The New Dominion

UPDATE: Xinhua claims that the Urumqi authorities dispatched 20,000 police and military personnel to quell the riots. They used “tear gas grenades, stun grenades, and high-pressure water guns” on the demonstrators. Others have suggested that they were fired upon.

According to Xinhua, yesterday’s riots in Urumqi resulted in 140 deaths and 828 injured. The death toll is “expected to rise.” When Americans went to bed last night, the death toll was three, including two bystanders and one member of the riot police. Xinhua reports that the rapid rise is due to the recovery of some 57 bodies from the streets of Urumqi and the death of many of the injured at area hospitals. The Wall Street Journal reports a more conservative 20 to 30, but it is unclear when they received that figure.

The international Uyghur community has offered an alternative explanation, suggesting that Chinese riot police were shooting into the crowds.

It is difficult to judge the truth of the situation at this time. I would note that last year’s Lhasa riots, which went on for days, resulted in an official death toll of 22.

Xinhua reports that hundreds of suspected demonstrators have been arrested. It is not unreasonable to suggest that some have died in police custody.

Travel restrictions imposed last night have continued through several parts of southern Urumqi, as well as the nearby cities of Changji and Turpan.

The map below shows where riots and destruction have been reported, as well as two of the streets where travel restrictions have still been imposed. This should give a sense of where the actions occurred.

View Urumchi Protests, 5 July 2009 in a larger map

The official response to these incidents has been trite and out of touch. Xinjiang Chairman Nur Bekri’s speech yesterday blamed the riots on the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism and on the influence of outside organizations, in particular Rebiya Kadeer and the Uyghur World Congress. While the government seems to acknowledge the role of the 26 June incident in Shaoguan, Guangdong in inciting Uyghurs to action, it has refused once again to publicly face up to real social, economic, and political problems that face Xinjiang and its people. Instead, Nur Bekri, who just three days ago announced the first cellular phone capable of texting in Uyghur, provided a panicked public with a polemic about “ethnic unity” and “development” reminiscent of Hu Jintao’s “Eight Goods and Eight Bads” or perhaps Bobby Jindal’s response to the State of the Union Address. Informing people that “doing ethnic unity well” will lead to “development” and that this is “good” – and that “when ethnic unity is destroyed,” it will “not lead to development” and that this is “bad” – presents the poor, hungry, scared, and angry with an abstract ideological syllogism stocked with several variable and abstract concepts. You can’t eat ethnic unity.

The moment a protest turns violent, it loses its ability to affect institutional change. It is very unfortunate for the rights of Uyghurs and others that this protest, which appears to have begun peacefully, ended in this much destruction. To me, this demonstrates once again that Uyghurs have no voice of their own in the Chinese government. Nur Bekri is the head of a region, not of a people, and very loyal to the PRC. There is a large body of Uyghur intellectuals capable of articulating a mobilizing ideology, but no framework for their organization. This is partly due to preexisting conditions of Xinjiang’s history and social organization and partly due to the PRC government’s quashing of any independent social movements.

There is frequent coverage of this incident in the international media today.

Sources:

6 July 2009, Xinhua: 新疆维吾尔自治区主席努尔•白克力谈乌鲁木齐打砸抢烧严重暴力犯罪事件

6 July 2009, Xinhua: Commentary: Riot a catastrophe for Xinjiang

6 July 2009, Xinhua: Death toll in Xinjiang riot rises to 140

6 July 2009, Xinhua: Order partially restored in violence-plagued Urumqi, situation still tense

6 July 2009, BBC: Scores killed in China protests

6 July 2009, Wall Street Journal: Muslim Minority Riots Erupt in China’s West