Here’s an excellent overview of the Uighur situation by the NY Times, which concludes that through its heavy handed repression of the Uighur population in Xinjiang, the Chinese government “could unwittingly radicalize a generation of young people, said Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who is based in Hong Kong. ‘The entire Uighur ethnicity feels asphyxiated, having become suspect as sympathetic to extremism,’ he said. ‘Xinjiang is trapped in a vicious circle of increased repression that only leads to more violence.'”
I wonder, however, if the Chinese government’s efforts are the opposite of “unwittingly” because as soon as there is a violent incident that is indisputably linked to a Uighur resistance group, the government will then have “license” to wipe out all but a few token Uighur communities, and their assumption of this HUGE region will be complete, claiming outright their only petroleum reserves and an increasingly crucial trade link to the rest of Asia and Europe.
RectorSite 