forces, in principle, were transferred to Afghanistan? Was it possible without help? After this semi-authorial question we will put ellipsis. And let's hope that our Chinese partners thought well and weighed all the risks associated with the entry of PMCs in Uiguria.

* “Islamic State” (IG) - the organization is recognized as terrorist by the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated December 29, 2014.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.