Hu returns home as Urumqi tensions resume

URUMQI, China, July 8 (UPI) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao returned home Wednesday cutting short his visit to Italy for the G8 summit as China's ethnic unrest in Urumqi resumed.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Hu's place at the meetings between leaders of the Group of Eight countries and those from major developing countries would be taken by State Councilor Dai Bingguo.

Hu also canceled his scheduled state visit to Portugal, which will be rescheduled, Xinhua said.

The tensions in Urumqi, capital of China's northwest Xinjiang-Uighur region and home to minority Muslim Uighurs, erupted again Tuesday following Sunday's violence that left at least 156 dead and more 1,000 injured. Tensions have simmered in the region for years because some of the Uighurs resent being ruled by the Han Chinese.

CNN reported the new unrest involved protests by several hundred people, mostly women and the elderly, seeking the release of those taken into custody from Sunday's violence.

The new protesters gathered even as local authorities were taking the media for a tour of places in the city hit by the violence, Xinhua said.

The Washington Post reported the latest demonstration started despite mosque closures and heavy security.

A Xinhua report, noting resumption of chaos in Urumqi, said several thousand protesters, mostly Han Chinese, separately marched along downtown streets mostly inhabited by Muslim Uighurs. The protesters, holding clubs, knives, axes and hammers, shouted "protecting our home, protect our family members," but that there were no clashes, Xinhua said.

Chinese authorities have said Sunday's riots were masterminded by the World Uighur Congress Muslim group, led by Rebiya Kadeer. She has been identified as a former Chinese businesswoman who was detained in 1999 for a allegedly harming national security and released in 2005 for medical treatment in the United States.

The Urumqi incidents have so far led to the arrests of 1,434 suspects, Xinhua reported quoting officials.

The riots may be traced to an ethnic brawl between Uighur and Han Chinese migrant workers last month at a toy factor in southern Guangdong province in which two Uighurs reportedly died.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday again called for all parties in the region to exercise restraint, Voice of America reported, noting it was the highest-level appeal thus far by the United States on the situation in China, the worst such ethnic violence in decades.