Yelling “national unity” and “love our country” as he carried a heavy metal pipe, Bao Wei was one of hundreds of Han Chinese showing the raw power of Chinese nationalism in Xinjiang’s conflict.
“We are patriots. We are just out here to defend our country,” said Bao, a 22-year-old university student, as he and a group of about 25 ethnic Han roamed the tense streets of Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
Like thousands of other members of China’s dominant ethnic group, Bao was enraged by weekend rioting by Uighurs, a Muslim minority that has long complained of Chinese repression. At least 156 people died in the violence.
Nationalist feelings, which have surged in recent years in China, have bubbled to the surface in Urumqi’s unrest and become a rallying cry for many Han.
“We will keep the motherland unified even if we have to fight. China is one country,” Bao said.
In similar unrest in Tibet last year, Tibetans who despise Chinese rule attacked and killed Han. But in Urumqi, Chinese security forces that initially focused on protecting Han have had to quickly pivot, pouring in thousands of riot control forces to prevent mobs of Han wreaking vengeance.
Since China’s leaders discarded many tenets of communism three decades ago in their transition to capitalism, authorities have increasingly filled the rhetorical gap with appeals to patriotism.
After last year’s Tibet riots, China’s state-run media and the Internet were aflame with anger over perceived Western bias, and there has been debate among Chinese intellectuals calling for a more assertive China.
“We will not accept these separatists wrecking our national unity,” said Han Yi, an employee with an Urumqi courier company.
Han spoke as he watched a mob of about 200 Han, some holding small Chinese flags, chase several Uighur men on Wednesday, severely beating two of them.
“Do you know Chinese history? Then you know about our 100 years of shame,” he said, using the Chinese term for the century of domination by foreign powers that ended in 1949.
“The great Chinese people will always stand up for themselves from now on,” he said.
Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch, said such government tactics were both predictable and dangerous.
“It is throwing oil on the fire,” he said, adding that tension between the two ethnic groups appeared more pronounced among younger, poorer migrants into the city.
“The scapegoating of outside forces does not acknowledge some of the key reasons for anger among the Uighurs,” he said.
Chinese authorities seem to have been caught off-guard by the Han reaction.
In leaflets dropped over the Urumqi hot spots by helicopters this week, Wang Lequan (王樂泉) , the top Chinese official in Xinjiang, appealed specifically to the Han to stay calm.
“If the Han mobilize against innocent Uighur, not only is this wrong, but won’t it also upset all of the ethnic groups?” Wang, who is known for his tough rhetoric against Uighur “separatism,” said in the leaflet.
Even some Han residents of Urumqi expressed concern over the nationalist rhetoric.
“They are calling for unity of the motherland. But right now, everybody just needs to calm down,” said Yi Jing, a Han woman in her early 20s as she watched Wednesday’s mob attacks on Uighurs from a fast-food restaurant.
“Now I don’t think there will ever be unity between the Han and the Uighur,” she said.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
RSS