Fresh Violence in Xinjiang: Testing Times for China

With the Olympics in full swing at Beijing, news of fresh episodes of violence in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang on August 10, 2008 threatened to upset the image that China has striven to create of itself in front of the world. The incident reported the death of a security guard and at least 10 suspects after a series of bombings that began with a predawn attack on a police station.

The violence erupted in Kuqa, a city comprising a population of 400,000 in the southern part of Xinjiang. The attacks appear well orchestrated as they coincided with the first weekend of the Beijing Olympics, and more significantly, occurred less than a week after what the Chinese authorities had described ‘China’s worst terrorist assault in recent memory’ in the city of Kashgar. Furthermore, on August 4, 2008, two Uighur Muslims rammed a truck into a group of paramilitary officers and subsequently attacked with explosives and knives, killing sixteen officers and wounding others, according to the local authorities.

The Xinhua News Agency describes the suspects in the latest assault as “terrorists”, although the authorities have not attributed the attack to any particular terrorist organization. In recent weeks, the Chinese authorities have accused the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) of plotting terrorist attacks against China. However much the Chinese government may disagree, but the political crisis is gradually spreading from Tibet to other parts of China, with the sensitive Xinjiang province especially experiencing political and social turbulence.

The debate over signs of ethnic unrest in Xinjiang began to re-emerge in the past weeks with incidents of sporadic protests by Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and of police crackdowns in numerous locales of the province. China has accused Muslims in the nation’s northwest of making efforts to initiate a rebellion in the Xinjiang province. These incidents come at a time when a beleaguered Chinese government has been occupied in curbing and restricting the Tibetan agitation.

Much like the Tibetans, the Uighurs constitute a predominant ethnic group in Xinjiang — a region that has struggled for cultural survival in the face of a government-supported influx of Chinese migrants, as well as harsh repression of political dissent. Moreover, they aspire for political independence and resent Chinese control. The ethnic Uighur minority is a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim community in the sensitive and remote province of Xinjiang abutting the Central Asian republics.

Religious freedom has been a constant source of tension in Xinjiang. The Chinese government has been accused of banning students and party members from practicing Islam, and firmly controlling the Muslim clergy. Throughout the 1990s, Beijing was apprehensive of the emergence of unrest and terrorism in its largely Uighur Muslim-inhabited region of Xinjiang, since the Uighurs share more cultural affinity with Central Asia than with rest of China. The Uighurs, who look and sound more like Turks than Han Chinese advocate and support the creation of an independent state for Xinjiang’s Muslims, much to China’s antagonism.

Significantly, numerous human rights groups have accused Beijing of overstating the threat in order to validate its crackdown against the Uighur community. It would be crucial to mention here that Xinjiang remains the only province in China where execution of political prisoners is common. Human rights advocates have also stressed that since September 11, 2001 the Chinese government had expanded its suppressive policy toward the Uighurs under the more ‘acceptable’ pretext of the global war against terrorism.

While in Beijing to witness the Olympics, US President George W. Bush constantly raised the sensitive issue of China’s human rights record and expressed ‘deep concern’ about freedom and human rights in China. These statements send out signals that Washington and the international community urge Beijing to respect the rights of Uighurs. Moreover, the United States earlier had cautioned Chinese officials that the anti-terror campaign should not be used to suppress legitimate political dissent among China’s Muslim populations.

Notably, Xinjiang is critical to the economic ambitions of the PRC, since the province makes up more than one-sixth of China’s landmass. It also has rich, untapped deposits of oil, natural gas and minerals. In addition, China also perceives Xinjiang as its gateway to the huge oil and gas reserves of Central Asia with Chinese companies already seeking foreign partners to construct pipelines from fields in Kazakhstan and Russia.

Beijing expectedly would tread extremely cautiously on this issue as the world observes the developments minutely. Stepping up its crackdown against the Uighurs at this juncture might be a blemish on its Olympic moment. On the other hand, of course, the timing is ideal for the ethnic groups to draw global attention to long-standing political and social issues prevailing in several parts of China and Beijing appears standing on an edge as the Games progress. However, whether the Chinese iron fist would emerge at the end of the Olympics remains to be seen.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies)