Making sense of the unrest from China's Xinjiang
By Martin PatienceBBC News, Beijing
The attack in Kunming is comparable to 9/11 in the US, says one Chinese newspaper
The horrific attack at Kunming railway station - in which knife-wielding attackers hacked at least 29 people to death - has shocked China. One of the country's newspapers dubbed it China's "9/11."
Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua called it a terrorist attack carried out by "Xinjiang separatist forces".
Rich in minerals and resources, Xinjiang is home to approximately nine million Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic minority. Most are Muslims. In the last year, more than a hundred people have been killed in violence in the autonomous region.
Beijing blames the attacks on violent Uighur separatists. But human rights groups say that China's repressive policies in the region are fuelling the unrest.
But what must really worry China's leaders is that the violence from Xinjiang now appears to be spreading.
In October of last year, Chinese officials said that militants from the region were involved in an apparent suicide attack in Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of power in China. The attack in Kunming appears to represent a further escalation.
"This attack is a very significant development in the trajectory of Chinese terrorism," said Rohan Gunaratna, a professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who studies terrorism in Asia, including China.
"It was a low-cost but a high-impact attack which has generated huge publicity," he added.
"Uighur extremists have shown that they can launch an attack far away from their base of operations."
The attack on Tiananmen Square was "low cost" but "high impact", an academic who specialises in terrorism says
'Cross-fertilisation'
There have long been tensions in Xinjiang. During the 1990s, there was a surge in nationalist sentiment among Uighurs after several Central Asian countries gained their independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Beijing suppressed the demonstrations during what it called a "strike hard" campaign.
Since then, China has regularly blamed outside forces for stirring up the violence, including serious ethnic riots in 2009 that left around 200 people - mainly Han Chinese - dead.
In particular, the Chinese authorities have singled out the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) for orchestrating attacks.
In a recent article, Philip Potter, an expert on terrorism at Michigan University, said that China's ongoing security crackdown in Xinjiang has forced the most militant separatists into neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He wrote that they were forging strategic alliances with jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
He concluded that this was leading to "cross fertilisation" that has the potential to "substantially increase the sophistication and lethality of terrorism in China".
But other analysts say there is little or no evidence to suggest that ETIM, or any other group for that matter, is behind the violence. They argue that China plays up the threat in order to justify its heavy-headed security policies in the region.
Security personnel constantly follow the media in the far western region of Xinjiang
'The walls have ears'
Human rights groups say that Beijing's restrictions on practising Islamic religious customs as well as Uighur culture and language are fuelling the unrest.
Foreign journalists trying to operate in Xinjiang are constantly followed by the security services, making it difficult to assess the situation on the ground.
During one visit to the region, I was told by a Uighur that "the walls have ears" and that "no-one was allowed to talk out about what was going on".
Another BBC team visited the scene of a violent attack last year, which the authorities also blamed on terrorists.
But locals told the BBC that the violence had been triggered after officials pressured some devout Muslim men to shave off their beards.
Many Uighurs also resent the influx of Han Chinese to the region. Once the majority, Uighurs are now a minority in what they consider their homeland. They believe that Beijing is trying to water down and dilute their culture and religion through mass migration.
Xinjiang, a region rich in resources, is home to approximately nine million Uighurs
Uighurs also complain that they are not sharing in the profits of the region's economic boom. Some Chinese scholars admit this is part of the problem.
"The reason why Xinjiang is troubled is because development in the region has been unbalanced," says Xiong Kunxin, a professor of China Ethnic Theory at the China Minzu University. Prof Xiong says that speeding up development in the region will help alleviate the problem.
But other analysts believe that the problem is more deep-rooted than simply economics.
"It's the general colonial attitude of Han Chinese officials to Uighurs that generates huge resentment," says Michael Dillon, an academic and author of the book, Xinjiang: China's Muslim far northwest.
In order for Beijing to tackle the unrest, he said: "Xinjiang needs to become a genuinely autonomous region." But Mr Dillon says that will almost certainly not happen.
Like Tibet, Beijing sees Xinjiang as an integral part of modern-day China. The country's leaders regard any talk or even hints of separatism as treason - a red line that simply cannot be crossed.
Death on the Silk Route: Violence in Xinjiang
By Michael DillonAuthor of Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest
There is a heavy security presence on the streets of Kashgar, the scene of recent violence
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Kashgar and Hotan, historic centres of Uighur and Islamic culture in the south of China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, have been the scene of recent bloodshed.
The reasons behind the violence in these two cities, which lie 520km (323 miles) apart on the southern fringes of the Taklamakan Desert, are confused and disputed but some of the essential facts are clear.
On 18 July a group of Uighurs armed with knives and explosive devices attacked a police station in Hotan and took hostages. During a rescue operation, at least one police officer, two of the hostages and some of the attackers were killed.
Among the grievances of these Uighurs were: the detention of many young male family members without trial after the anniversary of the July 2009 Urumqi riots; attempts to ban women from wearing black headscarves and robes; and the confiscation of their farmland for redevelopment. Some sources have reported that 20 people died in this incident.
In Kashgar the violence broke out on 30 July, just before the Ramadan fast. There were two explosions and a hijacked car was driven into pedestrians on a crowded street where Han Chinese workers regularly gather at food stalls: six or seven people died and almost 30 were injured.
On the afternoon of 31 July a restaurant in Kashgar was set on fire and the owner and a waiter were killed. Although no specific grievances have been mentioned in connection with these attacks, the citizens of Kashgar have been outraged at the demolition of the traditional Uighur houses in the centre of the old city.
The official reason for the demolitions was that the houses were unhygienic and potentially dangerous in an earthquakes, but Uighurs believe that it is simply a stratagem to break up their communities and reduce their influence in the city.
People continue to live and work among the ruins: heavily armed police patrol regularly, and very visibly, on foot and in armoured vehicles. The atmosphere is tense.
'Strike hard campaign'
Behind the current conflict lies a long struggle for self-determination by the Uighur people. Although Xinjiang is in the far north-west of China, it is also culturally part of Central Asia and the Uighurs, who are the largest single ethnic group in Xinjiang, are Turkic-speaking Muslims.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the Muslim Central Asian states gained their independence, the dormant Eastern Turkestan independence movement in Xinjiang was stirred into a revival.
Many Uighurs complain that mainly the Han Chinese are taking their jobs
During China's economic boom, Xinjiang has received considerable state investment in industrial and energy projects that have in theory benefited the whole region. However, there has also been large-scale migration of mainly Han Chinese workers from the east: many Uighurs complain that the Han are taking their jobs.
The shocking but not unexpected outbreak of violence in July was not the first in Xinjiang, and it is unlikely to be the last.
In July 2009, riots in Urumqi, the administrative capital of Xinjiang, cost the lives of at least 200 people and drew the attention of the world's media to an ethnic and political conflict that has been neglected for decades.
In 1995 there were serious disturbances in the north-western city of Ghulja, which had been the headquarters of an independent Eastern Turkestan Republic in the 1940s. A rigorous crackdown by the local government and military developed into a permanent "Strike Hard" campaign, and this provoked a further outbreak of demonstrations in February 1997 which were vigorously suppressed.
Thousands of Uighurs were detained; some were convicted and imprisoned; others charged with separatist activity were executed. Religious activities, which have become less restricted in the rest of China, were curtailed in Xinjiang; children under the age of 18 and Communist Party and government officials were forbidden even to enter a mosque for prayers.
The real culprits
The official response has been to characterise these outbreaks of violence simply as "terrorist" acts and to blame outside forces, including Uighur groups based in the United States and in Europe. Overseas groups actively promote the idea of an independent Eastern Turkestan, but there is no evidence linking them directly with violence inside Xinjiang.
More recently Beijing has pointed to international terrorist organisations, including al-Qaeda, as possible culprits: but again no concrete evidence has been produced. In 2003 the death was announced of Hasan Mesum, who had been shot in South Waziristan on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and he was identified as the leader of the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).
In the wake of the recent attacks in Hotan and Kashgar, the Chinese authorities have revived concerns about terrorists trained by ETIM in Pakistan although most specialists do not even believe that ETIM exists as a real organisation.
The dire situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang is at the root of the conflict. Only when the real culprits - poverty, marginalisation and discrimination - are defeated can the conflict be satisfactorily resolved.
Michael Dillon is the author of Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest and the forthcoming Xinjiang and the Expansion of Chinese Communist Power: Kashghar in the Twentieth Century
Uighurs and Xinjiang
- Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims
- They make up about 45% of the region's population; 40% are Han Chinese
- China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan
- Since then, there has been large-scale immigration of Han Chinese
- Uighurs fear erosion of their traditional culture
