Use the law, not a war, to tackle terror

The bomb explosions that rocked the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded some 180 others, and were reportedly the worst attack on US soil since the September 11 strikes. US authorities now consider the violence an act of terrorism, and identified brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the sons of Chechen refugees, as the bombers.

Americans were not the only casualties of the Boston attack. Two Chinese students at Boston University who were there to watch the race also fell victim to the violence. While Zhou Danling was wounded, her friend Lu Lingzi was one of the three killed .

The attack also shocked China. In a phone call with President Barack Obama, President Xi Jinping expressed his condolences to the US government and people. Media reports on the Chinese victims triggered an outpouring of sympathy from Chinese citizens. The dead girl's account on Weibo, the most popular Chinese microblogging service, was filled with mournful messages. In combating terrorism, China shares common interests with the US.

As a consequence of the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism became the first priority of US national policy. The George W. Bush administration launched a global "war on terror" against al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations. The campaign resulted in a war in Afghanistan, another one in Iraq, and other military operations.

This "war on terror" not only served to mobilise resources to combat terrorism, it also became the justification for a vast overreaching of executive power, independent of judicial supervision. Horrifying images of prisoners being tortured by US soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq greatly damaged the accountability of the American government. The military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where prisoners have been held indefinitely without formal charges and without access to lawyers, is another symbol of the American disrespect for human rights.

The administration of Barack Obama stopped using the contentious term "war on terror" but never gave up the idea of war. Suffice to say, the practice of targeted killing by drone strikes, begun in the Bush administration, has been substantially increased under Obama's presidency. Many innocent civilians have been killed in the strikes.

For China, the US is the most important country for co-operation in its fight against terrorism. At the very beginning of the "war on terror", Chinese authorities demonstrated strong support with the US. But when it came to the invasion of Iraq, the Chinese government sided with many other countries in thwarting American efforts to obtain UN authorisation.