There have been no fresh reports of violence from Urumqi, but tensionpersists. This tension is partly due to the anger of the Uighurs over what theydescribe as the indiscriminate use of force by the local authorities againstUighur protesters on July 5 and 6, 2009, and the anger of the Han Chinese overwhat they project as the brutalities allegedly committed by the Uighur Muslimsagainst the Han Chinese and over the failure of the security forces to protectthem.
As a result of the disturbances for four days from July 5, the confidence ofboth the Uighurs and the Han Chinese in the local security forces has beenshaken--each for different reasons. Army units, which were rushed to Xinjiang onthe orders of President Hu Jintao, in his capacity as the Chairman of theCentral Military Commission, after his premature return from Rome withoutattending the G-8 summit, may have to stay in the province for a long time. Theaggravated polarization in the relations between the Uighurs and the Han Chinesehas complicated the situation for the Chinese authorities.
The situation in Urumqi and the rest of the Xinjiang province is not beinghandled by Prime Minister Wen Jiabo, but by Meng Jianzhu, State Councillor, whois the Minister for Public Security and in that capacity is the chief of China'sinternal intelligence and homeland security set-up, and by Zhou Yongkang, who isa member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and in that capacity supervisesthe internal security apparatus. These are the only two leaders, who have beentouring the affected areas and reassuring the Han Chinese that the Governmentwill act firmly to prevent any more violent incidents.
Zhou Yongkang, who visited Kashgar and Hotan in Southern Xinjiang on July 11 andmet the local officials and Han Chinese community leaders, called for a"steel wall" of security to "win the tough war of maintainingXinjiang's stability."
The Chinese are not clear in their mind as to who were responsible for whathappened. They continue to blame the Munich-based World Uighur Congress (WUC)for the outbreak of violence. While the protest demonstrations on the evening ofJuly 5 were definitely held by secular Uighurs sympathetic to the WUC, nobodyknows who caused the subsequent brutalities against the Han Chinese--men andwomen. Reliable reports say that even pregnant Han Chinese women were not sparedby the rioting Uighurs.
The Uighurs constitute only 15 per cent of the population in Urumqi. The HanChinese constitute about 75 per cent. It is, therefore, difficult to understandhow elements from such a small minority managed to kill so many members of themajority community in a brutal fashion. This indicates the possibility of theinfiltration of pro-Al Qaeda and pro-Taliban elements sympathetic to the IslamicMovement of East Turkestan (IMET), who are strong in the interior areas, intoUrumqi to take advantage of the protests organised by the sympathisers of theWUC to create a mayhem. The Uighurs constitute the largest ethnic group in theinterior.
The Chinese authorities continue to allow foreign journalists to cover thesituation in Urumqi. While they have allowed tourist groups, which were alreadyin Xinjiang at the time of the outbreak of the violence to continue their tourswithout asking them to leave, they are discouraging group tour companies fromtaking new groups to Xinjiang on the ground that many tourist buses weredestroyed by the Uighurs during the riots and that the local authorities may notbe able to provide effective security to the tourists.
Last Friday, while some mosques in Urumqi remained closed, some others heldtheir Friday prayers, which were largely attended by the local Muslims. Someforeign journalists in Urumqi reported that the Chinese authorities had bannedthe prayers and that some mosques had held the prayers in defiance of theGovernment ban. This has been strongly denied by the local authorities.According to them, there was no such ban. They contended that while some clericsheld the prayers as usual, some others decided on their own to cancel theprayers due to the continuing tension. They maintained that the Government hadno role in this decision.
The Chinese authorities have, in the meanwhile, revised upwards the number offatalities. Initially, they had given the figure as 156. On July 11, theyrevised it as 184-- of whom 137 were Han Chinese. They have cautioned that thenumber of fatalities might go up since many of the injured undergoing treatmentin hospitals are in a critical condition.
It is still not clear why Hu had to cancel his participation in the G-8 summitdespite the danger of its being perceived by the outside world as indicatingthat China was losing control in Xinjiang. It would also be projected by hisdomestic critics as "loss of face for China". In a commentary by the AsiaTimes Online’s China Editor, it has said that this was because that onlyHu, in his capacity as the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, couldhave authorised the movement of the Army to Xinjiang to take over theresponsibility for law and order. Since neither Wen Jiabo nor any of the otherpolitical leaders from the Standing Committee of the Politbureau is a member ofthe Commission they could not have taken this decision in the absence of Hu.While this explanation sounds plausible, this may not be the completeexplanation. There are undercurrents of tension in the leadership over the factthat for the first time China had to suffer a "loss of face".Maintaining face is very important for the Chinese.
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The Urumqi uprising has created tension in China’s relations with Turkey,which has characterized the situation in Xinjiang as genocidal and has calledfor a debate in the UN Security Council. This has been opposed by China. TheCentral Asian Republics and the Secretariat of the Shanghai CooperationOrganisation have described the situation as an internal matter of China.Western reactions have been restrained and there has been an attempt not toembarrass China by exploiting the situation. While there was considerablesympathy for the Tibetans last year and many expressions of solidarity withthem, similar sympathy and expressions are not to be seen in the case of theUighur uprising. The world does not want another Islamic trouble spot inaddition to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Chinese are banking on this andencouraging the foreign journalists to go to Urumqi in the hope that they wouldsee for themselves the dangers of a new Islamic trouble spot.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.
