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There was more unrest in the city of Urumqi in western China over the weekend. Protesters demanded the resignation of regional leader. He retained his job, but his second-in-command was forced to resign. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with The World’s Beijing correspondent Mary Kay Magistad for an update.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. It was two months ago that ethnic tensions in the western Chinese city of Urumqi erupted in violence. Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese have been increasingly bitter and violent rivals in Chinese Xinjiang region. The riots in July left nearly 200 people dead. Now those same tensions are nearing the boiling point again. Demonstrators are calling for the resignation of the local communist party secretary Wang Lequan. But The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing says Wang is too important for the Chinese government to let go.
MARY KAY MAGISTAD: He is the head of Xinjiang region but he’s also a member of the 25-person politburo – the top ruling circle in China. So when crowds are calling for his resignation or for him to be sacked that’s really demanding something that the communist party is not willing to entertain at all. They don’t want people to think they can take to the streets and demand leadership changes because who knows where that might lead.
WERMAN: And how unprecedented are demands like these in China?
MAGISTAD: It doesn’t happen very often – not like this. But Xinjiang is a special place. A lot of Han Chinese were encouraged by the government to move out there to sort of settle the Wild West. Some of them moved with a military-linked group called the Production and Construction Core and some of them have been there for generations. So they feel like the government should be on their side. The reason that these demonstrations started this past week was that there had been rumors and reports going around that people had been attacked by Uighurs with syringes and there were hundreds of people who said – about 500 people – who said they’d been attacked this way. The hospital confirmed a smaller number. But Han Chinese took the streets and said we want the government to crack down harder. We want them to do more against the Uighurs. And the government’s response has been always to Han Chinese when they take to the streets in Urumqi, look we know you’re concerned; we’re on your side; we’re going to find the people who are responsible for the riots in July and we’ll take care of you but please don’t take to the streets anymore.
WERMAN: Right we’ll get to those alleged stabbings by syringes in just a minute. First of all though, just to clarify – I mean because this is kind complicated for outsiders. The Han Chinese – the majority Han Chinese ethnic group – want the government to crack down harder on the Turkic Uighur minority. But why are the Uighurs so mad?
MAGISTAD: The Uighurs were the majority in Xinjiang not that long ago. Xinjiang is actually called the Uighur autonomous region. But what’s happened in recent decades is millions of Han Chinese have moved in. And while Uighurs are still more or less the majority in the region as a whole, in Urumqi Han Chinese are the majority. Uighurs are angry because they feel that the Han Chinese have taken their land, they’re exploiting their resources, and they don’t give them jobs. And not only that; they look down on them. They think that they’re kind of backward and dangerous and they’re losing not only economically but they’re also losing their culture.
WERMAN: So back to this alleged spade of stabbings with syringes. With hundreds of cases reported but there is uncertainty if this is even for real and the numbers from hospital officials do seem to call into question how wide-spread this phenomenon is. What is going on?
MAGISTAD: Well over the last two weeks or so there have been more than 500 reports from individuals that they had been stabbed by people with syringes and usually the perpetrators are said to be Uighurs. There’s a lot of concern from Han Chinese about this because Xinjiang has the highest level of HIV of any region or province in China and there are a lot of drug users in Xinjiang – most of them Uighurs. So if someone’s going around stabbing you with a syringe, you worry that it might be contaminated with HIV.
WERMAN: And if those needles are infected with something, HIV or something else, the hospitals might not know it; the patients might now know it, until many months down the road.
MAGISTAD: Certainly yeah. It takes up to six months for HIV to show in a test. So for the Military Hospital to say hey everything’s okay; you’re not infected; we don’t see any signs that you’re infected – it’s cold comfort at this point. People don’t really know whether they’re infected.
WERMAN: So where is all this heading? I mean how troubling is it for the central government at this point?
MAGISTAD: It’s got to be very troubling. I mean we’re only three weeks away from the anniversary celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. There’s stepped up security everywhere. There’s an increasing crackdown on the internet and on media and the government really wants to control this, period. And then suddenly this blows up in their face.
WERMAN: The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. Thank you.
MAGISTAD: Thank you Marco.
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