Been listening to the latest blowback, and was a bit astonished to hear that China was a significant player in hosting training camps for the earlier generations of jihadis, but they don't go into a lot of detail on china's motivations or anything. This would have been in the period after mao's death, iirc they said 1979
what's up with that? was the sino soviet split that severe that they sought to undermine and destroy the USSR?
the support is probably limited to setting up training camps for the CIA and co. to do the training. There were listening outposts for intelligence purpose in xinjiang. Most of of the support is just flooding the place with guns because money.
This is just the sino-soviet split consequences. The passive support that China received in North Korea, the wage that needs to pay for the soviet industry cooperation, the hungarian uprising that regardless of the modern day opinions on the subject really make China asked questions about if the members in the Comintern are really equals. The straw that breaks the camels back was really the fact that USSR wanted to set up a port in Lushun port (port arthur) so they can park their Navy to which Mao replied with: "sure do you want me to go back in the mountains while at it? (referring to the red base set up during ww2 against the Japanese).
When the split happened, China didn't really have proximate allies around and no money since their industry collapsed. Most socialistic or anti-imperialist states (ie. India, Indochina, Afghanistan, etc.) are partners with the USSR. The USA just took the opportunity to get in and start patching up relation with the Nixon visits. Both states saw opportunity to collaborate because economic reason but mostly China wants to dislodge USSR influences around it and USA want the USSR dead.
Do this explains why there are supports for the Afghanistan mujahideen, pol pot (even tho there were rumors that there were genocide against the chineses locals by the khmer rouge), vietnam, etc.