More deaths in Xinjiang as violence breaks out in 2012

Xinhua news agency reported that rioters killed 10 people, while police shot dead two of the rioters. The report gives no detail as to what might have triggered the violence.

Reports have been scant from the region as security has been high in the northwestern province since riots in 2009 in the capital Urumqi between the Muslim Uighurs, who are the largest ethnic group, and Han Chinese migrants. Nearly 200 people were killed in that unrest, most of them Han, according to officials.

Tuesday‘s violence took place in a market in Yecheng county, according to Xinhua, which says police are still hunting some of the rioters. Almost half of Xinjiang’s residents are Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims with cultural and ethnic links to Central Asia.

Many complain that large-scale migration of Han Chinese workers from the east has cost them jobs and is eroding their culture. China has invested heavily in Xinjiang and the region‘s rich oil and gas deposits are vital to its booming economy.

China claims it faces an organized terrorist threat from radical Muslims in Xinjiang, but Uighur activists say citizens are angry at Beijing’s heavy-handed rule in the region.

Despite the violence though, little international pressure has been put onto China for the crackdown, as some UN reports have linked radical Uighur fighters to radical elements around the Middle East including Somalia‘s al-Shabob.

(아주경제 앤드류 이 기자)

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com