BEIJING - The world urgently needs to establish joint standards to fight terror, experts have said.

"While there has been progress in international anti-terror cooperation, some basic problems still exist," said Li Wei, director of the anti-terrorism research center under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Double-standards are a major problem, Li said, highlighting that Western countries ignore terror organizations that are targeting other countries."Because of this it's difficult to forge global joint forces."

The Xinhua News Agency noted the phenomenon in a commentary on Friday that "some extremist groups listed as terror organizations (in some countries) can operate legally in other corners of the planet". Global counter-terrorism action should have a joint standard, it said.

Some countries were blocking anti-terror moves because of political reasons, Li said.

The United Nations should play a major role in helping to establish genuine and coordinated anti-terror efforts and the consequences of 9/11 will last for the foreseeable future, the professor said.

Yang Shu, chief of the Institute of Central Asia studies at Lanzhou University, said people can now see "the trail of 9/11 in terror attacks against China".

His university is based in Gansu province, which borders the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in Northwest China, the scene of a number of terrorist attacks in recent years.

China is now one of the countries suffering the most terror attacks, Yang said. "Terrorism here is aimed at separating the country. Counter-terrorism has become one of the major political tasks for Beijing."

However, expanded counter-terrorism efforts benefited China, helping it ensure security both at home and along its border, he said.

Major General Qiao Liang, a professor at the Air Force Command Institute, said that Washington's decision to list the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which is active in Xinjiang, as a terrorist group helped China's struggle against extremists.

In July 2009, the group led riots in Xinjiang which left at least 197 people dead and more than 1,700 injured.

Events marking 9/11 will help remind China that the campaign against terror can be conducted on many fronts, Qiao said.

Ouyang Yuanhua contributed to this story.