The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

XINJIANG: THE URUMQI RIOT
When it revised the draft armed police law to state
clearly that the PAP is responsible for handling “riots,
large-scale violent crimes, and terrorist attacks,” the
NPC SC was drawing not only on the experience of the
Lhasa riots, but also on the more recent serious rioting
in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region (XUAR). 79 Xinjiang, like the TAR, is an
area beset by deep-set ethnic tensions which are exacerbated
by Han Chinese migration into traditionally
non-Han areas, educational, religious, and economic
policies that often relegate Uyghurs to second-class
status (particularly in regards to economic opportunity),
and a pervasive underlying “great Han chauvinism”
which ascribes cultural and even moral inferiority
to Uyghur and other non-Han ethnic groups.
The Chinese military’s numbers, capabilities, and
internal security operations in Xinjiang are shrouded
in mystery. Historically, the central government has
maintained relatively low troop levels in Xinjiang,
and those troops units stationed in there were often of
inferior quality. 80 Currently, Xinjiang is a part of the
Lanzhou MR which is, then, responsible for both border
security and for any internal security challenges
that might arise in the XUAR. The military region’s
greatest internal security challenge is any expression
of ethnic unrest, including the activities of Uyghurs
advocating or taking action in support of greater autonomy
or even the separation of Xinjiang from the
PRC. In the post-September 11, 2001 (9-11) world, China
has, with some success, recast its struggle against
ethnic separatism (which has, thus far, been driven
more by Uyghur nationalism than by Islamic extremism)
as a part of the global war on terror.
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