@ Michael,

from his name (JIA WEI = 假维 = fake Uyghur), I would say he is not Uyghur at all.

Two observations:

1. As my less-than-enlightened Mainland Chinese uncle would say, if he's got a knife on him, he HAS to be a Uyghur.

2. Had this guy "defected" to the ROC in the 1970s/1980s, they would be planning a parade for him in Taipei right now. How times have changed.

@ heverci

Interesting name indeed.

Looks like he's not Uyghur after all. From the SCMP:

Taiwanese cable news network TVBS screened footage showing coastguard officers questioning Mr Jia on the shore. He was telling the coastguard: "I have come to help [Taiwanese President] Ma Ying-jeou get even with the Communist Party. Our entire family has been suffering under political persecution by the communists for the past decade."

The coastguard learned that he was a Han Chinese solider working for the agricultural production corps of a military division in Xinjiang.

Renewed violence in west China/Tuesday, 12 August 2008 09:56 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7555831.stm

Three security staff have been stabbed to death in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, state media report./

The assailant killed the men at a checkpoint near the city of Kashgar, according to Xinhua news agency./

Sixteen police officers were killed in an attack in Kashgar earlier this month, but Xinhua said there was no evidence linking the two attacks./

Xinjiang is home to many Muslim Uighurs, some of whom want independence in the region they call East Turkestan./

There has been a rise in violent incidents in Xinjiang in recent months, which China has blamed on separatists seeking to disrupt the Olympic Games./

Suspected Muslim separatists also launched a series of bomb attacks in Kuqa, in southern Xinjiang, on Sunday. Eleven people were killed in the blasts and a subsequent shootout with police./

I m poor,but cannot fly, otherwise i would fly to Switzerland.

Is the religion or some leaders brainwash people? Bombers only turn the whole world agaisnt some religion, who perhaps were mistreated in the past.

@Chineselives.info

Yes correct the Uyghur Muslims as an entire people have been mistreated by the Han Chinese dominated Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for the last 60 years. All of the birds are now coming home to roost.

The solution in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) is simple. Give the Uyghur true autonomy. Chinese lives.info is in fact an instrument of propaganda and brainwashing if it refuses to accept that the problems in Xinjiang are produced by, and the result of the misgovernment of the region by the CCP.

Things are not rosy there - do stick to your motto and produce the stories in China that the governemnt wont allow. For example, the oppression of the Uyghur by the Han or dont make stupid uneducated comments - Stick to your happy, clappy, partyline blog, where China is all smiles and nobody suffers. hahahahaha!

Three Security Officials Killed in W. China
Today |

By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 13, 2008; A08

BEIJING, Aug. 12 -- Three security officials were killed at a roadside checkpoint in western China's Xinjiang region Tuesday when at least one assailant jumped off a passing vehicle and stabbed them to death, state media reported. It was third deadly incident in nine days, coinciding with the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

A fourth security official was wounded in the attack in Yamanya town, according to the New China News Agency. The assailants were still at large.

The attack occurred around 9 a.m. as local government officials were checking the names of people passing through a checkpoint about 18 miles from Kashgar, the oasis town where 16 paramilitary border guards were killed in an attack on Aug. 4. In a separate incident, assailants detonated explosives and clashed with police in the Xinjiang town of Kucha on Sunday; 10 attackers, one security guard and one bystander died, according to state media reports.

The spike in violence has claimed 31 lives in the restive desert region where China meets central Asia. It comes after a separatist group that calls itself the Turkestan Islamic Party released three videos threatening attacks during the Olympic Games, especially targeted at government and police facilities and key Olympic areas. Chinese government officials say they have no evidence the attacks are linked to separatist groups, but they have suggested that the attacks are terrorism.

Xinjiang is home to a large population of Uighurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group that speaks a Turkic language and has long chafed under Chinese authority. The Chinese government responded with overwhelming force after sporadic bombings in the region during the 1990s. The area has been tense but mostly quiet for more than a decade.

Analysts believe Beijing's hosting of the Olympic Games has emboldened some to challenge the notion that China is a stable country with airtight security, as the government claims. "The pattern of attacks, three in a row during the Games with security forces on high alert, is an act of defiance that is unparalleled in recent Xinjiang history," said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

Bequelin condemned the attacks as "unjustifiable" but said that "the global focus on China is an opportunity for people who believe their plight is ignored and invisible to take action."

Although the violence has been limited to a remote part of the country, killing handfuls, not hundreds, it is still surprising given the tight security that blankets Xinjiang.

"The concern here is that, at a minimum, this is going to add volatility to the region and polarize the Uighur and Chinese communities," Bequelin said. "There is also a fear the government will launch a widespread, indiscriminate, repressive campaign targeted far beyond the groups advocating use of violence."

Liu Jiangyong, a professor of national security at Tsinghua University's Institute of International Studies, said he expects more attacks in the region before the Games are over.

"We can see that the attackers are merciless fugitives, so the government should be on high alert," Liu said. "Because they cannot carry out such attacks in their most desirable cities like Beijing, they have to turn to local locations."

Despite the rudimentary weapons and homemade explosives used in the attacks, Liu said he suspects that international terrorist organizations are involved. He cited the well-coordinated planning of the incidents and the fact that two attackers blew themselves up in the Kucha bombings. "Their methods are quite similar to some other international terrorist attacks," Liu said.

The Chinese government has deployed more than 100,000 police and military personnel in Beijing to provide security during the Games. Despite the buildup, a lone man wielding a knife attacked an American family on Saturday, killing Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of the coach of the U.S. men's Olympic volleyball team. Bachman's wife, Barbara, was severely wounded in the incident.

BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political
August 13, 2008 Wednesday

China: Two 'terror suspects from Xinjiang' arrested in southern Fujian

Text of report by Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao website on 13 August

[Unattributed report: "Two 'Xinjiang Independence' Elements Were Arrested in Fujian; 20 of Them Gathered in Southern Fujian Trying To Carry Out Disruption"]

Prior to the opening of the Beijing Olympics, it was rumoured that several policemen responsible for street patrols in Beijing were murdered. The Fujian police recently unearthed a Xinjiang radical organization, during which two Uighurs suspected of being terrorists were arrested, but most of the suspects escaped without a trace. As disclosed, the incident was not announced due to its sensitivity during the Beijing Olympics.

An informed source indicated that a group of Xinjiang radicals sneaked into Fujian days ago in an attempt to carry out disruption. Some civilians reported to the police that 20 Xinjiang people suspected of being terrorists had gathered in southern Fujian's Shishi City. The police conducted a search and on the spot seized two Xinjiang people suspected of being terrorists. The other 18 criminal suspects escaped without a trace. The police are currently widening the search scope trying to arrest them.

Source: Ming Pao website, Hong Kong, in Chinese 0000 gmt 13 Aug 08

The new attacks caused 3 security personnels death and 1 injury. All of them are ethnic Uighur. We need to really going hard on those bastards who did this.

En, that's quite rare nowadays. I remember a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily called Zhangli has been caught by Taiwan Costal Guard and kept in custody for nothing for a little bit less than a year. That poor man sailed from Xiamen port in his boat "Silver Heron". He was captured as "Chinese spy" during his days in taisan prison he had to run 10,000 metres every day. But that's 8 years ago. Kinmen is about 10 kilometres away from Xiamen City, and if someone wants to "get into the embrace of the freedom world" and happens to be a bad swimmer, better steal a boat beforehand. 2 rmb doesn't garantee him a proper meal right now. However, if he wants he could find a job at the first and prepare more money.

@ sha

and you think really going hard on the bastards is going to change things now sha. The bigger bastards have been going hard on the poor uyghur bastards in earnest for the last twelve or thirteen years, since the Strike Hard campaigns of the 1990s. Do you think that will change things now?

the situation has crossed a new thresh hold

Sow the wind Reap the whirlwind

Harsh Chinese Crackdown Coming in Xinjiang
Tag it:Willy Lam
15 August 2008

Once the troublesome Olympic Games are out of the way, steel will rain on China’s rebellious regions

Chinese Communist Party and military authorities are set to launch an all-out, life-and-death struggle against underground, “splittist” elements in Xinjiang, whose three attacks against security personnel this month resulted in the death of 20 police and officers of the People’s Armed Police.

Diplomatic sources in the Chinese capital said the enhanced military action would begin immediately after the Olympics end on the 24th, when the world’s attention will no longer be focused on China’s human rights record, including its shabby treatment of the Uighur minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.

The political fortunes of President Hu Jintao’s faction are at stake. Since disturbances began to intensify in Tibet and Xinjiang early this year, Hu cronies running western China, including the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Party Secretary Wang Liqun and Tibet Party Secretary Zhang Qingli, have come in for criticism by other CCP factions for failing to do a good job in maintaining stability in the two flashpoint regions.

In the Chinese tradition, cadres under fire for failing to maintain law and order will normally opt for hawkish and draconian measures so as to demonstrate their toughness as well as “political resoluteness.” Given that Wang’s and Zhang’s jobs are on the line, they would seem to have ample reason to use whatever firepower they could muster to obliterate bitter foes among the ethnic minorities.

The call to arms was issued August 13 by Politburo member and Xinjiang region secretary Wang, Hu’s protégé. In language that recalls the excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Wang said in a meeting with local cadres and military officials that the CCP’s war against the “three evil forces” – or groups advocating terrorism, separatism and religious extremism – would be “a struggle unto death… that will remain long-term, severe and convoluted.”

Wang also hinted that there was no room for compromise or for a non-military settlement of the differences between Beijing and these “enemy forces.” The Politburo stalwart told his comrades that military and police forces must “seize the initiative in attacking, hit them [the enemies] wherever they show up, and undertake pre-emptive strikes” so as to deny the three evil forces opportunities to re-group.

Recent party documents on the “next stage of struggle” against the “three evil forces” have underscored the significance of a kind of responsibility system for PLA, PAP and ordinary police officers. This means that military and police officers must ensure that areas under their jurisdiction be free of underground separatist or extremist bases. And if trouble or quasi-terrorist activities occur in a certain city, town or county, responsible cadres or officers are to be fired or demoted immediately.

As Wang said Wednesday: “Every official must man his command post well. Officials must have a high sense of responsibility toward safeguarding areas [under their jurisdiction].”

Beijing sources knowledgeable about Beijing’s policies toward ethnic minorities – especially Uighurs – say that President Hu has totally abandoned the policy of flexibility and appeasement advocated by his patron, former party chief Hu Yaobang, in the 1980s.

The sources have pinpointed two new thrusts in Beijing’s long-standing efforts to tame Xinjiang.

Firstly, more troops – and hardware such as jet fighters – are to be moved to the Lanzhou Military Region (MR), which is responsible for western provinces including Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang. Reinforcements have come, for example, from divisions that were originally responsible for guarding the border with Russia and for a possible military confrontation with Taiwan.

With relations across the Strait having been stabilized in the wake of the triumph of the Kuomintang at presidential polls last March, several units from the Nanjing Military Region (which is responsible for Taiwan) have been deployed in the Lanzhou MR for the time being.

Secondly, Xinjiang public security departments will revive the surveillance and “spying” functions of neighborhood committees in various cities in the autonomous regions. XAR authorities have allocated additional funds to hire “part-time informants” that are attached to neighborhood committees. These informants, who include both Han Chinese and Uighurs, are tasked with telling police about suspicious-looking people who have newly moved into the neighborhood.

At least as of now, President Hu is confident that iron-clad tactics against Uighur “rebels” would not lead to serious international repercussions. The US has in the past few years toned down criticism of Beijing’s XAR policy partly in return for China’s help in Washington’s global anti-terrorism gambit. And President George W Bush’s appearance at the opening ceremony of the Games has convinced Beijing that whatever it does in Xinjiang or Tibet will not lead to a deterioration of Sino-U.S. ties.

Moreover, even if the PLA and PAP were to play hardball with “underground gangs” in the XAR, such actions would pale beside the recent incursion of Russian groups into Georgia. The Western world’s lukewarm response to the Georgian crisis reinforces the CCP leadership’s belief that it can get away with even the most repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang.

http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1386&Itemid=31

Im surprised that Willy got it really wrong in regards XAR. Its the XUAR - 'Xinjaing Uyghur Autonomous Region' rather than the 'Xinjiang Autonomous Region.' A significant oversight!

Wang's words have been heard before.
'Great Walls of Steel' etc.

One wonders why jet bombers are needed against knife weilding pissed off Uyghur youth.

If indeed an intensification o the thirteen year- long crackdown does occur, it will be rough/ dragnet/arbitrary arrest/summary execution flavour intensified. Nothing bodes well. One can only hope that out of this the likes of Wang, Zhang and that smiling killer of old, Hu, are toppled from power and their ideology and modus exposed as the outdated, divisionary tool it has in fact been. One can only be concerned more than ever for the Uyghur if this will be Beijing's stance.

France used to send criminals to "devils island".

Great Britain used to ship "unfit","undesirable","dissidents","criminals" to Australia and United States.

So did Central Goverment of China. After Mao took over china, many Shanghai people were sent to Xinjiang. That accounts for some Uyghurs who can understand and speak some shanghai dialect. At one point they might have practiced the "chain gang" equivalent in XJ under the supervision of the Production and Construction Corp.

Hence this guy who swam to Taiwan has probably some questionable background.

The most famous of the banished ones in XJ is a General Lin Tse-Hsu who fought the opium war. He was banished to Yining, XJ in 1842.

Nevertheless XJ changed a lot over the past few years specially. Local university starts to crank out PhD graduates. There are currently Uyghur PhD candidates in physics studying abroard. You never know. One of these days you might find Uyghur astronauts in the chinese space program.

P.S. currently one academic member of the esteemed Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy of Sciences) is a Tajik, a minority a china.

Uyghur astronauts in the Chinese space programm. Id believe it when I saw it. Uyghur aint getting trusted now any more than they were in the past- Phds for all Uyghur students who want them would be the socialist thing to do. Not for the few. You are a propagandist Jonathon. What particular department do you work for within in China?