The Xinjiang Riots: Tried Paradigms, Fresh Tensions

By James Leibold

The mainstream media, both Western and Chinese, seem to be struggling to make sense of the deadly riots that broke out in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi last week. Well-worn explanations on both sides have largely failed to grasp the complexities behind this new, unprecedented wave of mass communal violence in China. Not since the dying days of the Manchu Qing empire has China witnessed this sort of spontaneous ethnically-based violence.


With initial headlines like “Chinese riot police, Muslims clash in northwestern city,” “China in deadly crackdown after Uighurs go on the rampage,” and “Uighurs cling to life in People’s hospital as China’s wounds weep,” the foreign media painted the usual picture of the Chinese Communist Party and its security apparatuses brutally cracking down on the repressed and helpless minorities.

In much of the early reporting the emphasis lay on “the heavy-handed use of force by the Chinese security forces” and the subsequent tightening of media and Internet control, rather than the mob rule and racial retribution being doled out by Uighur and Han youth alike. When searching for answers to this wanton and impulsive brutality, the foreign media wheeled out its usual critique of state-sponsored violence against the Uighurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities in China.

Yet, this time, many of the dead and wounded appear to have been Han rather than ethnic minorities. The confusion surrounding this misidentification caused the London Evening Standard, among other media outlets, to use a photo of two blood-soaked Han women to invocate the “blood and defiance” and “Tiananmen’s spirit” of a group of Uighur women who confronted security forces several days after the initial incident.

Seeking to counter this familiar criticism, the official Chinese media went on the front foot; and, in sharp contrast to its handling of last year's unrest in Tibet, immediately reported the Urumqi violence in graphic detail, hoping to define rather than suppress the message both domestically and internationally. Yet, its coverage provided no fresh explanations, reverting instead to familiar clichés and slogans.

The Chinese media was quick to stress how unidentified “rioters” and “outlaws,” “controlled and instigated from abroad” by “the “Uighur Dalai Lama” Rebiya Kadeer, unleashed “the most inhumane atrocities too horrible to look at.” Behind headlines like “Recalling the nightmare: witnesses’ account of Xinjiang riot,” and “Ravaged by riot, Xinjiang’s capital in horror,” the Chinese media sought to expose those “evil” and “external” forces that left Urumqi “blood tainted,” while stressing the “heroic deeds” of all ethnic groups in China to uphold “national unity and social stability” in the face of international criticism and outside meddling.


While details remain sketchy, eyewitness accounts tell a different story: the outbreak of spontaneous communal violence between China’s Han ethnic majority and the increasingly marginalized Uighur inhabitants of Xinjiang. On the evening of July 5th, several hundred Uighur youths went on a bloody rampage following a peaceful demonstration over a separate incident of ethnic violence at a Guangdong toy factory. The results, according to Chinese government figures, was the destruction of thousands of dollars worth of property, the death of nearly two hundred innocent civilians and another thousand injured.

In the days that followed, bands of roving Han vigilantes armed with kitchen knives, hammers, metal pipes and other improvised weapons sought to mete out revenge in the Uighur suburbs of the city. Both this incident and last year’s unrest in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and other Tibetan areas represent a worrying new wave of ethnic violence (not only physical violence on the streets of cities like Lhasa and Urumqi, but also virtual violence on the numerous ethnically-based blogging sites on the Chinese Internet). And here the well-worn paradigms of state repression and foreign incitement conceal more than they reveal.

The root causes behind this spike in communal tension are far more complex and multidimensional than the media would have us believe. It is true that state-sponsored Han migration has culturally and economically marginalized the once majority Uighur population of Xinjiang—a situation that has been made worse by the recent global economic downturn.

But many Han migrants are themselves unhappy, and they are increasingly pointing a finger at the state’s extensive affirmative action policies (youhui zhengce) that provides special economic, cultural and educational benefits to the minorities. These policies, they claim, only serve to mollycoddle the “backward” and “simple” minorities, while rendering the naturally superior Han second-class citizens. Caught in-between these increasingly polarized and agitated ethnic communities is the Chinese state, which, rather than orchestrating the brutal oppression of the non-Han minorities, finds itself increasingly powerless to stop the spiralling circle of ethnic hatred which its policies helped to foster in the first place.

In a recent online report on the violence in the Tibetan region last year, the progressive, Beijing-based Gongmeng (Open Constitution Initiative) think tank explored some of the major social causes behind this wellspring of violent discontent. The report claimed that the rapid (almost dizzying) pace of state-directed change in frontier regions like Tibet and Xinjiang has failed to bring any real benefit to the vast majority of the minority inhabitants in these regions, instead resulting in growing income disparity, high education dropout rates, growing unemployment and underemployment, cultural dislocation and a growing sense of powerlessness. While asserting that “the state’s major preferential policies and support have not been of any effective benefit to the main body of Tibetan people,” the report also speaks of the rise of a new Tibetan “aristocracy,” whose legitimacy rests on central government affiliation rather than traditional clan or religious ties, making it easier for this new elite to turn a blind eye to the negative social consequences of imposed modernization.

The report’s authors argue that the rich tradition of “Han departmentalism” (hanzu benwei zhuyi), which seeks to compartmentalize different ethnic communities under a hollow ideology of Confucian harmony, continues to hinder effective political responses to these problems. The structure of governance in autonomous regions like Tibet and Xinjiang means that, on the one hand, minority cadres have carved out “deep-rooted local power elite networks” and seek to protect their personal interests by blaming all social unrest on “foreign forces” as “fig leaves to conceal their mistakes in governance and to repress social discontent,” while on the other hand, continued discrimination and social marginalization among ordinary, non-Han minorities hinders their identification with the PRC state and any shared concept of nationhood.


In seeking to understand this troubling rise in ethnic-based violence in China, we need to look beyond the usual bogeymen at the increasingly torn fabric of Reform Era Chinese society. In the end, the over twenty years of rapid economic growth has unleashed as many demons as it has benefits—evident in the increasing number of ordinary citizens who are turning to ethnic profiling and violence to vent their shared frustrations. The result is a burgeoning level of internal racism that should concern us all.

Dr James Leibold is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and Asian Studies at La Trobe University and author of Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). His current research focuses on contemporary expressions of Han racial nationalism on the Internet and recent developments in the PRC’s minority policy and the broader discourse of multiculturalism in Reform Era China.

A Reader: Protests and Public Relations

This morning the Los Angeles Times reported on a riot in Gansu that was touched off over disagreements on city planning issues. The report comes on the heels of an uptick in news in the last week on local protests in China. It is unclear if this increased coverage represents an actual increase in local protests (based on reports from the Chinese government in recent years, there are hundreds of local protests each week in China) or if the economic crisis has simply increased the relevance of these protests.

But much of the coverage we've been reading has been less concerned with how representative these protests are; rather China watchers are focusing on what the government's response to both protestors and media coverage tells us about a new CCP public relations attitude. Below, a selection of recent reports.

1. The event that has drawn the most attention in recent weeks has been the taxi driver strikes in several major cities. Xujun Eberlein reported on the strike in her hometown of Chongqing at New America Media:

“In the early morning hours of Monday, November 3rd, however, passengers in Chongqing waiting to go to work by cab were the first to discover them missing from the streets. At the same time, some drivers unaware of the strike, were stopped by their colleagues. Tempers flared, and some 20 to 30 cabs had their top lights smashed, according to reports.

“Within hours, several national outlets of the official media, such as China Daily (China Daily), Xinhuanet.com, and People.com.cn, published the first eyewitness reports, which included interviews with taxi drivers and customers alike. The frankness of those reports surprised me.

“While it was good to see a refreshing departure from the familiar bureaucratic style of official news, the real journalism approach was certainly not as widespread as I would have liked. On the same day, another official agency, China News, published a curt and rigid briefing of the situation, in the usual manner that conceals as much bad news as possible. It opens with a description of the all-city strike as 'a partial number of taxis that met with obstruction and were unable to operate normally.' It ends with the conclusion that 'by 4 pm of [November] 3rd, 1,000 taxies had resumed operation,' with no mention that the total number of taxies on strike was about 9,000. The strike, in fact, went on for another day, through Tuesday. It was not until Wednesday morning that the government announced the full resumption of normal operation of all taxies.”

2. As Eberlein notes in her report, one of the remarkable bits about the strike was its peaceful end—including mediation and negotiation from the local government. The Economist, too, emphasized the government’s apparent soft touch in this case:

“To assuage them, Chongqing’s Communist Party chief, Bo Xilai, a Politburo member, held a meeting with strikers. Even more unusually, he allowed live coverage of the event, though by then most drivers had returned to work. In Sanya the acting mayor apologised to the drivers, but the strike dragged on into November 13th. The drivers in Gansu agreed to end their strike after the authorities promised to crack down on unlicensed taxis.”

3. As Bloomberg reports (quoting China Beat’s Jeff Wasserstrom), this tack represents a new direction in public relations for the Chinese government (in large part, the piece asserts, as a result of citizens’ ability to trade information online):

“Disgruntled taxi drivers in Chongqing air their complaints following a two-day strike while a top official of the southwestern Chinese city nods intently.

“’You spoke really well, thank you,’ says Bo Xilai, the Commmunist Party chief, complimenting a participant who talked with a thick regional accent. ‘I was able to understand 90 percent of what you said.’

“The three-hour meeting, available online across China through major Web portals, is more reminiscent of local government access in the U.S. than in a country where protests have typically met with swift repression.

“As Chinese citizens increasingly use the Internet to get news, share videos, vent frustrations and expose abuses of power, leaders are being forced to react publicly to their concerns. Government officials are also adapting traditional media-control techniques to the information age -- including sending out press releases and approved articles on topics that once would have been completely suppressed.

“’They've learned that they come off looking better if they're somewhat more transparent, somewhat quicker to respond,’ says Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who has studied protest in China. ‘They're learning spin control.’”

4. In addition to more open dealings with disgruntled citizens, however, China Media Project writes that the media coverage of the taxi strikes also points to the Chinese government’s increasing willingness to allow open reporting shifting management of media:

“The important thing to recognize first of all is that the issues underlying these taxi strikes are not newly emerging, nor are they news to party officials. But the handling of these incidents reveals some interesting trends (and inconsistencies) in China’s press control policy…One of the key characteristics of Control 2.0 is the active setting of the agenda through rapid but selective news coverage by critical state media such as Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television and People’s Daily. This is what Hu Jintao meant when he said in June that the media needs to “actively set the agenda” (主动设置议题).”

5. For a more alarmist take on this topic, see The New Republic's piece today, subtitled, "How the global economic crisis could bring down the Chinese government." Author Joshua Kurlantzick here makes the claim that "as the economy turns sour, protest is rising," though, again, it isn't clear to us if there has actually been an increase or if Western media has simply been reporting more regularly on Chinese protests because their narrative now fits with the international story of the global economic downturn (rather than protests over localized issues in China):

"Normally, the Pearl River Delta, a manufacturing hub in southern China, whirs with the sound of commerce. Alongside massive new highways, clusters of factories churn out toys, electronics, and other consumer products for the world; in Pearl River cities like Guangzhou, nouveau riche businesspeople cut deals at swank hotels.

"But in recent months, the Delta has started to seem more like Allentown, circa 1980s. As the global financial crisis hits Western consumers' wallets, orders for the Delta's products have dried up. And angry factory workers, many owed back pay, have taken to the streets. In one recent incident, some 300 suppliers and creditors "descended on the River Dragon complex [a factory where the owners vanished] looting warehouses in the hopes of salvaging something," As USA Today reported.

"This unrest is likely to spiral. As the Chinese economy sours for the first time in years, the government this week announced a $586 billion stimulus package. But in some ways, much more is at stake: While, in the U.S., a financial failure would simply mean another dent in George W. Bush's reputation, in China it could mean the breakdown of the entire political order."