Why the Uighurs Aren’t Part of China’s Boom

On the streets of the cities and towns of China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang you can hear complaints from the Uighur minority group about restrictions on the Islamic religion they practice, their Turkic language or their culture, which is most closely linked to the lands of Central Asia. But in interviews in Urumqi, the regional capital that exploded with ethnic rioting last week that left 184 dead, the single most common complaint of Uighur residents is that they feel excluded from economic opportunity

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More Than 140 Dead in Clashes in China’s Xinjiang Province

Chinese authorities announced today that some 140 people had been killed and over 800 wounded in protests that roiled Urumqi, the capital of China’s far western Xinjiang province, on Sunday. According to the official news agency Xinhua, Urumqi police chief Liu Yaohua told a press conference that the number of dead was still rising and that there had also been extensive damage to property.

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