Banks of paramilitary police fanned out in the far-flung Chinese city of Urumqi today to try to stifle unrest days after 156 people were killed in the region's worst ethnic violence in decades.
Urumqi, capital of the northwestern region of Xinjiang, imposed an overnight curfew last night after thousands of Han Chinese, armed with sticks, knives and metal bars, stormed through its streets demanding redress and sometimes extracting bloody vengeance on Muslim Uighurs for Sunday's violence.
Many took to the streets again on today and even with helicopters hovering overhead there were scuffles in a volatile crowd of around 1,000 as police seized apparent ringleaders, prompting cries of "release them, release them".
President Hu Jintao abandoned plans to attend a G8 summit in Italy, returning home to monitor developments in energy-rich Xinjiang, where 1,080 people were also wounded in rioting and 1,434 have been arrested since Sunday.
Financial markets again appeared unaffected and life was returning to the streets of Uighur neighbourhoods. But residents said night-time arrests were continuing and they were quietly preparing to defend against further Han attacks. Urumqi airport was crowded with people anxious to leave, the official Xinhua news agency said.
But the heavy security presence brought peace to central parts of the city, with armed personnel carriers standing by as helicopters hovered overhead.
Residents said night-time arrests were continuing and they had amassed collections of bricks and metal rods, and set up impromptu barricades to defend themselves against further Han attacks.
Officials played down the unrest as heavy security, including thousands of security forces and armed personnel carriers, brought peace to central parts of the city.
"Most of the public were quite restrained," Urumqi's Communist Party Boss Li Zhi said of yesterday's violence.
"A handful of Han attacked Uighurs and there were a handful of Uighurs who attacked Han ... this handful of violent elements has been caught by the police and now the situation has been quelled," he added at a news conference in the Xinjiang capital.
There also was no official curfew, although by early evening the streets were emptying and vehicles with propaganda bullhorns drove around town telling people to "go home as quickly as possible", and warning them not to listen to rumours
Police say Sunday's clashes were triggered by a brawl between Uighurs and Han at a factory in south China prompted by a rumour Uighurs had raped two women. Police have detained 15 people in connection with the factory brawl, including two suspected of spreading rumours on the Internet.
"If a wrong is avenged with another wrong, there would be no end to it," the state-owned English-language China Daily said in an editorial. "Blood for blood is incompatible with the rule of law and will only lead to a vicious cycle of harm and revenge."
Internet access in the city was blocked on Wednesday except in the business centre of one hotel for foreign reporters.
Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China. It is strategically located at the borders of Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.
Xinjiang has long been a tightly controlled hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by an economic gap between many Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han migrants who now are the majority in most key cities, including Urumqi. There were attacks in the region before and during last year's Summer Olympics in Beijing.
But controlling the anger on both sides of the ethnic divide will now make controlling Xinjiang, with its gas reserves and trade and energy ties to central Asia, all the more testing for the ruling Communist Party.
The government has sought to bridge that divide by blaming the Sunday killings on exiled Uighurs seeking independence for their homeland, especially Rebiya Kadeer, a businesswoman and activist now living in exile in the United States.
Ms Kadeer, writing in the Asian Wall Street Journaltoday, condemned the violence on both sides, and again denied being the cause of the unrest.
"Years of Chinese repression of Uighurs topped by a confirmation that Chinese officials have no interest in observing the rule of law when Uighurs are concerned is the cause of the current Uighur discontent," she wrote.
The Communist Party boss of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, sought to press forward that effort in a speech broadcast on regional TV and handed out as a leaflet to Urumqi residents late yesterday.
"This was a massive conspiracy by hostile forces at home and abroad, and their goal was precisely to sabotage ethnic unity and provoke ethnic antagonism," said Mr Wang.
Uighurs, a Turkic people who are largely Muslim and share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia, make up almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people. The population of Urumqi, which lies around 3,300 km west of Beijing, is mostly Han.
Reuters