China's Far West provinces (inc. Tibet)

[Fuchs]

You can expect to have many anecdotes and episodes in a 1+ billion people nation. It takes statistics to improve observations.

[bourbon]

Yes, disturbances are a regular occurrence in rural China, but Xinjiang is a flashpoint. Xinjiang is going to be China’s future Achilles Heel, if it isn’t already.

[davidbfpo]

On ICSR's blog 'Jihad in China', which opens with;

Islamist terrorism and extremism in China is a very difficult subject to research. A general sense of paranoia casts a shadow over the it and a great paucity in direct and accurate information means that people often have very little that is empirical or tangible to add.

None of this is to say that the problem does not exist.

(Ends with)It seems that there is some sort of a terrorist threat to China from violent Islamist networks. But what remains unclear is to what degree this threat is able to conduct any sorts of operations within China or to what degree al Qaeda and affiliate networks are able (or want) to manipulate it for their own ends. Currently, the jihad in China seems more aspirational than operational. At the same time, if events in Hotan are confirmed, it looks like the tinderbox of ethnic friction and disenfranchisement that might offer an outlet for such extremism to latch on to continues to exist.

Link:http://icsr.info/blog/Jihad-in-China

[davidbfpo]

China has said Islamic extremists were behind an attack on the eve of the Muslim fasting month in the restive western region of Xinjiang that left 11 people dead....

An initial police investigation found that the leaders of the group behind the attack had learned about explosives and firearms in Pakistan at a camp of the separatist "East Turkestan Islamic Movement," it said.

Police shot dead five people and arrested four others after they stormed a restaurant, set in on fire after killing the owner and a waiter, and then ran onto the street and hacked to death four people, Xinhua news agency reported.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-violence.html

I accept the only report cited is the official PRC news agency, although there are usually travellers in Kashgar travelling along the Karakoram Highway to Pakistan.

What is more interesting is the attack on a restaurant and the murders in the street. Extreme violence face to face and I expect in the knowledge there is no escape is not a good sign. My knowledge of the region is poor, could this be the first suicide terrorist attack? So breaking "the mould" and local, Muslim traditions?

There is a different BBC report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14356532

[bourbon]

What is more interesting is the attack on a restaurant and the murders in the street. Extreme violence face to face and I expect in the knowledge there is no escape is not a good sign. My knowledge of the region is poor, could this be the first suicide terrorist attack? So breaking "the mould" and local, Muslim traditions?

Much of the violence in Xinjiang in recent years - and many of the attacks ascribed to East Turkestan groups there, have been with edged weapons, blunt instruments, or crude incendiary devices. Contrast this with ETIM in Pakistan (and Afghanistan?) who appear to be supplied with small arms and explosives, and “ETIM” in Xinjiang looks like the junior-varsity B-squad.

[davidbfpo]

A backgrounder on the BBC by an academic on the troubles in Kashgar and Xinjiang Province; which ends with:

The dire situation of the Uighurs in Xinjiang is at the root of the conflict. Only when the real culprits - poverty, marginalisation and discrimination - are defeated can the conflict be satisfactorily resolved.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14384605

Alas political power rests far beyond the Uighurs. "Draining the swamp" is laudable, sadly too much weighs against anything happening.

[davidbfpo]

This thread was called 'China's Far West' and is a better home for recent posts on insurgency / terrorism/ public disorder in China's western provinces than the thread on China's emergence as a super power.

I've re-named this thread as 'China's Far West provinces: a Small War'. On reflection I've also left in the Central Asia forum, not Asia-Pacific where most threads on China appear.