At a time when separatists are increasingly looking to a more powerful China as a target in the region, the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has delivered an implicit message to Beijing by claiming to have recruited ethnic minorities for recent assaults in neighboring Afghanistan. Since the United States withdrew from a two-decade war effort in Afghanistan in late August, ISIS’ Khorasan province, also known as ISIS-K or ISKP (Islamic State – Khorasan Province), has claimed a series of strikes across the country. Two high-profile operations this month in the towns of Kunduz and Kandahar involved suicide attacks against Shiite…