If people remember it at all, then the sentiment is most likely to be open admiration- there are no dearth of Chicom fan circles in the left-liberal universe in the West, and amongst dictator wannabes (hint, hint) in the third world.
However people who forget history (and historical crimes) are justly condemned to experience it once more….right now the tanks are rolling out in Urumqui, Xinjiang (aka Chinese Kashmir). The islamist nut-jobs have (in our opinion) made a terrible mis-calculation. The Han Chicom leadership is a very different proposition than Vladimir Putin, George Bush, Binyamin Netanyahu and even Narendra Modi.
There are four great lakes in Xinjiang, natural wonders all of them. These can all (are about to) turn red any moment. There is nothing anyone can do to save these people.
Authorities
announced a security crackdown on Saturday in China’s Muslim northwest
after a deadly bombing raised questions about whether tightening
Beijing’s grip might be feeding anti-Chinese anger and a rise of
organized terrorism.
Thursday’s bombing at a morning street
market selling vegetables and other produce in Urumqi, capital of the
Xinjiang region, killed at least 43 people and left the region’s ethnic
Chinese on edge.
“We don’t know why there have been explosions,
but we are definitely worried about personal safety,” said Luo Guiyou, a
member of China’s Han ethnic majority who manages an auto parts store.
Police announced names of five people blamed for the attack and said
they were part of a “terrorist gang.” Based on their names, all appeared
to be Uighurs, the region’s most populous Muslim minority. Police said
four were killed in the bombing and the fifth captured Thursday night.
An anti-terrorism campaign with Xinjiang “as the major battlefield”
will target religious extremist groups, underground gun workshops and
“terrorist training camps,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.
“Terrorists and extremists will be hunted down and punished.”
Beijing blames unrest on extremists with foreign ties, but Uighur
activists say tensions are fueled by an influx of migrants from China’s
dominant Han ethnic group and discriminatory government policies.
“The violence is an indication that people are willing to take more
drastic measures to express their opposition,” said David Brophy, a
Xinjiang historian at the University of Sydney.
A heavy-handed
response might backfire by inciting sympathy from Central Asian radicals
about “the plight of Muslims in Xinjiang,” said Ahmed AS Hashim, a
terrorism expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University.
“In fact, groups like al-Qaida and others are now beginning to think
that China could be a new oppressor of the Muslim world,” he said.
In Beijing, the nation’s capital, police announced that they were
canceling vacations for officers and would step up patrols at train
stations, schools, hospitals and markets.
A measure under which
passengers at stations in central Beijing are required to undergo
security checks will be extended to three additional stations, the city
government said. Passengers at all stations already are required to
submit handbags and parcels for X-ray examination under rules imposed
ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Thursday’s
violence was the deadliest single attack in Xinjiang’s recent history,
and the latest of several that have targeted civilians in contrast to a
past pattern of targeting police and officials. It was the highest death
toll since several days of rioting in Urumqi in 2009 between Uighurs
and members of China’s dominant Han ethnic group left nearly 200 people
dead.
On Saturday, paramilitary police with rifles stood every
20 meters (70 feet) along the streets around where the bombing had taken
place. The street where the market had been was closed to vehicle
traffic.
Li Shengli, who was in Urumqi on a business trip from Shanghai, brought three stems of yellow chrysanthemums. “I am here to remember the dead,” he said. He was quickly pulled away
by a propaganda official who warned him not to talk to reporters.
The family of one victim, Lu Xiangwang, a 58-year-old driving teacher, said they were waiting to receive his body.
In his parents’ apartment near the market, Lu’s mother sat sobbing on a
couch, surrounded by relatives. A neighbor, Ji Jinzhu, said Lu spent
the night before the attack at the apartment to look after his ill
father.
“He was hit by an explosive just moments after he
stepped outside this residential compound into the street,” Ji said.
“The father is feeling very guilty because had it not been for his
illness, his son would not have had to come to take care of him.”
Ji, 80, said he was shopping in the crowded market Thursday morning
with his wife when the two off-road vehicles raced into the street. “When they passed me, I heard explosions and saw flames going up into the sky and smoke filling up the air,” he said.
An Associated Press reporter who visited a Uighur neighborhood was
escorted away by 11 uniformed police officers and street wardens.
The influx of ethnic Han Chinese has left Uighurs feeling marginalized in their homeland and excluded from decision-making.
Beijing has responded with an overwhelming security presence and
additional restrictions on the ability of Uighurs to travel and on their
culture and religious practices.
Recent attacks show increased
audaciousness and deliberateness. They are aimed at the public instead
of police and government targets. But their planning and weapons still
are relatively simple, suggesting a lack of foreign support.
“I
don’t think there’s any doubt that these acts qualify as acts of
terrorism,” said Brophy, the Xinjiang historian. “But there’s still very
little hard evidence that would allow us to describe a terrorist
network or a terrorist organization operating in Xinjiang.”
Security was tightened still further after a bomb attack at an Urumqi
train station as Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting the region
last month. Three people were killed, including two attackers, and 79
were injured.
Prior to the train station attack, Urumqi had
been relatively quiet since the 2009 ethnic riots. The city’s population
of more than 3 million people is about three-fourths Han Chinese.
In March, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train
station in the southwestern city of Kunming. That attack was blamed on
Uighur extremists.
On Friday evening, some major roads in
Urumqi were closed while more than 100 army trucks and police vehicles
drove down them in a show of force, according to state media.
One banner carried by a vehicle read: “Fighting against violent crime
according to law to resolutely safeguard social stability.”
Beijing says an organized militancy with elements based overseas is
behind the attacks. However, little evidence has been provided to back
up the claim and many analysts doubt such an organization exists.
Xinhua, the government news agency, said the group blamed for this
week’s attack “took part in illegal religious activities, watched and
listened to terrorist violence video and audio materials.”
Beijing promotes the notion of a “terrorism movement” in Xinjiang to
justify heavy security while avoiding foreign criticism and possible
damage to relations with Islamic nations, said Hashim, the terrorism
expert.
A handful of Uighur activists might be veterans of fighting in Afghanistan, he said. “They seem to be getting better at what they are doing in terms of
causing violence,” Hashim said. “But it’s still, from my perspective,
not the dire threat that China wants to paint it to the outside world.”
regards