Urumqi violence hits China hard

BEIJING, July 8 (UPI) -- The Urumqi ethnic riots have so shaken up China that President Hu Jintao was forced to cut short his Italy trip, canceling his highly promoted meetings with leaders of G8 and major developing countries.

The Italy agenda was expected to include issues important to China such as whether to let the U.S. dollar remain the dominant international currency, the future role for the Chinese yuan and global climate change.

The Urumqi violence also brought into sharper world focus the simmering racial tensions between the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese and how Beijing plans to settle the hot issue brewing in the oil-rich Xinjiang-Uighur region in its northwest, of which Urumqi is the capital. Many Muslim Uighurs resent being ruled in what they consider as their land by Han Chinese, transplanted from other sections of the society.

The Sunday incident, resulting from this simmering crisis, exploded into deadly violence leaving at least 156 dead and more than 1,000 injured. Despite heavy Chinese security that drastically curtailed Internet, cell phone and other communications services in the 2.3 million-population city, the protests resumed Tuesday but no new casualties were reported.

Chinese authorities have been open in acknowledging the riots were the worst casualty-related ethnic violence since the party took power in China in 1949. Authorities have been relatively open in allowing foreign journalists into the area.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged restraint by all in the region, noting its "long history of tension and discontent," the Voice of America reported.

But, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, while attributing the violence to harsh policies in Xinjiang, urged Chinese leaders to pursue dialogue with the Muslims in western China and to respect minority rights, the report said. As neighboring India, which has its own problems to settle with China, watched the Urumqi events with concern even as it battles its own Islamic terrorism, a Times of India editorial wondered whether Urumqi will turn into China's Kashmir. The reference was to the festering problem between India and Pakistan since the two became independent in 1947. India says Kashmir is a settled issue, but Muslim Pakistan lays claim to the province partly because of its Muslim majority.

The editorial said if the official story suggesting the violence is the handiwork of Uighur separatists with Islamist leanings is right, "Xinjiang could be developing into China's Kashmir. That would have interesting strategic implications, as Beijing has so far given New Delhi little sympathy on Kashmir."

The editorial said China, a close ally of nuclear Pakistan, also has so far declined to join Washington in pressuring Islamabad to turn decisively against international jihadists in its tribal territories.

Chinese authorities have already blamed the exiled World Uighur Congress in Munich, Germany, and its leader Rebiya Kadeer for masterminding the Urumqi violence. The group denies it and has condemned what it called the Chinese crackdown of its people.

The unrest was likened by the People's Daily to the Tibetan uprising of last year, which was blamed on exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

The Urumqi riots erupted only 16 months after a similar massive uprising by the Tibetans protesting Chinese rule that was put down by Chinese security forces, earning China worldwide condemnation.

In a lengthy editorial attacking Kadeer, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party said: "But what she did, in her so-called exile since 2005, has manifested as clear as daylight that she is an ironclad separatist colluding with terrorists and Islamic extremists."

Kadeer has been identified by Xinhua as a former businesswoman who was detained in 1999 on charges of harming national security until March 2005 when she was released for medical treatment in the United States.

The attacks in the Chinese media against the Dalai Lama have continued since the Tibetan uprising despite numerous denials of any role by the spiritual leader, who remains in exile in India.

Speaking about Urumqi, Wang Lequan, head of the Xinjiang Communist Party, said the riots "destroyed the spiritual support with which the terrorist, separatist and extremist forces cheated the people to participate in the so-called jihad."

To support the accusation against the WUC, a security officer told Xinhua police had obtained recordings of phone calls between overseas East Turkestan groups and their accomplices in China to direct people to stage the violence.

Some reports have said the Urumqi riots were sparked by last month's violent incident between Uighurs and Han migrant workers at a toy factory in southern Guangdong province in which two Uighurs reportedly died.

The Xinjiang-Uighur, designated as an autonomous region like Tibet, covers about 641,000 square miles and has a population of 21 million. It is close to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. Besides Islam, other religions in the region, which covers one-sixth of the Chinese territory, include Buddhism, Christianity and Taoism. Han Chinese are the dominant group in the region.

"Sunday's deadly riot … bruised the beautiful city of Urumqi and shocked the world," a Xinhua commentary said, warning "the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism are at work again."

After Urumqi, the decision-makers in Beijing may be hoping the raging fires of terrorism destroying some of the neighboring countries will not engulf China's remote northwest.