ABSTRACT
On 5 and 6 July 2009 a wave of violent unrest rocked Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), causing the deaths of one hundred and eighty-four people and injuring over one thousand. The immediate cause of this event was an incident occurring over a week before at a toy factory far to the east in Shaoguan, Guangdong Province, whereHanChineseworkers beat to death twoUyghurmigrantworkers on the basis of a rumour that some Uyghurs had raped Han girls. Reports and images of this violence spread to Xinjiang via the internet, including the posting of a video of the incident onYouTube (RadioFreeAsia 2009). Subsequently, a large demonstration of Uyghurs on 5 July, demanding justice for the incident in Shaoguan, deteriorated into a violent riot in which Uyghurs reportedly attacked Han Chinese businesses and individual Han Chinese on the streets. Significant numbers of Ürümqi’s Han population then took to the streets on 6 July, many of them crudely armed, and reportedly vandalised Uyghur businesses and attacked Uyghurs before being dispersedby the security forces (Wong2009a;Economist 2009). Simmering ethnic tension continued throughout the final months of 2009. For instance, large protests by Han Chinese took place in Ürümqi on 3 and 4 September demanding action against alleged attacks on Han by Uyghurs armed with hypodermic syringes. These protests were forcibly broken up by police and resulted in the deaths of up to five people (Wong 2009b). The ongoing unrest prompted unprecedented calls for the resignations of senior officials including Xinjiang’s long-serving Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Wang Lequan (Reuters 2009; Hille 2009). These events also prompted Western governments, particularly the United States, to call on Beijing to exercise ‘restraint’ in its response (White House 2009).
