President Xi Jinping\u2019s decision to send troops to Xinjiang province in order to strike a \u201ccrushing blow\u201d against terrorism marks a troubling resurgence of a political crisis that has been simmering for years.<\/p>\n
May 10, 2014
By Staff Writer<\/p>\n
President Xi Jinping\u2019s decision to send troops to Xinjiang province in order to strike a \u201ccrushing blow\u201d against terrorism marks a troubling resurgence of a political crisis that has been simmering for years. Xi\u2019s announcement followed a bomb blast in the regional capital\u2019s railway which killed three people and injured 79 \u2013 shortly after he had concluded a well-publicized visit to the region focused on fighting extremism.<\/p>\n
The Urumqi attack was the second high profile attack in the last three months. On March 1 an attack on a railway station in the city of Kunming left 29 people dead and scores injured. A week after the Urumqi bomb, two knife-wielding assailants wounded six people at a railway station in the southern province of Guangdong. Dramatic as these recent assaults have been, however, the most unsettling attack \u2013 at least in terms of Chinese public opinion \u2013 took place last October when terrorists crashed a jeep into a crowd in Beijing\u2019s Tiananmen Square. The vehicle subsequently burst into flames killing five people, including the attackers.<\/p>\n
During the last decade, Xinjiang\u2019s resistance to Beijing\u2019s heavy-handed development of the province has reached a crisis point. Pressured by a massive influx of ethnic Chinese, the local Uighur population has endured repression on several fronts: in religion (Muslim Uighurs must use a state-approved Koran and worship in government-supervised mosques); in the workplace, through hiring practices that favour ethnic Chinese; and linguistic discrimination within state schools. Although outside access to the province has been limited, human rights groups have reported on a number of punitive measures and human rights abushttp:\/\/www.stabroeknews.com\/2014\/opinion\/editorial\/05\/10\/chinas-separatists\/es by the authorities, resulting in ethnic clashes that caused 200 deaths in 2009 and more than 100 last year. Beijing\u2019s belated attempts to soothe local grievances \u2013 while simultaneously stepping up official denunciations of terrorism \u2013 have done little to pacify the separatist movement which seeks to completely detach Xinjiang from China and to create \u201cEast Turkestan\u201d in its stead.<\/p>\n
It is no accident that the recent targets have been railway stations. An important part of China\u2019s long-term economic development is focused on infrastructure projects that connect outlying provinces with the rest of China, particularly as a means of reducing the country\u2019s current dependence on shipping. Three years ago the Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing had planned to invest some US$300 billion in Xinjiang between 2010 and 2015 \u2013 including the creation of more than 5,000 miles of new railways. In addition to being what is known in the lexicon of modern counter-terrorism as \u201csoft\u201d targets, railway stations are a potent symbol of the Communist Party\u2019s primarily economic interest in the places like Xinjiang, and its relative indifference to local concerns. A perceptive commentary in The Diplomat notes that if the attacks successfully undermine public confidence in China\u2019s railways \u201cthey can make the use of the new rail lines by foreign entities much less attractive [and by] doing so, they can fend off the challenge of modernization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beijing\u2019s current response to the recent attacks \u2013 official threats and heavy censorship \u2013 is reminiscent not only of its previous over-reaction to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests but also of Russia\u2019s official rhetoric on the eve of its repressive \u201cwar on terrorism\u201d in Chechyna. The pursuit of a similar campaign in Xinjiang would underscore China\u2019s difficulties in moving beyond a reflexive authoritarianism when dealing with political crises. In recent years, senior Communist Party members have become increasingly aware of the value of transparency in public life. In fact the CCP is in the middle of its significant crackdown on corruption in decades \u2013 following the arrest of several personal assistants to politburo member Zhou Yongkang. But the party remains uneasy with transparency when dealing with more complex issues, like the ethnic tensions in Xinjiang, especially when these risk stirring up further trouble elsewhere.<\/p>\n
As with Russia, it appears as though China\u2019s leaders have yet to learn that open societies cannot pick and choose which crises are fit for public consumption, but must stake their hopes for the future on the idea that the benefits of transparency eventually outweigh the embarrassments. The crisis in Xinjiang can only be resolved through reasonable political accommodations with the aggrieved local population. Modern history provides a long list of governments who failed to prevail against extremist groups simply by delivering \u201ccrushing blows.\u201d If Beijing chooses to ignore these failures it will do so at its peril.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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