Han Chinese

More than 10,000 Han Chinese marched in the streets of Urumqi on Thursday in a new protest that belied the government's claim of having quashed ethnic unrest in the capital city of Xinjiang province. The protesters were enraged over hundreds of alleged attacks in which people were stabbed with hypodermic needles, attacks that they blamed on ethnic Uighurs. The northwestern-most region of China, Xinjiang has often witnessed violent confrontations between the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people concentrated there, and the Han Chinese who are perceived by the Uighur as colonizers.

BEIJING -- In the deadliest ethnic violence in China since 2009, 21 people were killed in confrontations Tuesday between police and Uighur residents of Kashgar, the country's westernmost city. Among the dead were 15 police and neighborhood security officers and six people that the state media described as “mobsters. " Kashgar, which lies close to China's borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, has been a frequent site of violence between the dominant ethnic Han Chinese and the Uighurs, a Muslim minority.

BEIJING -- In the deadliest ethnic violence in China since 2009, 21 people were killed in confrontations Tuesday between police and Uighur residents of Kashgar, the country's westernmost city. Among the dead were 15 police and neighborhood security officers and six people that the state media described as “mobsters. " Kashgar, which lies close to China's borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, has been a frequent site of violence between the dominant ethnic Han Chinese and the Uighurs, a Muslim minority.

Wang Wenlin and his family have eked out a living for decades farming and herding sheep and cattle on the vast, unforgiving Inner Mongolian steppes. But the opening three years ago of a nearby colliery and railway line to transport coal across his grazing land has squeezed Wang's livelihood. "My animals only have so much land to graze," said Wang, who earns about $9,000 a year. "In the winter, I'm cut off from the closest city. When it's windy, we get covered in coal dust because it's an open mine.

Police fatally shot two Uighur men and wounded a third in western China, where violence has persisted despite the massive numbers of troops sent to restore calm after ethnic rioting. It is the first time the Chinese government has acknowledged its security forces opened fire since the riots erupted in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, on July 5. At least 184 people have been reported killed and 1,680 wounded in the unrest between Uighurs and Han Chinese, the country's ethnic majority.

Ancient racial and religious hatreds still simmer in this remote oasis city on China's fabled Silk Road, ruled from Beijing but geographically and culturally closer to Turkey. Han Chinese hold most leading Communist Party posts in the region despite being outnumbered by Muslim Central Asians, some blue-eyed and auburn-haired, whose resentment of the settlers from the east has contributed to Kashgar's bloody history.

Authorities have imposed a curfew on a town in the restive northwestern Xinjiang region after young Muslims demanding independence in western China beat people to death and torched cars in the region's worst rioting in nearly 50 years, officials and local residents said Monday. Death toll reports from last week's riots varied wildly--from four to nearly 300--and it was not possible to reconcile the figures.

China has executed nine people for their participation in the country's worst ethnic rioting in decades, an official news service announced Monday in a terse bulletin. Although the report did not disclose the identity of those executed or even the date the sentence was carried out, it is presumed that most of those executed were Uighurs. Once the dominant ethnic group in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, Uighurs were blamed for the July 5 riots in Urumqi in which 197 people, mostly Han Chinese, were killed and 1,600 injured.

Only two weeks before "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping died in Beijing, Muslim separatists and Chinese police clashed violently in the far western Xinjiang region. Chinese government officials said the Feb. 5-6 "riot" in the Central Asian region near the border with Kazakhstan was quickly subdued and that no more than 10 people died. But Muslim advocates of an independent "East Turkestan" claim that fighting still rages and that dozens have been killed, including Chinese police.

Before the brother of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, returned to Lhasa as a guest of the Chinese government after years in exile, officials met local people and urged them not to spit or hurl stones at their former "slave master." The guests duly arrived--but far from being abused they found themselves greeted by thousands of weeping and prostrating Tibetans anxious to touch them.

With more than 50,000 closed-circuit cameras keeping an Orwellian eye on Urumqi's buses, markets and back alleys, along with thousands of paramilitary officers on patrol and a fresh infusion of economic aid, China managed to slide through the dreaded one-year anniversary of the worst ethnic violence in its recent history without incident. Urumqi, the northwestern city of 2.5 million in the Xinjiang region where 197 people were killed in riots in 2009, was quiet on Monday and "bathed in a golden sunlight," the official New China News Agency said.

China has executed nine people for their participation in the country's worst ethnic rioting in decades, an official news service announced Monday in a terse bulletin. Although the report did not disclose the identity of those executed or even the date the sentence was carried out, it is presumed that most of those executed were Uighurs. Once the dominant ethnic group in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, Uighurs were blamed for the July 5 riots in Urumqi in which 197 people, mostly Han Chinese, were killed and 1,600 injured.

Three months after deadly ethnic rioting in China's far west, dozens of men from the Uighur ethnic group remain unaccounted for after being detained in police sweeps, a human rights group said. New York-based Human Rights Watch said the 43 missing men and teenagers were among hundreds rounded up by security forces in the days and weeks after the July 5 riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, and their families have been unable to find out where or why they are being held. The rioting left nearly 200 people dead, as the mainly Muslim Uighurs attacked people from the Han Chinese majority.

More than 10,000 Han Chinese marched in the streets of Urumqi on Thursday in a new protest that belied the government's claim of having quashed ethnic unrest in the capital city of Xinjiang province. The protesters were enraged over hundreds of alleged attacks in which people were stabbed with hypodermic needles, attacks that they blamed on ethnic Uighurs. The northwestern-most region of China, Xinjiang has often witnessed violent confrontations between the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim people concentrated there, and the Han Chinese who are perceived by the Uighur as colonizers.

In an escalating campaign to stamp out ethnic violence, Chinese forces Wednesday saturated the northwestern city of Urumqi, helicopters dropped leaflets urging calm, and the local Communist Party boss warned of the death penalty for rioters convicted of killings. "We're determined to maintain social stability," said Urumqi's party chief, Li Zhi, at a news conference. "To those who committed crimes with cruel means, we will execute them."

Chinese President Hu Jintao cut short his state visit to Italy, which included plans to participate in the Group of 8 summit, to return home today because of protests in Urumqi that raised the specter of more ethnic violence. State news media said Hu left for home to address the unrest in northwestern China's Xinjiang region and would forgo the G-8 summit this week in the Italian city of L'Aquila.