Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China\u2019s ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs.
\nIn mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armored paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.
\nChina says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in this far Western Xinjiang 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.
\nA historic trading post, Kashgar is also central to China\u2019s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, President Xi Jinping\u2019s signature foreign and economic policy involving massive infrastructure spending linking China to Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
\nChina\u2019s worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year\u2019s diplomatic setpiece, an OBOR summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May.
\nState 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.
\nBut 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\u2019s Uighur heartland in recent months. (For a graphic on China\u2019s Xinjiang crackdown click http:\/\/tmsnrt.rs\/2nQrQm4)
\nAs well as taking part in drills, shopkeepers must, at their own expense, install password-activated security doors, \u201cpanic buttons\u201d and cameras that film not just the street outside but also inside their stores, sending a direct video feed to police.
\nFor Uighurs like the owner of an online multimedia company facing one of Kashgar\u2019s main streets it is not about security, but mass surveillance.
\n\u201cWe have no privacy,\u201d said the business owner who, like almost everyone Reuters spoke to in Kashgar, did not want to give his name. \u201cThey want to see what you\u2019re up to.\u201d
\nA Chinese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the new security measures in Xinjiang were not politically motivated, but based on fresh developments and intelligence. He declined to elaborate.
\nThe Xinjiang government and the State Council Information Office, which doubles as the Communist Party spokesman\u2019s office, did not respond to requests for comment.
\nChina routinely denies pursuing repressive policies in Xinjiang, and points to the vast sums it spends on economic development in the resource-rich region. Xinjiang\u2019s gross domestic product last year rose 7.6 per cent, above the national average.<\/p>\n
RELIGIOUS RE-EDUCATION<\/strong> \u201cGRID-STYLE\u201d SURVEILLANCE<\/strong> ECONOMY OR SECURITY?<\/strong> Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China\u2019s ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c102-muslim-minorities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nSince ethnic riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009, Xinjiang has been plagued by bouts of deadly violence.
\nThe 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.
\nBut Chinese state media say the threat remains high and the Communist Party has vowed to continue what it terms its own \u201cwar on terror\u201d against spreading Islamist extremism.
\nIn Xinjiang, this can also be seen at weekly flag-raising ceremonies that Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who formed the majority in Xinjiang before an influx of Han Chinese, are required to attend to denounce religious extremism and pledge fealty under the Chinese flag.
\nAt one such event witnessed by Reuters in Hotan, a former Silk Road oasis town 500 km (300 miles) southeast of Kashgar, more than 1,000 people filed onto an open-air basketball court where Party officials checked their names against an attendance list and inspected their dress and appearance.
\n\u201cBest you take this off or I\u2019ll send you to re-education,\u201d said one female official, pulling back the black hijab worn by a middle-aged Uighur woman to expose her forehead and hair.
\nHotan authorities offer 2,000 yuan ($290) rewards for those who report \u201cface coverings and robes, youth with long beards, or other popular religious customs that have been radicalized\u201d, as part of a wider incentive system that rewards actionable intelligence on imminent attacks.
\nXinjiang lawmakers this week approved legislation extending a prohibition on \u201cabnormal\u201d beards and the wearing of veils in public places across the whole region. The new rules come into force on Saturday.
\nThis month a video purportedly released by the Islamic State group showed Uighur fighters training in Iraq and vowing that blood would \u201cflow in rivers\u201d in China.<\/p>\n
\nThe 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 neighboring Tibet.
\nChen has made his mark swiftly, culminating last month in what state media described as mass \u201canti-terror\u201d rallies across Xinjiang\u2019s four largest cities involving tens of thousands of paramilitary troops and police.
\nOne of Chen\u2019s most visible initiatives has been to build thousands of what the authorities call \u201cconvenience police stations\u201d across Xinjiang and hire some 30,000 new officers to man them.
\nThey are present on almost every intersection in Kashgar, typically just hundreds of meters apart, in what Chen calls a \u201cgrid-style social management\u201d system he pioneered in Tibet.
\nLocal state media have praised the initiative as a new benchmark in community-based policing. Critics, including Uighur and rights groups, say the real purpose of the convenience police stations is to spy on the population.
\nCitizens are encouraged to use the stations to charge their mobile phones, have a cup of tea or shelter from the elements.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know anyone who has been in there,\u201d said one Han Chinese taxi driver, who only wanted to be identified by his surname Huang, suggesting few have taken up on the offer to huddle beside the riot police and soldiers that occupy the stations.
\nBut Huang, reflecting the region\u2019s simmering ethnic tensions, added that the increased security made him feel safer.
\n\u201cSome people think it\u2019s too much, that it\u2019s just a few Uighurs,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if they chop your family, then you\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nJames Leibold, an expert on Chinese ethnic policy at La Trobe University in Melbourne, said the focus on security runs counter to Beijing\u2019s goal of using the OBOR initiative to boost Xinjiang\u2019s economy and improve its integration with the rest of China, because it would disrupt the flow of people and ideas.
\n\u201cThose two are just fundamentally at odds,\u201d he said.
\nSpending on security in Xinjiang is rising, jumping nearly 20 percent in 2016 to more than 30 billion yuan ($4.35 billion), according to state media.
\nThat can be seen in the metal detectors and airport-style security checks in place at major public areas, including Kashgar\u2019s ancient Id Kah mosque, bazaars, malls and hotels.
\nPolice spot document checks are carried out on pedestrians, with mobile phones inspected for extremist videos or use of banned chat applications like Telegram, WhatsApp and Twitter. Mobile internet speeds have been slowed from 4G to 3G.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s maybe 5,000 people making trouble, but the rest of us, 10 million of us, pay the price,\u201d one Uighur man in Kashgar told Reuters.
\nReuters was tailed closely by local police in Kashgar. A reporter returning to his hotel at 1 a.m. found officers waiting in the lobby.
\nWhen asked about the reason for the security one of the officers said Kashgar\u2019s preparations for OBOR were of paramount importance.
\n\u201cWhen you see military and police vehicles patrolling the street in your country, what do you think it\u2019s for?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s for safety. Kashgar will be a hub for travel. Everything must be good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"