Race Wars in China: Xinjiang boiling over

Urumqi is the capital and center of Han Chinese power in the province of Xinjiang (formerly East Turkestan). The indigenous Uighur ethnic group has been subjected to expropriation of land, violation of their traditional Central Asian Islamic culture, and second class citizenship since the People's Liberation Army invaded the country in 1949. Last week, tensions came to a boiling point after the murder of Uighurs in far away Guangdong province, leading to massive demonstrations across the country, er, province.

Like its more well known sister Tibet, this stepchild of the Chinese empire is restive, and when any attempts at assembly and protest happen, the Chinese police and army deliver a smackdown. The Chinese government admits to 156 dead, more than a thousand injured, and thousands more arrested.

As we all know, the world economy has been tanking, and when the economy goes down, the poorest are the hardest hit. Few places are poorer than rural China, and few in rural China have more disadvantages than the Uighur Turks. When you're poor and oppressed, getting beaten to death by the police can start to seem better than telling your wife that either she or the kids get to eat this month. Rule number 6: Economic downturns produce desperate rebellion.

Racism in China is fairly well managed by the central government. They plan the racism carefully (*cough cough forced abortions in Tibet*) to prevent any of the conquered nations in the empire from being able to organize significant resistance (*cough cough murder of thousands of Tibetan priests*). Even in the Beijing Olympics, when China tried to show off how proud it was of its "ethnic minorities," the trotted out 56 Han Chinese kids dressed up in traditional outfits of different ethnic groups. Most Westerners couldn't tell the difference, of course... but the minorities in China got the message. China is an empire that has historically been managed by lots of "foreigners," such as Mongols and Manchus, and the Communist Party is sensitive to the fierce "nationalism" this has produced. Ethnicity in China is a complicated matter.

Back in the good old days after 9/11, China managed to cut a deal with Bush - cooperation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in exchange for considering Uighur Muslims as "terrorists." This deal produced one of the most tragic stories of Guantanamo Bay, as four Uighurs were imprisoned for years because they were associated with people on China's "terrorist" list. Though their innocence of any wrong doing was quickly established, China threatened any country that was willing to harbor these "terrorists." So the biggest countries willing to accept them after the US released them were Bermuda and Palau, islands far away from China with no significant trade links.

Xinjiang (literally, "New Frontier") has had long and strained relationship with the Chinese empire. Alternatingly conquered by China and independent, East Turkestan was allied with the Soviet Union sometimes and the Kuomintang other times during World War 2, and when the Communist Chinese had finally won the Chinese Civil War, the Soviets didn't care to oppose other Communists from invading. East Turkestan wasn't able to seriously resist the massive Communist armies, and armies headed for the hills to resist guerilla style until the mid 1950's.