Tuesday, July 14, 2009
China pre-emptive strike against Pakistan?
I was reading a couple of articles in the past few weeks in regards to what has been happening in the Xinjiang province of China. It is the western-most region in China, that borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and India's Leh District to the south and Qinghai and Gansu provinces to the southeast, Mongolia to the east, Russia to the north, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India to the west. And, because it borders so many different countries, it has one of the more ethnically diverse populations in China, as the province is almost 50% Uighur. The Uighurs are Muslims who speak a Turkic language and are ethnically different from China's majority Han. They once dominated Xinjiang, a vast region in western China, but Beijing has encouraged Han to move to the region to find work, so Uighurs now make up only about half the population.
Uighurs complain they face discrimination from the Han, and that the government restricts their religious practices, as well as travel. But Beijing argues the Uighurs receive benefits the Han do not, such as the right to have more than one child, and preferential university places.
Tensions still remain between Han Chinese and Uighur Muslims following last week's violence in Urumqi, the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region.
Chinese authorities say 184 people were killed in the unrest, 137 of them were ethnic Han. Some Han and Uighur people insist the riots were an aberration in an otherwise harmonious interracial city, but other Uighurs accuse authorities of longstanding discrimination against ethnic minority Muslims. The image of racial harmony in Urumqi is undercut by the government's need to deploy thousands of Chinese troops to bring quiet to the city's streets. Authorities arrested over 1,400 Uighurs following the riots. Since Sunday, residents are required to carry their identity cards to comply with police checks.
In response to the Chinese government's military crackdown in Xinjiang, Muslim extremists have been outspoken. China says it will protect its citizens in Africa, after a report that al-Qaida is vowing to avenge Uighur deaths in Xinjiang. A London risk analysis firm says Al Qaida's North African wing, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, vows to target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and elsewhere in Africa.
Is it me, or in America has it seemed that Islamic extremists have only been portrayed as hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the U.S.? I mean, sure there were those bombings in London and Madrid, however, I'd venture to say that most of the exposure from American media outlets have painted this real East vs. West ideological or theological war that is being waged is either in Afghanistan or 9/11. What does this mean for the war on terror now that al Qaida is making threats against China, a non-Western potential world super-power, and what would the world say if China led a pre-emptive strike against a neighboring country like say... Pakistan?
Uighurs complain they face discrimination from the Han, and that the government restricts their religious practices, as well as travel. But Beijing argues the Uighurs receive benefits the Han do not, such as the right to have more than one child, and preferential university places.
Tensions still remain between Han Chinese and Uighur Muslims following last week's violence in Urumqi, the capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region.
Chinese authorities say 184 people were killed in the unrest, 137 of them were ethnic Han. Some Han and Uighur people insist the riots were an aberration in an otherwise harmonious interracial city, but other Uighurs accuse authorities of longstanding discrimination against ethnic minority Muslims. The image of racial harmony in Urumqi is undercut by the government's need to deploy thousands of Chinese troops to bring quiet to the city's streets. Authorities arrested over 1,400 Uighurs following the riots. Since Sunday, residents are required to carry their identity cards to comply with police checks.
In response to the Chinese government's military crackdown in Xinjiang, Muslim extremists have been outspoken. China says it will protect its citizens in Africa, after a report that al-Qaida is vowing to avenge Uighur deaths in Xinjiang. A London risk analysis firm says Al Qaida's North African wing, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, vows to target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and elsewhere in Africa.
Is it me, or in America has it seemed that Islamic extremists have only been portrayed as hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the U.S.? I mean, sure there were those bombings in London and Madrid, however, I'd venture to say that most of the exposure from American media outlets have painted this real East vs. West ideological or theological war that is being waged is either in Afghanistan or 9/11. What does this mean for the war on terror now that al Qaida is making threats against China, a non-Western potential world super-power, and what would the world say if China led a pre-emptive strike against a neighboring country like say... Pakistan?
