The Wall Street Journal, 27 June 2013

BEIJING—Knife-wielding mobs attacked police stations and a local government building in the far west Xinjiang region in fresh clashes that have left 27 people dead, according to state media, the second major spate of unrest in the ethnically divided region since April.

The official Xinhua news agency said Wednesday nine police officers and security guards and eight civilians were killed early Wednesday in Xinjiang’s remote Lukqun township, located about 125 miles, or 200 kilometers, southeast of the regional capital Urumqi in Turpan prefecture. The news agency, quoting unnamed Communist Party officials, said police opened fire and killed 10 of the rioters.

Details of what sparked the latest clash remain unclear, and the government’s account couldn’t be independently verified. Local police, government officials and residents either declined to comment or couldn’t be reached. A spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday relevant departments were still attempting to collect details from the incident.

Xinjiang, with its heavy population of Uighurs, has long been a site of deadly clashes between Han Chinese and members of the ethnic group, some of whom have waged an at-times violent campaign for regional independence.

China’s government has worked to crack down on “three evil forces,” including what it calls separatism, extremism and terrorism, and has also linked some of the recent unrest to movements abroad.

Interethnic clashes have picked up in recent years as scores of Han Chinese flooded the region on the back of government efforts to promote economic development there. Official figures have estimated that 46% of the region’s population is Uighur. Wednesday’s Xinhua report didn’t give identities or ethnicity of those involved in the latest unrest.

The region has been on edge since 2009 clashes in Urumqi left nearly 200 people dead. More recently, 21 died in the region’s far west Kashgar prefecture in April, after police clashed with a group they said were devising homemade explosives.

Security officials said the group had links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, also known as ETIM, which it says has ties to al Qaeda and other overseas terrorist organizations. Nur Bekri, Xinjiang’s governor, said during a legislative session last year that the Chinese government believed some East Turkestan activists were tied to extremists in neighboring Pakistan.

“It is a political fight between separatism and antiseparatism, and between safeguarding the national unity and undermining the national unity,” said Mr. Bekri following the April clash. “We will leave no room for compromises and concessions.”

Outbursts of violence in Xinjiang threaten the region’s economic development, which continues to witness double-digit annual rises in gross domestic product even as growth across much of the country moderates.

That is being spurred in part by investment in the region’s massive resource reserves, including coal and gas, which are needed for power consumption in the more densely populated east. The World Coal Association has said 40% of China’s coal resources are located in the region.

Such investment parallels recent efforts by the Chinese government to spend billions of dollars on new roads and railways, which it hopes will prompt greater trade with China’s neighbors and development for the region and dampen unrest over time. However, continuing violence has highlighted how an influx of Han entrepreneurs alongside a stiff police presence in the region has in many cases exacerbated tensions.
—Olivia Geng contributed to this article.

Write to Brian Spegele at [email protected]

A version of this article appeared June 27, 2013, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Deadly Riots Rock China’s West Again.

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