Dozens Injured in Blast in Capital of China’s Xinjiang Region
The Wall Street Journal, 30 April 2014
SHANGHAI—An explosion injured dozens of people at a railway station in the capital of western China’s Xinjiang region Wednesday, hours after President Xi Jinping used a rare tour there to demonstrate his government’s commitment to combating terrorism.
An explosion shook the Urumqi South Railway Station in northwest China’s Xinjiang region Wednesday just hours after President Xi Jinping wrapped up a four-day visit to the area. Associated Press
The blast occurred just after 7 p.m. and injured at least 50 people, according to the Xinhua news agency and other state media. One photo distributed by state media showed a street littered with debris and abandoned suitcases.
A man answering the phone in the public security bureau office at the southern train station, the region’s largest, in the city of Urumqi confirmed the explosion. “Yes, a blast happened not long ago, but we are busy arranging rescue efforts so I can’t say any more now,” the man said before hanging up.
State media, which issued only brief dispatches about the blast, did not identify its source but Xinhua said it was powerful and appeared to originate around suitcases left near the station exit. A spokeswoman for the Xinjiang government could not be reached for comment.
Xinjiang has seen widespread ethnic violence in recent years between some members of the Turkic-speaking, mainly Muslim group called Uighurs and the China’s dominant Han ethnic group, which largely controls the government and police.
Information flow out of Xinjiang is often limited. State broadcaster China Central Television only reported the president’s four-day visit there in Wednesday evening’s broadcast when it was over—and around the time the blast occurred.
Mr. Xi’s visit to Xinjiang—his first there since becoming China’s leader and its military chief in late 2012—followed recent acts of violence outside Xinjiang that the government has blamed on the region’s separatists. Those included a stabbing spree two months ago that left over 30 dead at a train station in the southern city Kunming and a jeep’s explosion in October on a sidewalk adjacent to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
While in Xinjiang, Mr. Xi visited army bases and special forces with orders to “strike first” at terrorists. Early Wednesday he was at a hotel some 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) from the Urumqi railway station to honor local workers but is thought to have left the city by the afternoon.
If authorities determine Wednesday’s explosion was a bomb, the timing and location would suggest an ability to strike for maximum impact: In addition to Mr. Xi’s visit, Wednesday marked the eve of a long May Day holiday weekend that in Urumqi was to include a ceremony to mark the opening of a new intra-province rail system.
“If you can conduct attacks at symbolically important times you are choosing your own targets,” said Philip B. K. Potter, an expert on terrorism at the University of Michigan. “That shows capacity.”
On his tour, Mr. Xi visited a frontier base in the Silk Road city Kashgar near the border with Pakistan and reviewed antiterrorist drills. Mr. Xi was quoted in state media as saying local police should have effective means to counter terrorists, a reference to recent plans in several Chinese cities to arm more officers with guns.
Xinjiang is already one of the most locked-down places in China. If Wednesday’s blast was deliberate, “It will be seen as a failure of the security services,” said Andrew Small, a fellow with the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank in Washington.
In Kashgar, Mr. Xi made visited a primary school where he encouraged Han teachers to learn the Uighur language and said ethnic minority children shouldn’t neglect Chinese, the nation’s mother tongue, in hopes of promoting national unity.
The language used by Mr. Xi echoed similar statements by past Chinese leaders who have failed to address deeper problems in local society, said Alim Seytoff, a spokesman for an exile group, the World Uyghur Congress. He added, “even Mao Zedong had pictures taken with Uighur farmers.”
—Yang Jie in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to James T. Areddy at [email protected]