China: Xinjiang crisis deepens

So far no world leader has publicly condemned the massive crackdown by Chinese security forces in Urumqi or challenged Beijing’s claim that its heavily-armed troops are there to maintain social order and prevent further ethnic conflict.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “We know there is a long history of tension and discontent, but the most immediate matter is to bring the violence to a conclusion.” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared: “[R]estraint is required now on the part of all parties in order to bring about a peaceful settlement to this difficulty.”

Hu was the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of Tibet and directed the bloody suppression of local protests in that region in March 1989. Within weeks of those protests, social tensions erupted nationally and were only ended with the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Xinjiang crisis has the same potential to ignite China’s social powder keg, with far-reaching implications for world capitalism.

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