FEATURE: China's Uighur tensions

A large-scale protest in China's north-west region of Xinjiang, near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, turned to violence between Chinese authorities and the region's Uighur population.

Many believe the Uighurs, who are not ethnic Chinese and are Muslims, are oppressed by Beijing, and that the Chinese ignore their needs.

Those tensions have now manifested in a street battle in the region's capital, which has killed more than 150 people and left 800 more injured.

David Wang

Last Updated: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:11:00 +1000

The origin of the recent violence in China's north-west goes back to a separate incident in a toy factory in the southern province of Guangdong last month.

An ethnic fight between local Han Chinese and Muslim Uighur workers at that toy factory was ignited as the locals accused Uighurs of sexually assaulting Han Chinese female co-workers. More than one hundred people were reportedly injured during the fight. Chinese state media reported at the time that two Uighurs were killed during the brawl.

But in the northwest region of Xinjiang autonomous region, home to China's largest Uighur population, people believe the real death toll was suppressed. The Uighurs, a Turkic ethic group dispersed across Central Asia, has long claimed themselves to be suppressed by Chinese rule.

A video of the toy factory incident posted on an internet video-sharing site appeared to show Han Chinese beating Uighurs with sticks and posts, prompting thousands of Uighurs to gather in the provincial capital, Urumqi.

They wanted the government to start a full and proper investigation into that incident, but when security forces started to disperse the crowd, what was a peaceful protest turned violent.

Alim Seytoff is the Vice chairman of Uighur American Association based in Washington. The organization is closely monitoring developments and has previously condemned attacks on Uighurs in Guangdong.
Mr Seytoff says he has received information from witnesses inside Xinjiang confirming that Chinese security officials had used 'excessive force'.

"All the eyewitness Uighurs are all saying they peacefully took to the streets, to protest to make a legitimate demand," he said.

"But the thing is then the Chinese security forces came, began to beat them with clubs, batons and things like that, surrounded them and then...the clash took place as some of them had to defend themselves. Then the Chinese forces used firearms."

However, the Chinese state media has already labelled the protest as a riot.

Xinhua news agency reported that the crowd attacked pedestrians, lit cars on fire and seriously disturbed stability in the area.

According to China's English language newspaper, China Daily, a number of civilians and police officers were killed.

But Mr Seytoff says that can't be independently confirmed. He says the sheer number of people who went to the protest is a manifestation of how Uighurs living China's Xinjiang province are dissatisfied with enduring racial discrimination.

"The Chinese Government has systematically violated the rights of the Uighur people," he said.

"And in addition to that, the Chinese government does not allow the Uighurs to use Uighur language in their education system, the Chinese Government does not allow the Uighur people to have more children that they wanted, so the Uighur people are not happy under such policies.

"But the Uighur people who hope to express their views in any way are deemed either separatists, terrorists or religious extremists."

His view is partly shared by Dr Michael Clarke, an Australian expert on Xinjiang region at Australia's Griffith University. Dr Clarke says tensions between Han Chinese and ethnic Muslim Uighurs have been an issue for the Chinese government for decades.

"It's not unusual in terms of the history of the region, for there to be widespread opposition to continuing Chinese rule in Xinjiang," he said.

"If you look at the history of the region over the last 20 years, it's been punctuated by waves of unrest at various levels - whether it's peaceful protests or whether it's violent incidents."

As in Tibet, Dr Clark says the problems in Xinjiang started when the dominating Han Chinese flooded into the region.

"What really, since the mid-1980s, has been the issue of an influx of Han Chinese into Xinjiang," he said.

"Basically, you see a lot of Uighur diaspora organisations, and Uighur exiles will claim that the Chinese are trying to dilute the Uighur proportion of the population in Xinjiang by encouraging Han peasants and so forth to move to the region.

"The long-term goal of the Chinese government in Xinjiang is to integrate Xinjiang into the rest of China. It's to make it, in a sense, just another province of the People's Republic, rather than some sort of special case."

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