Beijing crushes Uighur dissent

By Richard McGregor and Kathrin Hille in Beijing

Published: July 7 2009 03:00 Last updated: July 7 2009 03:00

Only hours after the weekend's bloody clashes in Urumqi and well before the authorities had announced the horrendous death toll, Beijing had named the perpetrators of the unrest in the capital of its northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, blamed the "pre-meditated and organised violence" on exiled leaders of the Uighurs, the region's predominant Muslim people.

Xinhua, quoting an anonymous official, singled out as the mastermind Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman jailed for alleged separatist activities in 1999 and exiled to the US six years later.

Branding the violence as foreign-instigated, with the aim of splitting off the region from China to form an independent state, has sinister echoes of Beijing's handling of the Tibetan riots last year.

"If it follows the Tibet pattern, at this stage the Chinese media will only release figures of those allegedly killed by protesters," said Robert Barnett, a lecturer on Tibet at Columbia University in New York. "We're seeing again the same news management method, which is to try and pre-empt foreign press reports by rapidly releasing news that is damaging to government critics, especially any images of violence by protesters and any evidence of foreign links."

Beijing yesterday took down the internet in Urumqi and restricted outgoing mobile phone calls to limit information flowing out of the region.

Xinjiang, like Tibet, has a population ethnically distinct from the country's Han Chinese majority. In both regions, indigenous residents rail against strict controls over religious expression and growing Han Chinese dominance of the economy.

The charge from Beijing that the violence was caused by outsiders seeking independence has the short-term effect of killing any discussion within China about possible grievances.

"Everything is framed through the sovereignty issue," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. "No expression of dissent is legitimate. It is all seen as part of a plot."

The protesters marching in Urumqi on Sunday were demonstrating against the deaths of two Uighurs in clashes with Han Chinese at a factory in Guangdong province near Hong Kong late last month.

But the Uighurs have long been hostile to the ruling Communist party, which they say restricts families worshipping together at mosques, stifles their culture and ensures most of the benefits of economic development go to Han Chinese.

Xinjiang is a strategically and economically important region for China, rich in resources, with productive farmland. It is also the transit point for a growing number of gas and oil pipelines from central Asia.

Xinjiang saw an inflow of 1.2m workers last year alone, according to state media, mainly to its booming oil and resources industry. The region's population of 20m includes some 8.3m Uighurs.

The redevelopment of old towns and the influx of richer Han Chinese radically changed local economic structures, costing many Uighurs their traditional jobs.

This has happened while Xinjiang's economy has been growing at more than 11 per cent a year for the past six years, above the national average. The wealth created by this rapid growth has been concentrated in the pockets of new immigrants, increasing the gap between rich and poor, Han and Uighur, some locals complain.

Adi, a Uighur working in the tourism industry in Kashgar, China's last outpost in Xinjiang before the border with Pakistan, has seen three siblings leave for eastern China for work over the past five years.

"The family used to depend on my father's small trading business, but he had to close it down because there are increasingly larger, newer shops now," Adi, who asked that his full name not be used, said yesterday.

Behind the scenes, the Chinese authorities will be deeply concerned at how the street marches in Urumqi degenerated into murderous clashes.

China has large security forces stationed in Urumqi and around Xinjiang, including units of the People's Liberation Army and the paramilitary People's Armed Police, ordinary police and anti-riot units.

Barry Sautman, an associate professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, cautioned against seeing the riots solely as a reaction against China's ethnic policies.

"In China, there are lots of protests every day, some of them on a large scale, although they don't generally take the form of beating people to death in the streets," he said.

Yesterday, the World Uyghur (sic) Congress, of which Ms Kadeer is president, condemned the crackdown on protesters and poured scorn on claims that the dissent was instigated from outside the country.

"The Chinese authorities should acknowledge that the peaceful protests were sparked by the unlawful mob beating and killing of Uighur workers at a Guangdong toy factory more than a week ago," the group said.

Long battle for recognition

840AD Ousted from Mongolia by the Kyrgyz, the Uighurs move to what later became known as Xinjiang, where they found an empire that lasts until the 13th century. 1759 Manchu armies sent by Emperor Qian Long attack the region, finally establishing control in 1877. 1944-49 The Uighurs enjoy a short period of independence, forming the Republic of East Turkestan. Movement suppressed following the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. 1950s and 1960s The Uighurs are targeted for their ethnicity and religion during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. 1997 Uighurs in the cities of Ghulja, Yining and Urumqi riot following a security crackdown. 2007 Chinese security forces raid what they say is a terrorist training camp, with 18 killed, according to state media. 2008 Xinjiang is hit by attacks before and during the Olympics in Beijing. In mid-August, armed police are killed in a bomb and knife attack in the city of Kashgar. Six days later, suspected Muslim separatists and suicide bombers launch a dozen attacks in Kuqa, killing 11.

Ethnic tensions erupt on ancient trading route

Where is Xinjiang? Xinjiang is a region in north-west China bordering Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Silk Road, the ancient trading route between China and Europe, ran through the region. Xinjiang is also home to the bulk of China's natural resources. According to China's 2000 census, the Uighurs are still Xinjiang's largest ethnic group, accounting for 45 per cent of Xinjiang's population of 20m. Han Chinese account for 37 per cent. Xinjiang accounts for about a sixth of China's territory. Does Xinjiang enjoy autonomy? The Chinese government calls Xinjiang a "Uighur Autonomous Region", but like in other such regions such as Tibet or Inner Mongolia, policies are steered from Beijing, even more so than in Chinese provinces where the Han Chinese dominate.

Nur Bekri, the current chairman of the Xinjiang government, is of Uighur ethnicity. But in China's party state, the regional party secretary tends to hold more power than the government chairman. Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's party secretary, is Han Chinese. Who are the Uighurs? The Uighurs are a Turkic people living in Central Asia on both sides of China's western border. What do the Uighurs want? There are no public opinion data on Uighur people's views on their nation. But internal documents of the Chinese Communist party mention that the Uighur people have "difficulty identifying with the Chinese nation". Outside China's borders, a large number of organisations advocate independence.

This includes the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which several governments, including China and the US, list as a terrorist group.

Beijing claims that ethnic unrest in Xinjiang is orchestrated by "separatist forces" abroad and blames Rebiya Kadeer, a political activist from Xinjiang who lives in the US following more than five years in prison in China. She heads the World Uighur Congress, a group that advocates fighting for Uighur independence by peaceful means. How much ethnic unrest has Xinjiang seen? There have been repeated clashes between the Uighur population and the authorities since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. In early 1997, Uighur people in the cities of Ghulja, Yining and Urumqi rioted following a security crackdown. According to state media reports then, nine people died in an initial wave of unrest and another nine in a bus bombing.

In early 2007 Chinese security forces raided what they said was a terrorist training camp, leaving 18 dead, according to state media. Last year 16 police officers died in what the authorities said was a separatist attack. What triggered the riots on Sunday? The Xinjiang regional government said the unrest came in the wake of a fight between Han Chinese and Uighur workers in a toy factory in the southern province of Guangdong in late June in which at least two Uighurs died.

According to Guangdong officials, the fight was sparked by a rumour that a Han Chinese girl had been raped by Uighur workers. On Sunday, several hundred Uighurs gathered in Urumqi demanding an investigation of the Guangdong incident.

But observers believe the growing wealth gap between Uighurs and Han Chinese, Uighur unemployment and the domination of local commerce by the Han are the main reasons behind the unrest.

Editorial Comment, Page 8
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

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