China turns Uyghur region into security state after terror threats

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

Police keep watch on a road running through the Taklamakan Desert outside Hotan, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A man stands in an alley in the old town in Kashgar. China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in this far Western Xinjiang region. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

An ethnic Uyghur man walks down the path leading to the tomb of Imam Asim in the Taklamakan Desert outside the village of Jiya near Hotan, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Beijing accuses separatists among the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority there of stirring up tensions with the ethnic Han Chinese majority and plotting attacks elsewhere in China. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

The locked door of a neighbourhood mosque is seen in Kashgar. A historic trading post, Kashgar is also central to China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign and economic policy involving massive infrastructure spending linking China to Asia, the Middle East and beyond. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A man herds sheep outside the village of Jiya near Hotan. China’s worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year’s diplomatic set piece, an OBOR summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

State media say the drills, and other measures such as a network of thousands of new street-corner police posts, are aimed making everyone feel safer. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

An ethnic Uighur man sits on the train from Hotan to Kashgar. But many residents say the drills are just part of an oppressive security operation that has been ramped up in Kashgar and other cities in Xinjiang’s Uighur heartland in recent months. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

An ethnic Uighur woman stands in the door of a bakery in the old town of Kashgar. As well as taking part in drills, shopkeepers must, at their own expense, install password-activated security doors, “panic buttons” and cameras that film not just the street outside but also inside their stores, sending a direct video feed to police. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A woman walks through a derelict section of the old town in Kashgar. For Uighurs like the owner of an online multimedia company facing one of Kashgar’s main streets it is not about security, but mass surveillance. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A man approaches a mosque to open it for evening prayer in the old town in Kashgar. China routinely denies pursuing repressive policies in Xinjiang, and points to the vast sums it spends on economic development in the resource-rich region. Xinjiang’s gross domestic product last year rose 7.6 per cent, above the national average. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

An ethnic Uighur man looks on at the cemetery surrounding the tomb of Imam Asim in the Taklamakan Desert outside the village of Jiya near Hotan. Since ethnic riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009, Xinjiang has been plagued by bouts of deadly violence. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

Portraits of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong, Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin and German philosopher Karl Marx are displayed outside an antique shop in the old town in Kashgar. The incidence of attacks reported in state media have actually declined markedly, both in frequency and scale, since a spate of bombings and mass stabbings in Xinjiang and southwestern Yunnan Province in 2014. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A man has his moustache trimmed by a street barber in the old town in Kashgar. But Chinese state media say the threat remains high and the Communist Party has vowed to continue what it terms its own “war on terror” against spreading Islamist extremism. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

Shopkeepers line up with wooden clubs to perform their daily anti-terror drill outside the bazaar in Kashgar. The architect of the anti-terror drills and other new measures in Xinjiang is Chen Quanguo, appointed Communist Party boss in the region in August in what analysts said was an implicit endorsement of his hard-line management of ethnic strife in neighbouring Tibet. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

An ethnic Uighur man talks on the phone in front of the Id Kah Mosque in the old town of Kashgar. Chen has made his mark swiftly, culminating last month in what state media described as mass “anti-terror” rallies across Xinjiang’s four largest cities involving tens of thousands of paramilitary troops and police. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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Updated on Mar 31, 2017 02:26 pm IST

A man walks along a street at night in the old town of Kashgar. James Leibold, an expert on Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the focus on security runs counter to Beijing’s goal of using the OBOR initiative to boost Xinjiang’s economy and improve its integration with the rest of China, because it would disrupt the flow of people and ideas. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

China turns Uyghur region into security state after terror threats

Police keep watch on a road running through the Taklamakan Desert outside Hotan, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

A man stands in an alley in the old town in Kashgar. China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in this far Western Xinjiang region. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

A man herds sheep outside the village of Jiya near Hotan. China’s worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year’s diplomatic set piece, an OBOR summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

State media say the drills, and other measures such as a network of thousands of new street-corner police posts, are aimed making everyone feel safer. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

An ethnic Uighur man sits on the train from Hotan to Kashgar. But many residents say the drills are just part of an oppressive security operation that has been ramped up in Kashgar and other cities in Xinjiang’s Uighur heartland in recent months. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

A woman walks through a derelict section of the old town in Kashgar. For Uighurs like the owner of an online multimedia company facing one of Kashgar’s main streets it is not about security, but mass surveillance. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

An ethnic Uighur man looks on at the cemetery surrounding the tomb of Imam Asim in the Taklamakan Desert outside the village of Jiya near Hotan. Since ethnic riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009, Xinjiang has been plagued by bouts of deadly violence. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

A man has his moustache trimmed by a street barber in the old town in Kashgar. But Chinese state media say the threat remains high and the Communist Party has vowed to continue what it terms its own “war on terror” against spreading Islamist extremism. (Thomas Peter/REUTERS)

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