【Bloomberg】 China’s Show of Force Brings Uneasy Truce to Urumqi After Riots

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China’s Show of Force Brings Uneasy Truce to Urumqi After Riots
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=arAIP4uic4Ac

By Bloomberg News
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- China’s city of Urumqi, scene of the nation’s worst ethnic violence in decades, was calm today as helicopters and thousands of security personnel enforced a truce between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese.

Three days of rioting and communal clashes in the northwestern province of Xinjiang forced President Hu Jintao to fly back early from the Group of Eight summit in Italy, where he was to have met U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders. Hu today told a meeting of the Politburo, China’s nine top leaders, that restoring stability was the top priority and at the same time signaling a hard line against rioters.

“We must severely punish the plotters, organizers and key participants in this riot, and the criminals who perpetrated this serious violence,” the Politburo said in a statement distributed by Xinhua News Agency.

The rioting laid bare fault lines in Chinese society, where minority groups such as Uighurs and Tibetans complain of discrimination and that the fruits of economic expansion have been unevenly distributed. Helicopters today made regular low- level flights over the main Uighur district and hundreds of police remained deployed to deter clashes.

“I was scared for four days but today is better,” said Abul-di-Jiang, a retired carpenter who lives in the main Uighur district that saw the worst of the violence.

At least 156 people died in the rioting that began July 5 when a largely peaceful demonstration spiraled out of control.
Rebiya Kadeer, head of the World Uyghur Congress, wrote in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that 400 Uighurs may have been killed by police, citing unidentified people in Xinjiang.

No Update

The government hasn’t given any breakdown of the casualties. Of the 274 people being treated in Urumqi’s People’s Hospital, 233 were Han, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on July 6, citing the head doctor.

The government also hasn’t updated its death toll since the afternoon of July 6. Since then, thousands of Han
Chinese armed with knives, clubs and metal bars marched on Uighur areas and gangs of vigilantes from both groups attacked each other.

Hu’s decision to leave the G-8, where leaders from the world’s biggest economies are gathered, reflects how significantly China views internal challenges to its leadership.

Hu’s return “sends a message of seriousness,” said Phil Deans,a professor of Asia Studies at Temple University in
Tokyo. “Some will certainly see it as a sign of weakness, and say that the Communist Party isn’t as strong as it used to be.”

The Chinese military yesterday sent 5,000 more reserve troops to Urumqi. Twenty-thousand security personnel and firefighters had earlier been deployed, Xinhua said.

The government today repeated claims that the riots were fomented by overseas Uighurs intent on challenging

Beijing’s rule in Xinjiang.

Kadeer

“Rebiya Kadeer exhorted the Uighurs to not be afraid of dying, and misled the world’s Uighurs to start mobilizing on July 5 and 6,” Hou Hanmin, the Xinjiang provincial government’s news director, said today. “Kadeer used the phone network and Internet chat rooms to mobilize her supporters.”

The government said it cut off Internet access in the city to prevent people from uploading photographs, statements and videos to inflame the situation.

Kadeer denied she had any role in the clashes.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Liu at jliu42@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 9, 2009 07:16 EDT

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