China's Uighurs Wary, Worried After Attack

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, China pushed successfully to have a separatist group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement recognized internationally as a terrorist organization. Since then, the government has played up the threat posed by the group, including U.S. assertions that it is linked to al-Qaeda. Chinese officials said the group poses the single largest threat to security at the Olympics.

Others say most of the violence in Xinjiang, including bus bombings in the 1990s, was small-scale and localized, which would not indicate a large, well-funded group.

"The degree of organization of Uighur groups or East Turkestan separatist groups is a big question among many experts outside of China," said James Millward, a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Millward said the problem in Xinjiang is a civil rights problem, with Uighurs feeling discriminated against in terms of job opportunities and government resources, which they say flow more fully to Han Chinese.

Wang Lixiong, a dissident Chinese writer and expert on ethnic issues, said Xinjiang represents an even bigger problem for Beijing than Tibet, which was swept this spring with protests against Chinese rule. "The Tibetans have a great leader, the Dalai Lama. He is the leader of all the Tibetans. He has a solution for the Tibetan issue and he wants to solve the problem," Wang said. "But in Xinjiang, there's no such leader. Even the protesters are fighting as individuals, not as a group."

China has poured billions of dollars' worth of development funding into both regions. Kashgar is, indeed, developing quickly, but roughly along two separate axes. The Uighur area radiates out from the Id Kah mosque, built in 1460, and into the old city area. Women in head scarves and men in knitted prayer caps or square traditional hats crowd the streets. Donkeys pulling carts full of watermelons and onions fight with cars, motorcycles and bicycles on narrow lanes.

The Chinese area stretches out from the railway station, built in 1999. White-tiled stores typical of many provincial Chinese cities line a multi-lane thoroughfare called People's Road. The road passes a 59-foot-tall statue of Mao Zedong across from a plaza that resembles Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

A nearby theater that used to stage traditional Uighur dance and music performances is under renovation, soon to be reopened as a hotel. "Not enough people wanted to see it, so they couldn't make any money," one man explained.

Researcher Liu Songjie contributed to this report.