Dragon Fire

Briefing

Xinjiang, on China’s western border, is the size of Alaska and home to about sixteen million Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim ethnic group distinct from the Han Chinese. Officially it is a semi-autonomous region of China, but Beijing is very much in control and Uighur nationalists want to establish their own independent state called East Turkestan. Since the 1980s there has been an increasing number of bomb attacks and disturbances. Beijing has reacted by flooding the region with soldiers and armed police and encouraging more and more Han Chinese to migrate to the area. Like Tibet, Xinjiang is a problematic area for the Chinese, who are afraid of a creeping Islamization from Central Asia.