Urumqi, the capital of China’s western province of Xinjiang has again descended into violence leaving at least five people dead. Coming on top of July’s riots in which around 200 were slain, the new unrest has proved sufficiently disturbing for Beijing’s security minister to visit the city.
The latest trouble, however, has a puzzling genesis. According to the authorities, 433 Han Chinese have been examined in hospitals following stabbings with hypodermic syringes in attacks allegedly carried out by the ethnic Uighurs who have long inhabited the province.
The Han have been rioting wanting, as in July, to attack Uighur neighborhoods in the capital, which now boasts a Han majority following decades of immigration from the rest of China. Police and troops have struggled to protect Uighur districts. Individual Uighurs have been chased and beaten by Han, who were the principal victims of the previous disturbances.
The protests and attacks began following a text message issued by the local government, warning that the syringe attacks were taking place. On the face of it, it is hard to think of a more inflammatory action by the authorities. There has been no independent verification of the injuries suffered by the large number of Han who have gone to hospitals in the city. Moreover, the syringe attack story is remarkably similar to a series of recent scares elsewhere in China, where people were supposed to have been jabbed with AIDS-infected needles. In every case, the reports were discovered to be groundless.
The suspicion has to be that someone is seeking to stir up further trouble between the ethnic Uighurs and the local Han community. It seems unlikely that Beijing would be behind such an exercise, since its official policy is to do everything possible to integrate China’s many ethnic minorities by offering them opportunities for economic improvement. Throughout the country, smart kids from minorities are taken away to be given free education in Chinese boarding schools. It seems far more likely that if this is indeed a conspiracy to provoke the Uighurs, the perpetrators are local Han Chinese, perhaps businessmen in league with members of the provincial government. The aim would be clear. By branding the entire Uighur community as “splittist”, it can be isolated and put upon, for its land and its labor, in a way that Beijing would not normally approve of under its integration policies for minorities.
A small number of Uighurs, who are most certainly dedicated to the concept of independence is, therefore, perhaps being used as an excuse for a clampdown on the whole Uighur community. If this is indeed the case then Beijing needs to take action, for its own sake as well as for the Uighurs. Oppression of Xinjiang’s historic inhabitants is more than likely to kindle sympathy, if not active support for the Uighur independence movement. The Chinese government could find itself faced with a widespread rebellion similar to that in Tibet. It is in no one’s interest for this to happen. Beijing should investigate exactly what has been going on in Xinjiang.
