In remote Xinjiang province, Uighurs are under siege

Good long piece by the Globe’s Beijing correspondent on Xinjiang and Beijing’s treatment of the Uighurs, China’s Muslim minority:

That the “Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region” is religiously and culturally unique, however, is beyond dispute. Islam arrived in the ninth century, largely displacing Buddhism. Today, many Uighurs are intellectually and linguistically oriented west toward Central Asia and the Middle East – watching Iranian music videos and reading Turkish news sites – rather than east toward coastal China.

Their home territory has, however, experienced tremendous change since the Communist Revolution in 1949. Briefly an independent state in the early 20th century, Xinjiang has in the past few decades become home to vast numbers of ethnic Chinese, many of them sent here by government settlement policies.

They now outnumber the Uighurs, and continue to arrive, drawn by untrammelled space and the jobs that flow from a land rich in resources.But the wealth hasn’t necessarily benefited the Uighur population. As the region’s oil and gas flow east, local filling stations routinely run short, with lineups 150 cars long.

In remote Xinjiang province, Uighurs are under siege – The Globe and Mail.