I agree with @David Broughton on the fact that while the Chinese have had their dealing with the CTSO, any membership is not a legitimate prospect for China. I notice that all of the nations in the CTSO fall under the hegemonic Russian sphere of influence, which is a mold China does not, and would make a point to never, fit in to.

Well said!

@David Broughton Absolutely.

Today's document brings forward an interesting contrast in regards to China. That being, the economic and military obstacle that Europe will pose to China as it attempts to expand it's Belt and Road Initiative further Westward. As EU member states continue to confront China on human rights abuses and the like, they have also taken steps to limit which sectors China can invest towards in Europe, such as the information technology industry. This pushes the question, with the heavy handed approach China has taken to Africa and to some extent the Middle East seeming less feasible in Europe, will China adopt a more formal and diplomatic approach to Europe, or develop yet another approach to Europe in the face of a more developed and united economic frontier?

The first thought that came to mind after finishing today's document was that I don't think it's surprising that far-right extremism gets a bit of a free pass, for want of a better term. The reasoning for most far right extremism is often less-explicit on the surface and based outside of religion or spirituality, with a pseudo-political core. This would seem to make it easy to bring people under the umbrella of more extremist views through rhetoric alone. One example of this is what I regard as an extremely unhealthy dialogue surrounding male-female relationships. Technically, there's nothing politically dangerous about sexually frustrated men feeling that their lack of success in relationships indicates some form of female inferiority to men. Despite this lack of technical danger, a man, particularly a young one, who is struggling with a sense of belonging and purpose as a result of romantic failure is much more susceptible to falling into an echo-chamber of extreme, resentful, misogynist views. For aspects like this that contribute to the development of far-right extremism, I don't believe there's a political solution.

@Nadeen Ghazy I see what you mean! I don't consider causing fear or panic enough to qualify as terrorism, rather I believe the traditional definition's emphasis on a political gain or end as necessary to constitute terrorism. There definitely needs to be a wider dialogue on such a question.

@Brea Purdie Sorry for my confusion, but when you say "components of masculinity that:" is this to refer to intrinsic components of masculinity or of a more construction based idea of masculinity? I like the experimental design you laid out!

Interesting point! For such research, how would you propose operationalizing masculinity and extremism?

My two main takeaways from this piece will echo what has already been said. Nevertheless, I was impressed that this document made a point of discussing the links between mental health and terrorism. It's always easy to assume absolute malevolence on the part of a criminal, however human beings are too complicated for such a quick, clear-cut standard of judgement. I was also impressed to see a clear definition of Jihadist terrorism. Over the past 5 years or so, I feel as though there's been a serious upswing in the use of the term terrorism as applied to many different acts of violence. I worry that applying the term terrorist to perpetrators of shootings, for example, will discredit the severity of the cause motivated nature of terrorist acts, awful as general shootings may be.

I had never considered the idea of something akin to a Financial Intelligence Unit before, and I'm curious to see how administrative power over such a body would be dispersed. I think investigators having access to bank accounts at different levels would be useful for ensuring accountability from organizations, but may cause problems at the civilian level down the line. Again, I'm not too familiar with the attitude towards such ideas in Europe, but I can't imagine the access these FIUs may push for being overtly well received.

The facial identification section of the document, page 4, stood out to me above the rest. I imagine that there will be some serious opposition to the use of technology such as facial recognition in the E.U. In the U.S. this is an idea that would certainly elicit some rather extreme responses if it were proposed to the public, and many of the questions would carry over to this situation in Europe, I imagine. "Who sees us?" "Whose hands does the information pass through?" "How will privacy be protected?" "Do you have the right?" In China, for example, facial recognition software has been in use for some time, particularly as part of enforcing China's social credit system - a form of blacklist dedicated to surveying and tracking the "social credit" (read: social desirability) of individuals and businesses. Certainly, the ought to be some public scrutiny as to how technology of such a nature will be applied and used, whether it be in Europe, North America, etc.

Again we are confronted with the issue of individual rights and where they stand in relation to the lines followed in order to protect civilians. I was a bit surprised, though impressed, with how detailed some of the behavioral indicators provided in the document were. I feel, so long as we keep the application of these signs fair, this is a decently comprehensive piece. Though, as Daivd already mentioned with the WeChat example, the nature in which these criteria are applied and how we respond to that application is beyond critical.

Do you think the ethnic tension in Western China will sooner or later give rise to a more extreme Han supremacist sentiment, or will the state continue to handle that?

Today's readings left me feeling like I had to take a sit and focus on relaxing most of the muscles in my back for 15 minutes or so. Many times when my family has asked me what I'll do with a degree in political science, I joke with them and say that I'm dedicating myself to questions I know I can't answer until I die. But, when it comes to the question of white supremacy groups in the U.S., this isn't a joke. I genuinely don't believe I'll ever have an adequate answer for what is to be done about white supremacy, other than hoping it fades with time, which pains me to imagine, as it seems like a criminally lazy way of approaching the question, in my eyes. The FBI document made mention of the paradox that the freedom of association we enjoy in the U.S. presents. I'm ambivalent towards continuing to ponder that aspect of the question at hand, as I'm struggling to find out how practically it can be applied or restricted in both the public and private sector. I liked that the FBI document made mention of the fact that the lack of corroborated accounts of infiltration could go either way, either effective cover up, or lack of infiltration. It's been a while since I read a political piece that I felt had as fair and comprehensive of a perspective as this one.

Given how much we've discussed counter-terrorist tactics over the past few discussions, I was surprised to only find rehabilitation mentioned once here - unless I missed something. Being as the issue of prisons, particularly private prisons, has been so publicized in the past two elections, I'm curious if there will be any major changes to the U.S. prison system, and how they may tie into counter-terrorist strategy. I agree that rehabilitation is necessary for an effective long-term strategy of counter-terrorism, though I'm not sure if this strategy is meant to be explicitly long-standing. I didn't like the vague nature of the summary presented for the sharing of information as the conclusion section drew closer. Despite the detail presented in previous sections, I would expect a more comprehensive summary, though there may be security concerns in relation to the details provided in such a document?

I see your point, especially dealing with Israel and Palestine, it's a rock and a hard place. I wonder how we may deal with the problem overseas without brewing resentment and building ourselves a reputation as an occupational force. I'm not sure anybody wins with military action. However, international affairs isn't a zero-sum game, so I may have to eat my hat here.

In the context of my specialty, I'm looking forward to reading further into this document, in hopes that a few points made in today's section will be elaborated on further. The document makes a few points toward the end of today's section regarding identity information and data collection, while mentioning maintaining a respect for individual rights a few paragraphs later. I'll start to sound like a broken record if I continue to bring up Xinjiang and China's loosely applied definition of terrorism, however I think this brings up an interesting comparison between China and the U.S. While the U.S. doesn't have China's track record of using terrorist labels as an excuse for to carry out unlawful and inhumane detention and imprisonment, at the Party level, China's objectives are much more static. As a one-party state, the Party agenda in China in terms of terrorism has remained mostly unchanged, while the objectives of the "ruling" party in the U.S. change to some degree with every midterm, and every four to eight years in the most extreme circumstance. This presents an interesting balancing game, in my opinion. As a state that has concerns in both counter-terrorism AND individual liberty, as well as a government composed of more moving parts than that of a one-China state, how can the U.S. most effectively ensure that individual citizens remain protected from the misuse of tools committed to counter-terrorism? For example, from the Obama administration to the Trump administration, the attitude and discourse surround protesters, whether they be politically charged, socially charged, etc, changed radically. President Trump took a much more open and outspoken stance on protests than his predecessor. I hope that as this document progresses it will address how the American system of checks and balances will ensure that the individual can be protected from the misuse of counter-terrorist tools by an extremely dynamic and fluid state.

@Brea Purdie @Reid Parker Certainly, terrorism is just a convenient term in many cases so far as China is concerned. And with a lack of freedom of the press there's less pressure for the state to apply an equitable definition to the term.

I liked that the document wasted no time making an example of ISIS' online/media presence as a tool for radicalization and recruitment. This avenue for recruitment strikes me as something of a given within the United States. However, in states like China where information is not as freely and readily available to the average person, there is less room for the state to fall back on curtailing such methods. That is to say, in a state where the flow of information is already standardized and restricted, information used by extremist groups is already moving underground, whereas in a more open society that information may first show itself on the surface web, for example, rather than being moved to a darknet. It'll be interesting to consider how states that govern differently may approach this problem differently.