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

lessons, if any, the PLA/PAP and the Chinese government
in general may have derived from these past
internal security operations in Xinjiang are not clear.
Whatever those lessons may have been, they did not
prepare local authorities in Xinjiang for the massive
outbreak of violence that occurred in Urumqi in July
2009.
The demonstrations and rioting that took place
in Urumqi in July 2009 were sparked when tension
between Han Chinese and Uyghur workers at a toy
factory in Guangdong province’s Shaoguan city broke
out into violence. In the Shaoguan incident, rumors
that Uyghurs had raped Han Chinese women led a
number of Han men to attack their Uyghur co-workers
at the factory dormitory. A slow police response
allowed the violence to continue for some hours. At
least two Uyghur men were reported dead. 85 On the
afternoon of July 5, thousands of Uyghurs took to the
streets in Urumqi, ostensibly in protest over the Shaoguan
incident. 86 According to a timeline released by
the Chinese government, police responded quickly
to an initial protest of some 200 Uyghurs at People’s
Square, following an existing plan for handling mass
incidents, and taking 70 alleged protest leaders into
custody. 87
Subsequent gatherings of thousands of Uyghur
protestors and various points across the city, including
the Grand Bazaar and the South Gate, broke into
violence. According to both government and independent
reports, serious rioting began around 8:00 p.m.
Beijing time (6:00 p.m. in the unofficially observed
local time in Xinjiang). 88 It was at this point that the
police appear to have lost control. On the northern
edge of Urumqi’s Uyghur quarter, fighting broke out
between PAP troops and Uyghur demonstrators. In
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