The latest victims of the global financial crisis are casualties of the violent unrest sweeping China’s minority enclaves—most recently in Xinjiang, where Muslim Uighurs constitute the largest single ethnic group. China is still booming nationwide, but many export-dependent cities are hurting, so it’s no wonder that last week’s riots had roots in coastal Guangdong, the source of about one third of China’s exports. Earlier this year a Guangdong toy factory shipped in 800 Uighur workers as part of a government affirmative-action program. This angered Han Chinese workers, who did not receive the same access to free room and board as the Uighurs did. In June, a resentful Han worker spread rumors that Uighur workers had raped two Han women, according to state media. In revenge, a Han mob attacked Uighur workers, and as authorities dithered in arresting the attackers, Uighurs in Xinjiang took to the streets in protests that ended in violence.
The recent bloodshed was China’s most serious civil turmoil since 1989, when worries over inflation and official corruption were a key trigger for the Tiananmen protests and subsequent crackdown. Now, even though inflation isn’t a problem, perceptions of inequality are creating deep social rifts in China. The country has seen a sharp uptick in grassroots unrest: in 2008 the state reported 70,000 “mass incidents,” an increase of nearly 50 percent since 2005. In Xinjiang, race-based economic grievances play out across a huge canvas—the region constitutes nearly one sixth of the country’s land mass. Many Han believe Uighurs are ungrateful for the treatment they get from Beijing, including preferential job placement, less rigorous requirements on college-entrance exams, and less strict enforcement of the one-child-per-family rule.
Uighurs, in turn, see their livelihoods threatened by Beijing’s calls on Han Chinese to “go west” and develop Xinjiang. Since 1949, the Han have grown from 6 percent to more than 40 percent of Xinjiang’s population. Even many well-off Uighurs are now critical of Beijing. Former entrepreneur Rebiya Kadeer—once touted by Beijing as the richest woman in China—says she was a big government backer until she realized official policies were designed to “keep many Uighurs poor and badly educated.” After Kadeer publicly criticized religious curbs and prison abuses in Xinjiang, she was jailed in 1999 on charges of revealing state secrets; when she was released in 2005, she was immediately flown into exile in the United States.
Last week Chinese Netizens vented angrily against the economic breaks given to Tibetan and Uighur minorities, especially now that provinces with large minority populations are receiving a generous share of stimulus funds. With economic competition intensifying, any hint of unequal treatment is likely to trigger more resentment at the grassroots, regardless of race. This is shaping up to be a long, hot summer for the Beijing regime.
