Heads Up: 140 Dead in Urumqi

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Here’s our take on what must have been a primeval descent into chaos and blood in Urumqi last night. God knows what the final/real death count is going to be. As a number of the people I interviewed pointed out, the rapid admission of the appallingly high death toll is an astonishing break from usual conduct. Think of Tibet last March, where the authorities still say hardly any Tibetans were killed.

If the ethnic targetting of protesters/rioters is heavily emphasized this time as it was then, it will be very dangerous for Uighurs outside of Xinjiang. It’s worth remembering that the protests started because of Uighur unhappiness over the beating to death of two (at least) of their compatriots in Guangdong by a Han Chinese mob, an incident the authorities themselves now acknowledge was sparked by a manufactured rumor that Uighurs had raped a Han Chinese woman.