China vs. the Uighurs

Chinese authorities will never learn, said The New York Times in an editorial. They keep trying to "stamp out protests by repressed minorities"—such as Tibetan Buddhists and, this week, Muslim Uighurs—instead of working "toward political solutions that give Uighurs, Tibetans, and other minority groups more autonomy over their lives. Beijing’s rulers will never achieve the stability they covet until they deal with the root causes of these problems."

Washington certainly hasn't helped matters in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, said Eric C. Anderson in The Huffington Post. The Bush administration, in its rush to launch a global war on terrorism, branded an obscure Uighur group as terrorists. "In one fell swoop Washington blessed Han Chinese racism and granted Beijing a license to hunt Uighurs at will."

"If China does have a terror problem, continuing to anger its Muslim population is not the way to confront it," said Daniel Blumenthal in The American. And it certainly can't blame foreigners for the unrest, because "the West barely bats an eye about China’s repression." So the question is—after last year's violent uprising in Tibet, and now the Uighur demonstrations—"can we really call China a stable country?"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up