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The Economist has a fairly standard op-ed. In the heartland of China, the gov't has been able to successfully gamble on a trade-off between economic development forestalling the people's desire for cleaner government. But this balance is not present in Xinjiang and Tibet, because the racial and religious issues are far more pressing.
Economist distinguished between the Han majority, which are largely bystanders or victims in this altercation, and the Chinese government, which is directly responsible for the bad policies that caused this problem. It acknowledged laws on paper that seemingly favor ethnic minorities, and economic investment disproportionate to the region's population, but also identified that such "hard policy" cannot outweigh the "soft diplomacy" that the central gov't's handling of Xinjiang lacks.
One major obstacle to equitable treatment is the lack of open reporting. Without accurate reporting, the Chinese gov't makes a trade-off of hiding the inflammatory truth, but at the risk of allowing innuendo and hearsay to supplant it, arguably fanning even more flames. The Han Chinese counter-riot on the day immediately after the first bloodshed is a likely result of this.
Economist ended with a question (essentially what DaShi said, actually) that the CCP has employed a standard cycle of imposing peace through armed forces, then rounding up some claimed agitators, and then waiting for the economic status quo to anesthetize the populace once again - it asks whether this is sustainable.
Interestingly, Economist reaffirms the argument that Xinjiang is irrefutably part of China's territory, and therefore the government's scapegoat of foreign agitators seeking a break-up are irrational. I'm not sure how to take this. Certainly, given the sentiment in this thread (which admittedly is not exactly a perfect reflection of international territorial recognition), it seems that there are at least some individual intellectual protests about China's normative legal right to rule the area.
Economist distinguished between the Han majority, which are largely bystanders or victims in this altercation, and the Chinese government, which is directly responsible for the bad policies that caused this problem. It acknowledged laws on paper that seemingly favor ethnic minorities, and economic investment disproportionate to the region's population, but also identified that such "hard policy" cannot outweigh the "soft diplomacy" that the central gov't's handling of Xinjiang lacks.
One major obstacle to equitable treatment is the lack of open reporting. Without accurate reporting, the Chinese gov't makes a trade-off of hiding the inflammatory truth, but at the risk of allowing innuendo and hearsay to supplant it, arguably fanning even more flames. The Han Chinese counter-riot on the day immediately after the first bloodshed is a likely result of this.
Economist ended with a question (essentially what DaShi said, actually) that the CCP has employed a standard cycle of imposing peace through armed forces, then rounding up some claimed agitators, and then waiting for the economic status quo to anesthetize the populace once again - it asks whether this is sustainable.
Interestingly, Economist reaffirms the argument that Xinjiang is irrefutably part of China's territory, and therefore the government's scapegoat of foreign agitators seeking a break-up are irrational. I'm not sure how to take this. Certainly, given the sentiment in this thread (which admittedly is not exactly a perfect reflection of international territorial recognition), it seems that there are at least some individual intellectual protests about China's normative legal right to rule the area.
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