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Recent Chinese diplomatic maneuvers in Central Asia, both bilateral and multilateral, show that Beijing’s strategy treats the region as a corridor for reaching resource bases in Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa. Central Asia is thus part of China’s broader blueprint of securing strategic resources and supplies to feed its developing economy (Z. Saipov, China Oil & Gas Monitor, Week 21, Issue 396, News Base, May 31, p. 3–4). Hu Jintao (L) and Islam Karimov Illustratively, Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu’s two-week official tour of Congo, Tanzania, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan on September 1–13 (English.sina.com, September 6) supports the premise that...

China has detained and intimidated dozens of ethnic Uighurs in the far western region of Xinjiang for speaking out on rights abuses following riots in the regional capital three years ago, Amnesty International said. In July 2009, the capital city of Urumqi was rocked by violence between majority Han Chinese and minority Uighurs that killed nearly 200 people. Many of the Muslim Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language and call Xinjiang home, chafe at Beijing's rule. Since then, China has executed nine people it accused of instigating the riots, detained and prosecuted hundreds and ramped up spending on security, according...

China typically exercises caution when making public statements about terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. When China blames attacks on Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, such as the possibly defunct East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), it risks adding tensions to the Sino-Pakistani “all-weather” friendship. [1] However, when China blames attacks on local Uyghurs it is tantamount to an admission that its policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have not created a “harmonious society.” Zhou Yongkang (left), member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), shakes hands with a local Uygur farmer...

It has been a difficult summer for Red China’s restive western province Xinjiang. A series of incidents characterized as terrorism have struck two of the province’s cities, causing death, destruction and ethnic tension. This picture was further complicated when the government of the city of Kashgar published a statement online that claimed at least one of the perpetrators had been trained in Pakistan (Xinhua, August 1). The allegation by Communist Chinese officials cast a shadow over Sino-Pakistani relations, a bilateral relationship that had been characterized in Kashgar just the month before by Pakistani Ambassador to China Masood Khan as “higher...

China pointed a finger at Pakistan, one of its closest foreign partners, as it blamed one of two deadly attacks over the weekend in the northwestern Xinjiang region on Muslim extremists trained across the Pakistani border.‬ Police also "executed on the spot" two more suspected attackers in the city of Kashgar, according to a local government statement, while paramilitary police with shotguns and automatic weapons patrolled the streets to prevent further unrest. Local authorities said 20 people were killed in all in the attacks by knife-wielding members of the Uighur ethnic minority on Saturday and Sunday in the second week...

China blames extremists for Xinjiang attack China says a group led by militants trained in Pakistan was behind Sunday's attack in Kashgar in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region. In a statement on the Internet, the government in Kashgar says a suspect detained after the attack told police that the leaders of their group belong to a separatist organization called the "East Turkistan Islamic Movement." They reportedly learned how to make explosives in Pakistan before carrying out Sunday's attack. On Sunday night, a group of attackers stabbed people on the streets of Kashgar, killing 6 people and injured 15. Five suspects...

Knife-wielding attackers killed 10 people in ChinaÂ’s Xinjiang region and another four were shot dead by police as a wave of violence swept the ethnically-torn area, state media and officials said on Sunday. The unrest occurred in the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar in two separate attacks, and local residents said on Sunday the city centre was under lockdown, with security forces patrolling the streets. Xinjiang has seen several outbreaks of ethnic violence in recent years as the mainly Muslim Uyghur minority bridles under what it regards as oppression by the government and the unwanted immigration of ethnic Han...

Attacks in China's Xinjiang, 13 dead In China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Saturday night, two men brandishing knives attacked passers-by, killing 6 people. At least 6 others were killed in explosions that occurred near the area just before the incident. China's state-run Xinhua news agency says the 2 men jumped into a truck in Kashgar city. Then they drove into a crowd of people. The pair stabbed 6 people to death. One of the attackers died while being captured. Xinhua says that about an hour before the attack, 2 explosions occurred near the scene, one from a minivan, which...

Blast in China's Kashgar kills at least 3: reports By Terril Yue Jones BEIJING | Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:25am EDT (Reuters) - An explosion rocked the far-west Chinese city of Kashgar Sunday, killing at least three people including a policeman in the latest in a series of attacks in the region this month, the state-run news agency Xinhua reported. The explosion came about 16 hours after two other blasts were reported in Kashgar and eight people were killed in a knife attack in the city, in the restive Xinjiang region near Tajikistan. A group of Uighur exiles from the...

China on Wednesday raised the death toll to 18 from a clash at a police station in the restive far western region of Xinjiang, saying that 14 "rioters" died along with two policemen and two hostages. Government officials previously said at least four people were killed in what they described as a terrorist attack but which the Germany-based exile group World Uyghur Congress said was an attack on peaceful protesters. The congress had said 20 Uighurs were killed - 14 beaten to death and 6 shot dead - and 70 arrested, when police opened fire on protesters, leading to fighting...

Armed men attack police station in China’s Xinjiang province, killing officers By Keith B. Richburg, Published: July 18 BEIJING —Attackers armed with Molotov cocktails and explosives stormed a police station in China’s restive Muslim province of Xinjiang on Monday, killing and wounding several police officers, taking hostages and setting the building on fire, according to a local official and a report from the state-run news agency Xinhua. Several attackers and some hostages were killed when police converged on the besieged police station, in the crowded “grand bazaar” area in the city of Hotan, and several bystanders in a nearby commercial...

Note: Photos included. SNIPPET: "Boys as young as five can barely hold up the machine guns and pistols in their hands as they take aim at imaginary targets in the Pakistan desert. But this is no sick game, it is their first step along the way to becoming al-Qaeda terrorists as they are taught about military combat and how to launch suicide missions. At hidden camps terrorist chiefs also use toys to teach the boys how they can blow up buildings and mount roadside bomb attacks. One chilling image from a video filmed inside one camp shows children, barely old...

Slain Patrolmen 'Checked' Uyghurs 2010-08-19 Local resentment may have provoked a targeted attack in Xinjiang. AFP Members of a police auxiliary unit killed in a bomb attack Thursday in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region had harassed ethnic Uyghurs, singling out men with beards and women wearing traditional head coverings, according to police sources. The attack in Aksu city, in which a man riding a three-wheeled vehicle threw explosives at a group of uniformed patrolmen, killed seven people and wounded 14, according to wire service reports. The man was taken into custody, while a woman who accompanied him in the attack was...

SNIPPET: "Renewed violence struck China's restive Xinjiang province when seven people were killed and fourteen wounded in a suspected bomb attack today, local officials said. The explosion took place on a three wheeled vehicle in Aksu city and the local officials blamed the blast on "criminal gangs", an abbreviation used by authorities for Muslim separatists." SNIPPET: "Xinjiang has been beset by ethnic conflict and separatist violence for the past few years and last summer witnessed bloody clashes between the Uighurs, the largely Muslim ethnic group and the majority Han Chinese settlers which left 197 people dead." SNIPPET: "The provincial Governor...

An ancient town that was discovered 6.3 kilometers west of the Lop Nor Creek Tomb in Xinjiang is most likely the mysterious town of Zhubin, according to a report from Chongqing Evening News. After more than one year of investigation and study, Lu Houyuan and others recently released the important research results in China's authoritative magazine, the Chinese Science Bulletin. According to sources, the ancient town is one of the three archaeological discoveries made between November and December in 2008 by the Lop Nor Scientific Exploration Team, led by Xia Xuncheng, researcher at the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography...

In the middle of a terrifying desert north of Tibet, Chinese archaeologists have excavated an extraordinary cemetery. Its inhabitants died almost 4,000 years ago, yet their bodies have been well preserved by the dry air. The cemetery lies in what is now China's northwest province of Xinjiang, yet the people have European features, with brown hair and long noses. Their remains, though lying in one of the world's largest deserts, are buried in upside-down boats. And where tombstones might stand, declaring pious hope for some god's mercy in the afterlife, their cemetery sports instead a vigorous forest of phallic symbols,...

Two held after aircraft toilet fire in China's Xinjiang Reuters Sat Jan 30, 2:37 am ET BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police have detained two people after a domestic flight from the restless western region of Xinjiang was forced to turn around when a passenger set fire to toilet paper in the washroom, state media said on Saturday. The official Xinhua news agency said the China Southern flight was bound for the central Chinese city of Wuhan. "The crew of the flight CZ6939 ... discovered the passenger's behavior some time after take-off," Xinhua said, citing Xinjiang police sources. "Two passengers, including...

China said Saturday it was confident it could ensure the nation's safety after an Al-Qaeda leader called on members of the mainly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang to launch a jihad against Beijing. "The Chinese government has the confidence and the ability to protect the safety of the nation, of people's lives and property," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement faxed to AFP. Ma was reacting to a call made this week by Abu Yahia al-Libi, one of Al-Qaeda's top leaders, in a video recording posted on an Islamist website, according to the SITE Intelligence group. "Let...

Rome, 7 October (AKI) - A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a "vast media campaign" to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of "oppressive" China.

Rome, 7 October (AKI) - A leading Al-Qaeda militant on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to defend Uighurs in China's restive northwestern region of Xinjiang. He told Uighurs to prepare for a holy war or Jihad and urged a "vast media campaign" to raise awareness of their fate at the hands of "oppressive" China. In the video posted to jihadist websites, Abu Yahya al-Libi appeared to launch a frontal assault against China. "This massacre is not being carried out by criminal Crusaders or evil Jews who have committed crimes against our nation," al-Libi stated. "Today, a new massacre is being...

Pipeline at Risk By Michael Lelyveld 2009-09-14 China’s Central Asia gas pipeline project is increasingly at risk amid ethnic unrest in Xinjiang. BOSTON—Renewed unrest in Xinjiang has come at a critical time for China’s energy development as the country prepares to open its first gas import pipeline through the western region by the end of the year, experts say. Central Asian countries report they are on schedule for the mid-December startup of the 2,000-km (1,240-mile) pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, forming part of an ambitious 7,000-km project to supply China’s eastern cities. On Aug. 14, China National Petroleum...

Panic over syringe stabbings spreads to Beijing Jane Macartney, China Correspondent The Chinese authorities are anxious that mysterious syringe stabbings that have caused panic in the restive far west have now reached the capital. The threat of such needle attacks comes as an enormous security blanket has been thrown across Beijing to ensure that a huge military parade to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule passes off without a hitch on October 1. Indications that the bizarre attacks may have extended from the mostly Muslim, riot-torn region of Xinjiang to Beijing came in the form of directives from...

KOLKATA: After trying to fob off Indian officials and investigators all of Sunday night, one of the pilots of the United Arab Emirates air force aircraft detained at Kolkata airport since Sunday finally admitted to the plane carrying a consignment of weapons. The C-130 Hercules among the biggest transport aircraft in the world was on its way to Xiangyang, China, from UAEAF's Western Air Command base in Abu Dhabi. Although the UAE government had the necessary clearances from Indian authorities for the flight to land in Kolkata, it had not informed that the aircraft would be carrying weapons. Indian Customs...

New unrest in China's Xinjiang after syringe attacks By Ben Blanchard and Lucy Hornby Thu Sep 3, 5:29 am ET BEIJING (Reuters) – A new round of unrest broke out in China's far western region of Xinjiang on Thursday, as protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against a series of reported syringe attacks in the regional capital, witnesses said. The protests happened at a highly sensitive time for China, as it gears up to celebrate in less than a month the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party coming to power, which has been accompanied by a nationwide security clampdown....

Note: The following SNIPPET is a quote: Al-Qaeda's "Islamic State of Iraq" Calls on Muslims to Join Uighur Jihad against China On August 22, 2009, the media division of Al-Qaeda's "Islamic State of Iraq" organization (ISI) released the sixth video in its "Knights of Martyrdom" series, which celebrates jihadists killed in the war in Iraq. This time, the video was dedicated to the Muslims of East Turkestan, i.e. the Uighurs of China's Xinjiang Province. The clashes that took place in Urumchi in July between Uighurs and the Chinese authorities and other Han Chinese elicited a large wave of popular support...

CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- A plane was hijacked in China's restive region of Xinjiang on Sunday, according to state media. The agency sent out a brief "flash" alert saying a plane had been hijacked, without giving further details

Xinjiang police published the photoes of 15 suspects wanted globally. 1 of the 15 wanted suspects is Han and the others are Uyghur. BTW, after having arrested 253 suspects invloved in the bloody riots in Urumqi on July 5th, Xinjiang police announced that they had arrested 319 more suspects again. Xinjiang police pledge that " all thugs would be arrested and none of them has chance to escape"

Without a doubt the biggest story in the jihadi web this past week is China, in response to the perceived oppression of the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang, AKA East Turkistan. Examples of postings include • a history of Muslims in China • an article on "The Strategic Importance of Xinjiang for Eurasian Energy Infrastructure" (complete with a translation into Arabic of the source English-language article, and a map of pipelines in Central Asia) • a chapter from a book by Mohammed Qutb about Communism • and last, but certainly not least, a statement from Commander Sayfullah of the Uighur 'Turkistan...

Civilian Airports Commandeered, More Than 10,000 Paramilitary Police Diverted to Xinjiang to Maintain Security By chinafreepress.org (translation) Jul 10, 2009 - 4:26:58 AM (Image) Civilian Airports Commandeered, More Than 10,000 Paramilitary Police Diverted to Xinjiang to Maintain Security Boxun reports that regional airports and airliners have been commandeered in transporting 14,000 paramilitary police officers and troops from Jiangsu, Henan and Fujian provinces to Xinjiang following last week's violent uprising. A correspondent in Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport confirmed that flights were cancelled while the military deployment took place.

"The SCO, a regional organization founded by China and five other countries that lie close to the Xinjiang region -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- said in a statement that it believes the measures the Chinese government is taking can restore peace and order there. ... The statement demonstrated that the SCO member states understood well that the situation in Xinjiang bears closely on that of the entire surrounding region, and stability in Central and South Asia would in turn promote the enduring peace and common prosperity of all countries there. ... Historially, Xinjiang was known for its...

SNIPPET: "BEIJING - THREE Uighur men tried to incite other Muslims to launch a 'jihad' and attacked a mosque security guard before police shot and killed two of them, state media reported on Tuesday. The incident began when around 150 Muslims were praying in a mosque in Urumqi, the capital of the northwest Xinjiang region on Monday, Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed imam who was giving a service at the time. One man stood up and tried to take over the prayers but was stopped, the imam told Xinhua. A few minutes later the man reportedly stood up...

China has demanded that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retract his accusation that Beijing practised genocide against ethnic Uighurs. Mr Erdogan made the comments after riots in the Muslim Uighur heartland of Xinjiang in which 184 people died. Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, is under heavy police and military control. UK-based analysts say al-Qaeda-linked militants in Algeria have called for reprisals against Chinese workers in the wake of the violence. China's rejection of Mr Erdogan's remarks came in an editorial headlined "Don't twist facts" in the English-language newspaper China Daily. It said the fact that 137 of the 184 victims of...

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You see the Chinese flag has five stars. Each of the five stars represents an ethnic group that is supposed to compose the Chinese nation. These five stars represent the Han Chinese, the Turks of Xinjiang, Tibetans, Manchurians, and Mongolians. The ideology is so that just like you have Chinese-Americans in the United States, you have a Chinese nation of multiple ethnic groups, including Koreans. But, they don't get a star (But, of course, the crucial difference would be that Chinese-Americans willingly migrated to the United States whereas those five groups outside of Manchurians, who for all practical purposes no...

An oil tank exploded at a chemical plant in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's restive Xinjiang region, on Sunday morning, the official Xinhua News Agency reported quoting firefighters. No casualties have been reported so far and the cause is being investigated, the report said. The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. at a refinery of China National Petroleum Corp. in northern Urumqi, Xinhua quoted city firefighters as saying.

As the situation in Xinjiang calms down, people from across China discuss the cause of the unrest and the impact it might have on social stability in the future. Harry He, tradesman, Xian Uighurs believe this is their land, and it is. But Han Chinese have been settling down there since the Tang dynasty, when the Silk Route opened up new cities and new opportunities. Maybe the Chinese did rule Xinjiang with an iron first. But we are learning the lesson. Things have already got better for ethnic minorities. In some ways, they enjoy more privileges. For example I have...

What was once a grocery shop is now a blackened mess. Two boys in shorts and singlets play in the rubble but the usual occupants are absent. Five days ago a Han Chinese family was butchered in this small shop — victims of the Uighurs who rampaged through Urumqi. Yu Dongzhi described how he clawed through the smoking ruins of the store to search for the family who lived there. He hoped to find his sister, Yu Xinli; her husband, Zhang Mingying; their 13-year-old son; her elderly mother-in-law; and a nephew aged 27. The police helped him to dig among...

On Wednesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan announced his country will ask the UN Security Council to discuss the ethnic rioting that has scarred China’s Xinjiang region this week. Then he upped the rhetoric. “The incidents in China are, simply put, a genocide,” Erdogan said on Friday. “There’s no point in interpreting this otherwise.” On July 5, a peaceful demonstration by the local Uighurs,Turkic Muslims,apparently triggered a savage reaction by Chinese police, and that led to bloody clashes between enraged Uighurs and Hans, members of the majority ethnic group in China. The disturbances started in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang,and...

Thousands of angry ethnic Han Chinese wielding clubs and machetes roamed this capital city of Xinjiang territory and engaged in sporadic revenge attacks against Uighurs after deadly riots Sunday. The fresh unrest prompted Chinese President Hu Jintao to fly home early Wednesday from Italy, where he had been scheduled to attend the meeting of the Group of Eight leading nations. His sudden departure from such a high-profile international event underlined the severity of the challenge the Xinjiang violence presents to China's leadership. In Urumqi, authorities imposed a curfew and security forces tried to keep the two ethnic groups apart in...

Most of us have read about Muslims rioting in numerous European countries. When the riots were over, Muslims who were in them were basically free to go about their business. Not in China. China arrests 1,434 after deadly Xinjiang riots By WILLIAM FOREMAN URUMQI, China – Police have arrested 1,434 suspects in connection with the worst ethnic violence in decades in China's western Xinjiang region, which killed at least 156 people, state media reported Tuesday.

State-run Chinese media say police have arrested 1,434 suspects in the deadly ethnic riots in the western Xinjiang region. Officials released no other details. The White House says it is deeply concerned over the deadly violence in and has called for restraint. Chinese officials say at least 156 people were killed and more than 800 hurt in riots between ethic Uighurs and police in Xinjiang. Monday's fighting grew out of what witnesses say was a peaceful anti-government protest by Uighurs Sunday. No one is sure what led the march to explode into violence. But Chinese officials accuse exiled Uighur groups...

                                                                                                                                 

140 slain as Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city Eight hundred people are injured and hundreds are reported arrested in Urumqi. The Uighur demonstrators were protesting against racial discrimination. By Barbara Demick July 6, 2009 Firefighters are seen dousing a bus in Urumqi, the main city in Xinjiang, where China's ethnic Uighur minority is concentrated. Eight hundred people were injured and hundreds held as demonstrations against racial discrimination erupted into street violence. (Shen Qiao / New China News Agency / July 5, 2009) Reporting from Beijing - China's worst ethnic violence in years broke out Sunday in the...

Here is the latest update on the "Muslims Rioting in China" article. China state media says 129 killed in riots in west BEIJING – Chinese state media says that 129 people have been killed and more than 800 hurt in violence in the country's western Xinjiang region.

More than 100 people have been killed and 800 injured in a riot which broke out in the ethnically sensitive far-Western Chinese province of Xinjiang. The death-toll, which stands at 129, marks a major escalation in the casualty figures from the disturbance which broke out on Sunday night after police tried to disperse a demonstration by members of the Uighur Muslim minority in the provincial capital, Urumqi. Initial reports said that just three people had been killed in running battles with police that left burned-out cars and buses and several smashed shop-fronts. Xinhua, the state-operated news service, did not provide...

Rioters in China's far west Xinjiang region burned vehicles and blocked traffic in the regional capital Urumqi, and police rushed to the scene to impose order, the state news agency reported on Sunday. Restive Xinjiang is divided between the largely Muslim Uighur people and Han Chinese...

China uncovered seven "terror cells" in the western frontier city of Kashgar in the first four months of 2009, the China Daily said on Wednesday, citing the city's party secretary. The historic oasis city in the arid region of Xinjiang is home to the Muslim Uighurs, an ethnic group that often chafes under Chinese rule and resents an influx of Han Chinese workers from central China. The area borders Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as central Asian states.

April 20, 2009 TG-92 "Treasury Targets Leader of Group Tied to Al Qaida" SNIPPET: "Washington, DC – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today targeted al Qaida's support network by designating Abdul Haq, the overall leader and commander of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (ETIP), a terrorist organization designated under E.O. 13224 for its support to al Qaida. E.O. 13224 targets terrorists and those providing financial, technological, or material support to terrorists or acts of terrorism by freezing the assets of designated persons and prohibiting transactions with them. This Treasury action follows a decision by the United Nations Security Council's...

30,000 Han Chinese migrants pour into East Turkistan per day 2009-02-23 “while China forcibly transferring Uyghur women to inland China for slavery labor with the excuse of providing them job opportunity, while China implementing strict birth control policy on Uyghurs with the excuse of population control, thousands of Han Chinese migrants pour into East Turkistan per day and Chinese government are actively adjusting transport capacity to better serve these Chinese migrants.” Said Uyghur Uyghur Women who recently escaped from East Turkistan. ETIC learned that Chinese government strongly helping these migrants and providing them employment opportunity as well to attract more...

Uighurs threatened with family liability by security forces – children too are being arrested Göttingen, 27. August 2008 A new wave of arrests is rolling against the Moslem Uighurs in the north-west of China according to information received by the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV). Family liability is the order of the day and even children are being arrested. "About 150 children have been held for days in the Ba Jia Hu prison in the capital of the Autonomous region of Xinjiang because they took part in instruction on Islam”, reported the GfbV Asia expert, Ulrich Delius, on Wednesday in...