China said a riot that shook the capital of the western Xinjiang region on Sunday killed 156 people and the government called the ethnic unrest a plot against its power.
Locals took to the streets of the capital, Urumqi, some burning and smashing vehicles and confronting ranks of police and anti-riot troops.
The riot followed a protest in Urumqi -- a city of 2.3 million residents 3,270 km (2,050 miles) west of Beijing -- against government handling of a late June clash between Han Chinese and Uighur factory workers in far southern China, where two Uighurs died in Shaoguan.
Xinjiang is an autonomous region, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million km2, which takes up about one sixth of the country's territory.
Xinjiang is home to several distinct ethnic groups of various religious traditions, however, the majority of the region's total population are adherents of Islam. Among ethnic groups who are of the Muslim faith, most notable are Muslim Turkic peoples including the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars and the Kazakhs; there are also Muslim Iranian peoples including Pamiris and the Sarikolis/Wakhis (often conflated as Pamiris); and Muslim Sino-Tibetan peoples such as the Hui (i.e. Muslim Han Chinese). Other PRC ethnic groups in the region include Han Chinese, Mongols, Russians, Xibes, and Manchus.
Like in Tibet, China is trying to dilute the population's ethnic identity to secure the region from any possible separation in the future. The percentage of ethnic Han Chinese in Xinjiang has grown from 6% in 1949 to an official tally of over 40% at present.
This technique is widely used around the world to stop separatists plans, France have done it with the catalan, canada is doing it with the french Canadians, Spain ....
But China is cracking down on Uighur language and culture, and giving advantages for han chinese over the Uighur which have created tensions amongst the Uighur community.
And with the current status of China as a world superpower, it's obvious that other superpowers will do their best to help destabilize it to keep their role in the global arena.
But the Uighur should take lessons from their brothers in Chechnya, who were backed by western powers in a bid to destabilize URSS/ Russia. The Chechens have lost a lot and gained nothing .
