Xinjiang riots

Streets crawl with baton-wielding riot police and heavily armed SWAT teams brought in for a trade fair. They are a tense reminder that China considers the region fertile ground for terrorism and Islamic radicalism, a claim many scoff at.

Ten years ago, China used the 9/11 attacks to justify cracking down on what it said were al Qaeda-backed extremists who wanted to bring similar carnage to Xinjiang, a heavily Muslim region with close cultural links to Central Asia. More restrictions on Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking people who call Xinjiang home, followed.

Pumping in yuan

China has used a carrot and stick approach, going after Uighurs it suspects of harboring separatist views, but also pumping in billions of yuan to boost development and lessen the appeal of the militants.

Annual incomes in rural areas, where most Uighurs live, averaged just 4,600 yuan ($720) last year, more than 1,000 yuan below the national average and more than 5,000 yuan below the

top province, Zhejiang, in eastern China. China's main state-owned companies will double their investments in Xinjiang over the next five years to an eye-popping 991.6 billion yuan ($155 billion), state media said.

Beijing sees Xinjiang as a bulwark facing the Muslim nations of central Asia, and, with a sixth of the country's land mass, as an important and largely empty space to offer some relief to the teeming provinces to the east. The land is also rich in natural resources, including oil, coal and gas. Any loss of control could wreak havoc in the world's second largest economy, whose growth Beijing sees as key to maintaining social stability and the Communist Party's grip on power.

Ethnic differences

Riots between Uighurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi two years ago killed almost 200 people, deepening mutual suspicion. "We used to mix with the Chinese but no longer. That restaurant there once had many Chinese customers. No one dares to come here now," said trader Anwar, pointing across the street to a kebab shop in Urumqi's heavily Uighur old quarter.

The Han who dominate Urumqi, rarely venture far into the old quarter and say they have little time for the Uighurs. If anything, the Uighurs are treated too well, Han Chinese say, spoiled by preferential places at university and no restrictions on the number of children they can have.

A ‘label’ for the Uighurs

The rather benign Han view of Uighurs which existed pre-September 11, 2001 as wild, slightly lawless but generally affable and colourful people who love dancing and singing has been replaced with something much more sinister. "The Chinese government has always applied labels to Uighurs who chafe at its rule in Xinjiang. They were feudal landlords first, then they were Soviet stooges, then they were counter-revolutionaries, then they were separatists and after 9/11 they became terrorists," says Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher on China for Human Rights Watch.

A small number of Uighurs were indeed swept up by the U.S. government during the Afghanistan war launched after the 9/11 attacks, though rights groups said they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, having fled persecution at home. Despite Chinese protests, the U.S. ended up ruling they were not "enemy combatants", and sent them to a range of countries, including the Pacific island state of Palau.

The irony of all the security in Urumqi and elsewhere in Xinjiang is that many experts do not consider al Qaeda or its supposed ally, the "East Turkestan Islamic Movement", to have

anywhere near the influence China claims. China invariably blames attacks on the group, which the United States and United Nations regard as a terrorist organization. Still there are doubts about its strength, or even existence.

Reuters
Editor: Grahame Lucas