China denies this.
Pan Zhiping, a leading expert on racial issues at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, says the strike-hard campaign appears to be working.
"After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government very openly and clearly stated its opposition to separatism, religious extremism and terrorism," he said.
"Since then the Xinjiang people have become very clear on this policy.
"Right now Xinjiang is quiet, this has been so especially after 1997. No one wants to see chaos, no one wants to see innocent people dying on buses because of some separatist bomb."
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