Who does terrorism in Xinjiang really target?
- By Jian Ji
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 4, 2014
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A video grab shows ethnic Uygur men carrying sticks as they stand guard on July 27. They helped police corner fleeing terrorists in Moyu county of Hotan prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [CCTV via China Daily] |
Jume Tahir, 74, of the Id Kah Mosque in the city of Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was murdered by three terrorists at 6:58 a.m. on July 30 after he finished hosting morning prayer rituals.
Two days earlier, 37 civilians were killed and another 13 were injured in a terrorist attack in Shache County, Kashgar Prefecture. The heavy casualties of this attack make it the most deadly terrorist incident in the region since the 7/5 Incident in 2009. In response to the attack, police have killed 59 terrorists and arrested 215 others.
Why do the authorities fail to suppress these spates of terrorist attacks, which tend only to intensify? Why is terrorism still so difficult to counter even though anti-terrorism measures have been enacted?
The Chinese central government has always paid a great deal of attention to the economic and cultural development of Xinjiang. They have maintained such efforts into the present day, as the central authorities gather resources from throughout the nation to support Xinjiang's growth, protect local cultures, improve people's living conditions, and create other favorable policies and services.
In contact between Han and other ethnic groups – primarily the Uygur ethnic group – in Xinjiang, the government underscores "preserving unity among different ethnic groups," which often results in compromise and concession on the part of ethnic Han Chinese.
This care and goodwill has failed to be greeted with reciprocal gestures from extremists in Xinjiang, who spread hateful opinions in order to deceive people from different ethnic groups into believing that the benefits they receive from the central authorities are a repayment of "the country's debt to them." Those few people who are successfully misled, in addition to considering "compensation" justifiable, demand that Uygurs be deemed superior to all other ethnic groups in the nation.
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