Early in July, a violent encounter between Han Chinese and ethnic Uighur workers in a toy factory in Shaoguan, a town in China’s southeastern province, ended with two Uighurs killed and dozens more injured. News of the episode traveled rapidly to Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, the Uighurs’ home region, about 2,500 miles to the northwest. The report triggered far greater violence there and the government’s own press agency admitted to almost 200 deaths in the ensuing Han-Uighur clashes.
In one respect, there was nothing exceptional here. Ethnic violence is endemic all over the world, and has been present in China for centuries. But these events of July, 2009, happened in a particular way and for particular reasons, all of which are revealing of the enormous changes inside China during the past thirty years.
