China’s far western region of Xinjiang opened its largest ever trade fair yesterday, but a marked absence of Uighurs, who call the region home, underscored the challenge facing the government in addressing the root economic causes of unrest.
China has ramped up security in the regional capital, Urumqi, for the China Eurasia Expo, sending armed police units to patrol the city’s old quarter, heavily populated by Uighurs, which erupted in bloody ethnic violence two years ago that killed about 200 people.
Since 2009, Beijing has turned its attention to boosting development in Xinjiang and providing greater job opportunities for Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people, many of whom chafe at Chinese rule and restrictions on their culture.
“It’s very difficult being a Uighur-owned business,” said Weili Maimaitiaili of Dastur, an Urumqi-based maker of herbal tonics that employs just seven people.
The expo is part of ambitious plans to turn gritty and often polluted Urumqi into a trading hub between China and Central Asia, and hopefully address the economic disenfranchisement felt by Uighurs under the influx of majority Han Chinese migrants.
Walking around the nearly 8km2 expo site, centered on a vast exhibition hall in a remote northern part of Urumqi, what most stands out most amongst the gray officials and the gleaming machinery is a lack of Uighur business people.
“Look around — there are hardly any of us here,” Maimaitiaili said in slightly accented Mandarin. “We have no money for advertising and cannot even think about marketing anywhere outside of Xinjiang at the moment. Most of the Xinjiang companies you see here are owned by Han.”
Other Uighurs at the expo appeared to be either reporters for state-owned media or government officials.
At the stand for Kashgar, an old Silk Road city in southern Xinjiang, officials struggled to find a single Uighur to talk to the media.
“We’ve got lots more people coming, including Uighur compatriots. Everyone has been stuck in traffic jams caused by all the extra security today,” said Jia Tingyi, an ethnic Han from a remote Kashgar county.
Others said they thought recent violence in Kashgar, as well as the nearby city of Hotan, and reports of thwarted attacks on the Urumqi trade fair had made the government nervous about letting too many Uighurs attend.
“You’d have thought there would be more of us here. It is supposed to be our autonomous region,” said one Uighur official, who asked not to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the situation. “It’s probably the recent events.”
Government leaders have lauded the expo as leverage for economic development.
Nur Bekri, Xinjiang’s governor and a Uighur himself, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying the event had “important meaning for promoting Xinjiang’s development.”
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, guest of honor at the opening ceremony, said it was important to remember the economic causes of terrorism.
“Poverty and economic injustice are closely linked to terrorism. Pakistan understands this relationship perhaps better than any other country,” he told an audience that included Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang (李克強).
Still, the Uighur entrepreneurs who did speak to reporters said the government was starting to make it easier for them to operate and was actively supporting their development.
“It used to be almost impossible to get bank loans,” said Ayxam Yiming, a manager at Xingbao Fruit Products, a “proudly Uighur” maker of preserved and dried fruit from southern Xinjiang’s Korla region.
“It’s much better now. Xinjiang’s leadership is very focused on agricultural products and our quality is top notch,” she said, noting that almost all her company’s staff were Uighur.
Asked to point out the other Uighur-owned companies in the food products section of the exhibition hall, she looked puzzled.
“I think there’s one behind us, though I’ve not seen anyone in the booth yet,” she said. “We Uighur companies are quite a rare sight here.”
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
RSS