Suicide attack
Suicide attacks include both Suicide terrorism—terrorism often defined as any action "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants" for the purpose of intimidation—and suicide attacks not targeting non-combatants. An alternative definition is provided by Jason Burke, a journalist who has lived among Islamic militants, and suggests that most define terrorism as 'the use or threat of serious violence' to advance some kind of 'cause', stressing that terrorism is a tactic. Academic Fred Halliday, has written that assigning the descriptor of 'terrorist' or 'terrorism' to the actions of a group is a tactic used by states to deny 'legitimacy' and 'rights to protest and rebel'.
Terrorism in China
The concept of terrorism, as it evolved and is understood in the West, did not exist in imperial China. In that setting, political criminality took the form of violence against the emperor, and was viewed as harmful as it induced fear and led to "chaos." With the exception of "good" political violence against rulers whose lack of propriety and virtue resulted in loss of the mandate of heaven, violence was seen as contrary to human nature and the Tao. Kam Wong argues that the dynamics of imperial China form the basis for contemporary Chinese understandings of terrorism.