The security-led response is leading to greater tension<\/p>\n
Tom Mitchell in Aksu
October 16, 2015 2:13 pm<\/p>\n
The streets of Aksu are decorated with posters lauding the heroes of \u201cnational reunification\u201d \u2014 the Chinese Communist party\u2019s preferred term for its conquest of the vast northwestern territory of Xinjiang<\/a> in 1949.<\/p>\n Residents of the small city on the fringes of the Taklamakan desert stroll under the watchful gaze of personages including Ban Chao, an accomplished Chinese general of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 \u2013 220 AD), and the founding \u201cten marshals\u201d of the People\u2019s Liberation Army. For Aksu\u2019s native Muslim Uighurs, an ethnically Turkish community, the lionisation of Chinese conquering heroes is at best insensitive.<\/p>\n Once an entirely Uighur city, Aksu is now split roughly 50-50 between Uighurs and Han Chinese migrants. Prior to the PLA\u2019s arrival, Uighurs accounted for more than 90 per cent of Xinjiang\u2019s population.<\/p>\n Today they still rank as the region\u2019s largest ethnic group but only just. In a country that is home to 11.5m Uighurs and 1.2bn Han, the former are destined to become a minority in what the Communist party officially refers to as the \u201cXinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region\u201d \u2014 if they are not already.<\/p>\n In the centuries following Ban Chao\u2019s military campaigns in Xinjiang, imperial China\u2019s control of the region would wax and wane. The decisive demographic shift wrought by the ongoing influx of Han migrants has finally consolidated Beijing\u2019s grip on Xinjiang, without which President Xi Jinping\u2019s efforts to build a \u201cNew Silk Road<\/a>\u201d across the Eurasian land mass would founder.<\/p>\n In recognition of this fact, the party could arguably have chosen a humbler set of heroes for its propaganda barrage in Aksu \u2014 people such as Gong Shixiang, 21, and Wang Yongjun, 65.<\/p>\n Ms Gong moved to Aksu from Shanxi province because she can earn Rmb2,700 ($425) a month as a noodle shop cashier, compared to Rmb2,000 back home. Mr Wang, originally from Shandong province, sells flat breads at a market popular with his fellow Han migrants. He moved to Aksu five years ago after realising he could clear Rmb10,000 a month in China\u2019s Wild West \u2013 twice what he was making in Shandong.<\/p>\n Neither Ms Shi nor Mr Wang seem concerned by the now frequent knife and bomb attacks on Xinjiang\u2019s Han Chinese community, which are allegedly perpetrated by Uighur \u201cseparatists\u201d fighting for an independent homeland. Mr Wang\u2019s market is protected by a high fence and guards wielding maces. Should those defences fail, Mr Wang says \u201cthey wouldn\u2019t stab me, they just want to kill young Hans\u201d.<\/p>\n Mr Wang is badly mistaken about that. In May 2014, five assailants descended on a morning market in Xinjiang\u2019s capital, Urumqi. At least 31 people were killed. One of the most arresting photos of that carnage showed a little old Chinese lady sitting in shock, her head covered with blood.<\/p>\n