I have been baffled in recent days by the media definition of the riots in China's Xinjiang region. Emphasis has been put on the fact of the 150 plus deaths and more than 2,000 injured but not on the fact that the victims were almost all Han Chinese. I have wondered why the media, especially the international media, has not used the term, "race riot" or some other means of describing the one-sided violence. Most photographs have been of Han Chinese with clubs out to get revenge or Uighur women crying over Uighur rioters who have been arrested. Chinese officials have been castigated for blaming outside influences, and sinister implications have been hinted at by the departure of Hu Jintao from the G8 meeting. One wonders why we saw thousands of images of the demonstrations on the streets of Tehran but hardly any from the scenes of the murders of Han Chinese at the hands of Uighur mobs.
In fact, Human Rights Watch (http://hrw.org/un/chr59/counter-terrorism-bck4.htm#P183_32636) reports this number in one day nearly exceeds all those killed since 1990 in the area in demonstrations. If we compare this reportage to riots in the USA we find a distinct difference. Following the Watts riot in LA which came 5 days after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, President Johnson blamed the rioters arguing that there was no justification for it. Out side agitators were often used as excused for African-American riots, especially in the South. This was especially true of Nixon who used riots in Afrian-American communities to fan political criticism of certain foes but especially African-American leaders (see Nixonland: The Rise of a President and teh Fracturing of America, by Rick Perlstein, 2008) Following the Miami riot in 1980 the Reagan led Republican Party used the disturbance again to blame the rioters and not the political system of discrimination. The same occurred with the Crown Heights riot of 1991 and LA riot of 1992. When one reads over the media discussions of these events we do not find the kind of criticism of US policy we find today with the media on Chinese events. We should define the nature of the crimes involved, race was an issue, the victims were almost all Han Chinese. Whether outside influences were involved, the pattern is clear how the media has chosen to communicate the events.
Present conditions of tension and violence are attributed to the opening of the Karakoram Highway by the Chinese and the liberalization of movement of Uighurs along it as well as economic opportunities (see Ziad Haider, "Sino-Pakistan Relations and Xinjiang's Uighurs" Asian Survey, v. 45, n. 4, 2005:522-545). Most scholars agree that the Uighurs have benefited economically immensely since the opening of the highway, establishing trade relations with Pakistanis and Uighurs who had fled to Pakistan from the USSR in the 1930s. Pakistani traders have traveled routinely to Xinjiang and Kashgar especially bringing the movies and music of Bollywood, and Indian products as well as radical Islamic politics (see M. Ehsan Ahrari, "China, Pakistan and the 'Taliban Syndrome'" Asian Survey, v. 40, n. 4, 2000:658-671). Large numbers of Uighurs have traveled to Mecca in the Hajj.
The highway was built by the Chinese to allow them to aid Pakistan in case of an Indian-Pakistan war. Global politics in the region is influenced by the introduction of modern farming that has transformed less productive traditional methods of the Uighurs with modern methods and resulted in vastly increased production that has caused conflicts between local farmers and the government. The same is true for discoveries of oil and minerals and smuggling of contraband and drugs.
Emphasis of the Western press on the "plight" of the Uighurs shadows the global economic, religious and political issues and has tended to shape world opinion in reaction to claimed Chinese discrimination. It should be kept in mind that the Uighurs are not indigenous to Xinjiang but only recent arrivals as the chief agriculturalists (see T.C. Chang, Hsin-chiang Min-chu Pien-hsuan chi Hsien-chuang, Eng., as "The Evolution and Present Situation of Hsin-chiang's Ethnic Groups" Taipei: Central Literary Contributions Society, 1954." The Uighurs probably arrived in Xinjiang some time a 1,000 years ago driven out of their native Mongolia by the Khirgiz (Y.S. Ch'i, Hsi-yi Yao-lueh, Eng. as "An Outline History of the Northwestn Regions," Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936 and supported by Soviet archaeology, A.L. Mongait, Archaeology in the USSR 1955.) But the Kalmuks and others (the northern area including the Ili Valley were occupied by the Mongols, the Ili Valley being the ordu or encampment of Ogotai, Genghis Khan's son during the Yuan or Mongol dynasty 1206-1368. In fact, China has had control or been the main political and economic force in the area for at least 2,000 years. The Tarim Basin was the main area of Uighur occupation and they are a minority among minorities in Xinjiang(see Herold J. Wiens, "Change in the ethnography and land use of the Ili Valley and region, Chinese Turkestan," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, v. 59, n. 4, Dec. 1969:753-775).