What ignited China's ethnic powder keg?

What ignited China's ethnic powder keg?



What ignited China's ethnic powder keg?
Police in China admit killing Uighurs
Picking up the pieces
Survivor baffled by sudden violence
Prominent Uighur economist missing
Stories of brutality from protests
Fresh ethnic unrest rocks China
Protest photos
Police in China admit killing Uighurs
Police fatally shot two Uighur men and wounded a third yesterday in western China, where violence continues to flare despite massive numbers of troops sent to restore calm more than a week after deadly ethnic rioting.
Xinjiang region rife with political strife
Jul 14, 2009 04:30 AM

THE ECONOMIST

It began as a protest about a brawl at the other end of the country; it became China's bloodiest incident of civil unrest since the massacre that ended the Tiananmen Square protests 20 years ago.

The ethnic Uighurs in the far western city of Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang province, accused Han Chinese factory workers in the southern province of Guangdong of racial violence against Uighur co-workers. By the time Urumqi's Uighurs had finished venting their anger, at least 184 people were dead and hundreds injured.

Much is still unknown about what happened on the afternoon of July 5. A protest by several hundred people in the city's central plaza, People's Square, moved southward into Uighur areas, including the Grand Bazaar, a large shopping centre. Somehow – perhaps, overseas Uighur activists say, because the police opened fire – it became an explosion of anger, in which random Chinese were clubbed and stoned to death.

Xinjiang is no stranger to unrest among its more than 8 million Uighurs. Many resent rule by China, which they accuse of trampling on their Muslim Central Asian culture. Chinese officials were quick to accuse an overseas group, the World Uyghur Congress, of having "masterminded" the unrest in Urumqi, but have yet to offer proof. They have particularly attacked the WUC's leader, Rebiya Kadeer, a former member of Xinjiang's political elite. Kadeer was one of the region's wealthiest entrepreneurs until she fell afoul of the authorities because of her sympathies with Uighur nationalism and spent six years in prison on state security charges. She now lives near Washington, D.C.

Many Uighurs dismissed the government's account that the July 5 riot was part of a separatist plot. But few – such was the terror of police or Han recrimination – were willing to say much.

One Uighur owner of a clothes shop, who claimed to have witnessed the riot from the beginning, said it started as a demonstration calling on Xinjiang's governor to talk about what had happened in Guangdong. In the fracas there on June 25, Han Chinese workers accused Uighurs of rape. At least two Uighurs were killed in the fight.

After about 90 minutes, the police told Urumqi's protesters to leave, said the man from the clothes shop. The police then began shoving and pulling demonstrators who refused to go. When some Uighurs responded by smashing windows, the police used greater force, beating people and firing their weapons. Violence by Uighurs then began to flare across the city.



Repression had been stepped up in Xinjiang long before the rioting. The escalation dates back to the launch of America's anti-terror campaign in 2001.

China then began linking long-simmering separatist tensions in Xinjiang with the same forces of extremism the United States faced. It said one Uighur group, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, was part of Al Qaeda.

The U.S. backed this assertion, but rights groups said there was little evidence of Al Qaeda's involvement in Xinjiang. China played up the link, they said, to justify harsher measures against Uighur nationalists.

Twenty-two Uighurs were indeed caught by the Americans in Afghanistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay. Four were freed in June and resettled in Bermuda. The Uighurs insist they were not involved in any anti-American operations in Afghanistan.

But their capture helped to bolster China's argument it too faced an organized terror threat.

The authorities have tightened controls on mosques in Xinjiang and rules that ban children from receiving religious education. Students and civil servants were warned not to observe Ramadan.

In the rioting in Urumqi, racial discrimination is likely to have been a bigger source of grievance than religious repression. Uighurs have faced more such discrimination in the past year as a result of security measures in the buildup to the Olympic Games in Beijing in August. Police harassed Uighurs then because of their perceived potential links with terrorism.

Security is again being tightened across China as the authorities prepare to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country's founding on Oct. 1. This will involve a huge military parade through Beijing, which the authorities fear could become a target for discontented minorities.

Economic factors come into play, too. Many Uighurs resent what they see as the business advantages enjoyed by Han Chinese immigrants, whose clan, commercial and political networks extend across China.

The recent economic crisis may have exacerbated problems faced by Uighur migrant workers in other parts of China. Millions of people have lost jobs as a result of China's recent export slump.

Many Uighurs feel that their culture is being threatened by a massive influx of Han migrants in recent years. China has stepped up investment in the western region to give the area a greater share of the prosperity that the east has enjoyed.

The government denies it is trying to change the ethnic mix of Xinjiang, but Uighurs complain that Hans have enjoyed the lion's share of dividends from the investment drive.

China can count on strong moral support from its Central Asian neighbours, with which it is co-operating closely to try to combat cross-border militancy. In the old alleyways of Kashgar, now being rapidly torn down as part of an urban-renewal program that is fuelling yet more resentment among local Uighurs, official painted slogans condemn Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group calling for a universal caliphate. The group has started to gain recruits in Xinjiang.



The U.S. feels these closer ties with Central Asian countries are being forged at its expense. But it appreciates China's quiet support for the anti-terror campaign, including intelligence-sharing. The U.S. has no interest in supporting Uighur nationalism and exacerbating instability in an already volatile region.



The article failed to mention that the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) openly waged terrorist attacks in China long before 9/11. The Uighur terrorists caught in AL Quaeda training camp in Afghanistan was part of Al Quaeda organization, except that maybe their terrorist targets are not Americans, but Chinese. How ironic the Americans found 4 of them are not American's enemies, but Chinese's, and set them free? Terrorism is everyone's enemy. Indeed Chinese policies toward minorities need to improve, say, not just pouring money in the area, but doing more work in racial equality and co-existence. Here Canada has a lot of experiences to offer.