Terrorism was a common scourge to the international community and China would continue to step up its cooperation with other countries to fight it, China's top police officer said on Wednesday.

Meng Jianzhu, State Councilor and Minister of Public Security, made the remarks at the second international meeting of high-ranking representatives in charge of security affairs.

Meng said extremism ideological trends, especially ultranationalism and religious extremism, remained the sources of terrorism.

He said China had been plagued by terrorist activities for years, most of them originating from the "East Turkistan" forces and other international terror groups outside the country.

The "East Turkistan" forces, as represented by the "Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement", posed big threats to central and southern Asia and caused huge losses to China and other countries and their people's lives and properties, Meng said.

China always had been opposed to all forms of terrorism, double standards on counter-terrorism based on political purposes and binding terrorism to certain religions and nationalities, he said.

The official said counter-terrorism operations should be in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international laws, adding that the international community should also build a just and rational new international order and push for a fair and just society.

Meng introduced China's efforts on counter-terrorism and its cooperation with other countries, saying the country had acceded to 12 international conventions on counter-terrorism and had taken an active part in global counter-terrorism.

He raised four proposals on the development of global security cooperation: to strengthen the common security concept and exchange of information; to share experience on counter-terrorism and step up personnel training cooperation; to promote international security cooperation on big events; and to boost dialogue and consultation on the issue and build up a global information security cooperation system.

Counter-terrorism was a long and demanding task before the international community, Meng said, adding that countries should further promote their cooperation on the issue to eliminate completely the root causes of terrorism.

Representative from more than 50 countries attended the meeting and exchanged views on jointly countering all forms of extremism and cooperation on crises caused by ethic hatred, religious conflicts and racism.

(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2011)