On the night of Saturday, March 1st, 8 attackers entered the Kunming Railway Station located in southwestern China. The assailants were dressed entirely in black clothing and wore masks. They carried with them long knives that they then proceeded to use to slash their way through the crowds of the train station. When the dust finally cleared, 29 innocent people laid dead with another 143 people injured. Police shot down 4 of the attackers during the rampage. The remaining 4 perpetrators were later arrested.
It is now known that the assailants were all from the Xinjiang region of China. However, Chinese officials were reluctant to release this information at first for fear of ethnic retaliation. The Xinjiang region is home to the Uighur population, one of China's many ethnic minorities. This area has seen its fair share of conflicts between the Uighurs and ethnic majority Han Chinese. Many Uighurs in the Xinjiang region have been calling for independence for years in order to escape religious persecution from the Chinese government. As a secular society, the Chinese government has tightly restricted the Uighurs' practice of Islam. While before these complaints were grumbled about in communities, the tensions are beginning to manifest themselves in a more violent form.
In 2009, Uighurs charged through the streets of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, killing roughly 200 people. The Han Chinese in the area retaliated by attacking the Uighurs in turn. Attacks like this have been prevalent throughout the region for the past few years. However, the attack at the Kunming Railway Station was far from Xinjiang, a trend that appears to be growing. Just last year there was a smaller attack in Beijing, the nation's capital, where a burning car was driven into a crowd at Tiananmen Square, killing two tourists and the three passengers inside. While the Chinese government claims to be cracking down on the unrest in the Xinjiang region, these recent attacks would say otherwise.
In order to bring peace to the Xinjiang region, the Chinese government has imposed even tighter restrictions on religious practices. This has seemed to have the opposite effect of escalating tensions between the Uighurs and Han Chinese even further. Instead of focusing on solving these ethnic problems, the Chinese government in light of the Kunming attack criticized foreign media for not calling the incident an act of terror. Finally, the United Nations Security Council obliged by issuing this statement: “The members of the Security Council extended their deepest sympathy and
condolence to the victims and their families suffered from such most
heinous terrorist attack, as well as to the people and the government of
the People’s Republic of China.” It is interesting that the Chinese government would want to highlight such a tragic event. However, now that the attack has been deemed an act of terrorism, any action that the government to crack down on Uighurs in the Xinjiang region will seem legitimate.
Articles used:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/asia/china.html?ref=asia&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/world/asia/han-uighur-relations-china.html?ref=asia&_r=0
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/u-n-security-council-condemns-terrorist-attack-in-kunming/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=world&_r=0&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/asia/chinese-officials-seek-to-shift-attention-from-rampage.html?ref=asia
I also find it interesting that China would choose to highlight this event instead of hiding it, as it makes the Chinese government look bad. Logically, one would think that any bad attention would be damaging to a country's public diplomacy efforts and international standing. However, the UN Security Council's statement conveying sympathy to the victims and the government of China blurs the Security Council members' stance on the incident. It is definitely possible that the Chinese ambassadors to the UN lobbied for the Security Council to release some kind of statement showing support for the government. The ideal result would be international sympathy that would benefit Chinese branding. Those who know about the ethnic tensions in Xinjiang would obviously be more skeptical of these statements. My question is, what would the response be if this situation happened in the United States? No doubt, the US would be flooded with international sympathy because of its position as a hegemonic power. There might be some questioning of the restrictive policies, but overall, international support would be gained. As China is the up and coming hegemon, the Chinese government is clearly trying to garner international sympathy for this event so that the next time such an incident occurs, it will have more international backing. To have the attention of the Security Council for a "terrorist attack" of this scale says a lot about China's position in global affairs and its ability to use an event like this to the government's advantage.
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