Guest Author: Mike West, Oxford

While media attention in the northern hemisphere is consumed by the actual wildfires raging in Athens and L.A., the ethnic unrest sparked by the ’7.5′ riots in Xinjiang stubbornly smoulders on. According to Reuters, last Thursday Urumqi again went into lockdown. All roads in the city were closed and armed security forces (武警) were wheeled in to deal with a 3,000-strong demonstration in the People’s Square, during which glass bottles were hurled at the Party HQ. This round of protests is believed to have been ignited by demonstrators comprising Chinese of all ethnicities calling on their government for more adequate protection after the chilling assault on a five-year-old girl, which marked the culmination of a wave of ethnic terror in which over 476 (mainly Han) Chinese were randomly stabbed with hypodermic needles. There are reports that the emboldened demonstrators went on to call for the resignation of Xinjiang’s beleaguered Party Secretary, Wang Lequan, but these accounts are difficult to verify because a systematic information blackout is in place and telephone lines to the outside world have been cut. What does this recent wave of unrest in Xinjiang province mean for China and the rest of the world?

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