Especially considering the large amount of people they're holding hostage because of there religion.
I think this is fear mongering. If you can safely travel to NK and come back, you can safely travel to China and come back. It's like saying it's unsafe to travel to the US because you have a greater chance of getting shot.
This.
Just go to Korea.
Terrorism in Russia?
By who exactly? Cuz I don't really see anyone from ISIS being alive for a long period of time after attempting anything in Russia...
AFAIK most terrorism in Russia is domestic, committed by nationalists in muslim-majority ethnic groups and lone wolf attackers.
I've been to China twice. Once in 2015 and then in 2016. If my visa application is approved in time, I'll be going there again at the end of this month.
From what I've experienced - as long as you don't go snooping around places you shouldn't be in, handing out flyers about the government's crimes against humanity, etc, you'll be fine.
The people are generally friendly and curious about foreigners, you'll see quite a few disgusting people along the way, but the majority seems to be pretty okay, like here's an example;
In 2015, I was in Guangzhou with my brothers and my Chinese friend as our guide. We went sightseeing and got quite far from our hotel. We went to a bus stop and were checking the bus schedule without noticing a huge line of people amassing just behind us.
The bus finally arrived and we thought "What the hell, there's at least 40 people here, we can't all get on the bus, but it's our only way to get back... back to the line we go..." and the people that were meant to get on the bus first actually told us to get on first. And that was really nice of them to do.
I mean, on a completely different day, there was sick dude in dirty clothes on the bus with us and he just blew his nose all over the bus' floor.
2016 was more or less the same, met a bunch of crazy folks, but the majority of people I met were fine. There was a taxi driver driving me and my cousins back to the airport and he accidentally dropped his phone just before getting into the car and he was piecing it back together on the way there... while driving. Fuck safety regulations, I guess, lol.
So like I said, as long as you're not an activist, military personnel, government employee or a drunkard / drug addict and travel there as a tourist - you'll be absolutely fine, though there's always the danger of being scammed or robbed. Although, I guess that's pretty much everywhere, my Chinese friends got robbed in Lisbon and a bunch of people I know got robbed in Prague.
But if you actually do decide to travel to China, don't be an idiot like my brother. Don't get absolutely wasted and yell "FREEDOM!" in the hotel. He didn't get in trouble, but that was just asking for it.
(I feel like I need to clarify this; I do not support the Chinese government and any of the things they do. My girlfriend is Chinese, living and working in China, and she hates it as much as I do and while she is aware of the government being shitty, most western websites are blocked there so she gets skewed news about pretty much anything the government does. And since we still haven't broken up yet, I am sort of required to go and visit here there once in a while ...)
Chechnya is Russia's problem child, they've tried everything from bombing the shit out of it to letting them just do whatever the fuck they want except succeed. It's Muslim majority and populated by the Chechen ethnic group rather than Russian Slavic people that majorly populate the nearby regions. Due to their differences, many people there strongly want independence, and this has lead to sporatic wars and terrorism over the last century.
It's not entirely uncalled for, Chechnya first declared independence during the Russian Revolution and fought against all sides, but was defeated once the Reds took control of the government. It tried again during World War 2 and was put down, but for this distraction they were accused of aiding the Nazis for which the Chechens were punished by forced relocation out of Chechnya. They were eventually allowed to return after Stalin's death, and with the fall of the Soviet Union they made another bid for independence and were crushed by the Russian Army, then a few years later they made a second attempt and again were crushed by the Russian Army. That war ended in 2009 and the insurgency is still ongoing.
most terrorism in the US is from domestic far right extremists, but you won't hear us admit it
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