16 Chinese Border Guards killed in Xinjian

[Falkenhayn]

+http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26003627/

Grenade attack kills 16 in China ahead of Games
Blast hits police at border station in frontier region home to dissidents
BREAKING NEWS
Reuters
updated 9:23 p.m. PT, Sun., Aug. 3, 2008

BEIJING - A police station in China's restive Xinjiang region was attacked on Monday morning, four days before the Beijing Olympics begin, killing 16 officers and wounding 12, state media reported.

"Rioters drove two vehicles to break into the border patrol armed police division" near Kashgar and threw two grenades, Xinhua reported.

The brief report did not describe the attackers. But the Xinjiang region in the far northwest has been at the heart of China's security fears leading up the Olympics, which begin in four days.

Xinjiang is home to a large Uighur Muslim population, many of them discontent under strict Chinese rule. Some Uighur groups are campaigning for an independent homeland for their Turkic-speaking people.

Kashgar in Xinjiang's south is dominated by Uighurs, many of them pious Muslims.

China says it has foiled terror plots targeting this month's Beijing Olympics and in the first six months of the year police detained 82 people in Xinjiang for plotting to sabotage the Games, according to state media.

Beijing has given mixed signals on the terror threat from Xinjiang.

It has accused militant Uighurs of working with al-Qaida to bring about an independent state called East Turkestan, but it denied claims by a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party that it was responsible for a series of bus bombings around the country.

Senior Colonel Tian Yixiang, China's top military officer in charge of Olympics security, said on Friday "East Turkestan terrorist groups" were the greatest threat to Games security, with lesser threats coming from Tibetan separatists and the exiled spiritual group, the Falun Gong.

This story will be updates as details become available.

Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for restrictions.

[Sea Skimmer]

A lot of stuff goes on out in Xinjiang; I’m sure plenty of attacks have occurred that western press never even heard a peep of. The place is remote as hell after all, and connected to the rest of China by just one railway line, which until recently only reached a small part of the region to begin with. That said the separatist movement is hopeless and pointless, the only Chinese response is just going to be to ship ever more easterners into the region until the local culture is totally obliterated. The local population meanwhile will be too busy making shoes and keyboards to put up any fight about it.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

A lot of stuff goes on out in Xinjiang; I’m sure plenty of attacks have occurred that western press never even heard a peep of. The place is remote as hell after all, and connected to the rest of China by just one railway line, which until recently only reached a small part of the region to begin with. That said the separatist movement is hopeless and pointless, the only Chinese response is just going to be to ship ever more easterners into the region until the local culture is totally obliterated. The local population meanwhile will be too busy making shoes and keyboards to put up any fight about it.

Pretty much the same thing done with Tibet, only thing different is that it's Buddhism, and there's silly Hollywood hooha over Tibet, while Xinjiang is Muslim, which makes it perfectly fine in some quarters for the Chinese to do what they want.

[Sidewinder]

The Uighurs seem to be overlooking a VERY IMPORTANT FACT: China is NOT the US or Western Europe, there are NO bleeding heart liberal who can sympathize with their plight, compare them to George Washington, and demand the government (and the military) to treat them "fairly." There is NOTHING to stop the Chinese government from doing what the British did to win the Second Boer War: march an entire army (group) to Xinjian, scorch (Uighur) earth to starve them out, herd Uighur women, children, and the elderly into concentration camps, and stomp throughout Xinjian killing anyone and everyone who resists.

[Sidewinder]

Ghetto edit: misspelled "Xinjiang."

[Adrian Laguna]

There is NOTHING to stop the Chinese government from doing what the British did to win the Second Boer War: march an entire army (group) to Xinjian, scorch (Uighur) earth to starve them out, herd Uighur women, children, and the elderly into concentration camps, and stomp throughout Xinjian killing anyone and everyone who resists.

Actually, there is, it's called the Western Press, and the Chinese government doesn't like to look bad in it. Not that it matters, the Chinese will happily subject them to demographic warfare, and they'll win too. They are like slow acting Borg: All will be assimilated, resistance if futile.

[thejester]

The Uighurs seem to be overlooking a VERY IMPORTANT FACT: China is NOT the US or Western Europe, there are NO bleeding heart liberal who can sympathize with their plight, compare them to George Washington, and demand the government (and the military) to treat them "fairly." There is NOTHING to stop the Chinese government from doing what the British did to win the Second Boer War: march an entire army (group) to Xinjian, scorch (Uighur) earth to starve them out, herd Uighur women, children, and the elderly into concentration camps, and stomp throughout Xinjian killing anyone and everyone who resists.

I would have thought they might take some heart from that example given that ~50 years after British 'victory' they fucked off and the Boers ended up in control.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Actually, there is, it's called the Western Press, and the Chinese government doesn't like to look bad in it. Not that it matters, the Chinese will happily subject them to demographic warfare, and they'll win too. They are like slow acting Borg: All will be assimilated, resistance if futile.

Well, China could paint the Muslims as Islamic terrorists and might just get away with it.

[EmperorChrostas the Cruel]

How many divisions does the Pope, er, Press have? How much they care about the western press will only go so far.
Moral shame and bad press has a very limited amount of push to it in countries that don't have elections.

[Sidewinder]

How many divisions does the Pope, er, Press have? How much they care about the western press will only go so far.
Moral shame and bad press has a very limited amount of push to it in countries that don't have elections.

Actually, shame and reputation are VERY IMPORTANT factors in Chinese social relationships; see Confucius.

The Chinese government will NOT ignore its image in the Western media as they prepare to open a keg of whoopass on the Uighurs; they'll try to manipulate the media into equating the Uighur separatists with al-Qaida, reminding the West of the "us versus them" struggle between it and Muslim terrorists, with the Uighur separatists as "one of them" and the Chinese as "one of us" (Western allies).

Besides, the US was a democratic nation during the Indian Wars, but that didn't stop the government and the military from committing mass murder after mass murder in their attempt to "civilize" the west; during the Indian Wars, many (white) Americans thought the natives "deserved it" for assaulting, robbing, raping, and killing (white) settlers.

[Gil Hamilton]

Chances are if the Chinese government is going to put their boot through the faces of the local population there, they are going to wait until after the Olympics have packed up to do it. However, nothing stops them from shipping a few million ethnic Chinese out there and squash them that way. The Western media doesn't seem to care that much.

After all, I recall seeing in the press that China relocated over a million people for the Olympics and there wasn't THAT big of a reaction to it.

[Pelranius]

Or the Chinese could just play divide and rule in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs before the Qing came in were the top dogs in the region, so the Hui, Mongols, Krygzs, Tajiks, Kazaks et al aren't too fond of them either. The Uyghurs consist of a plurality in the province (I think Han is the second largest ethnicity there).

[[R_H]]

Or the Chinese could just play divide and rule in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs before the Qing came in were the top dogs in the region, so the Hui, Mongols, Krygzs, Tajiks, Kazaks et al aren't too fond of them either. The Uyghurs consist of a plurality in the province (I think Han is the second largest ethnicity there).

According to the news tonight, the Han make up slightly more than 50% of the population. Is it possible to get any census data on ehtnicity from Xinjiang province?

[Pelranius]

Or the Chinese could just play divide and rule in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs before the Qing came in were the top dogs in the region, so the Hui, Mongols, Krygzs, Tajiks, Kazaks et al aren't too fond of them either. The Uyghurs consist of a plurality in the province (I think Han is the second largest ethnicity there).

According to the news tonight, the Han make up slightly more than 50% of the population. Is it possible to get any census data on ehtnicity from Xinjiang province?

The estimates might vary depending on how one defines Xinjiang (the Tibetan independence people used "Greater" Tibet populations statistics, which is how they were able to claim that the Tibetans were a "minority") and also if migrant workers (who are usually Han) were counted in the survey (the PRC official surveys usually treat migrant workers as residents of their hometown, never mind if they haven't been there since grade school).

[Stargate Nerd]

Or the Chinese could just play divide and rule in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs before the Qing came in were the top dogs in the region, so the Hui, Mongols, Krygzs, Tajiks, Kazaks et al aren't too fond of them either. The Uyghurs consist of a plurality in the province (I think Han is the second largest ethnicity there).

You really think that the Mongols etc. have been holding that grudge since the 17th century?

[Pelranius]

Or the Chinese could just play divide and rule in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs before the Qing came in were the top dogs in the region, so the Hui, Mongols, Krygzs, Tajiks, Kazaks et al aren't too fond of them either. The Uyghurs consist of a plurality in the province (I think Han is the second largest ethnicity there).

You really think that the Mongols etc. have been holding that grudge since the 17th century?

Well, if the people in the Balkans can do it, then so can people over there. They also had a chance to reenact history from between 1911 to 1949 when the locals pretty much had a free hand.