Chinese authorities said a knife attack at a train station in southwest Kunming city that left at least 33 people dead and more than 140 injured was carried out by separatists from northwest Xinjiang region.
President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out efforts” to punish the assailants, “crack down on violent terrorist activities” and safeguard social stability, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Meng Jianzhu, the nation’s top security official, and Guo Shengkun, minister of public security, have gone to Kunming to direct the investigation, it said.
The attack, days before the annual meeting of the legislature in Beijing, highlights growing social unrest amid widening inequality and increasing tensions between the state and some ethnic groups including the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang. The ruling Communist Party last November set up a state committee to better coordinate security issues as it faces dissent at home and expands its military reach.
“The problem in China is that there’s no mechanism for people who think they are victims of discrimination to seek redress,” said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Center for China Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “There is no dialogue between the authorities and those with grievances, so they resort to violence, and from official reports it appears the frequency and intensity of those outbursts is increasing.”
Separatist Forces
No one has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack, which started at about 9:20 p.m. when more than 10 people dressed in black and armed with knives rampaged through the square and ticket hall of the railway station, according to a Xinhua report. It quoted unnamed municipal government officials as saying that evidence at the scene showed it was a terrorist attack orchestrated by Xinjiang separatist forces.
Of the 33 who died, four were masked assailants killed by the police, according to Xinhua reports. One attacker was captured and the others are still being hunted, it said. The injured were taken to more than 10 local hospitals in Kunming for treatment, according to Xinhua.
Kunming is the capital of southwest Yunnan province, home to at least 25 ethnic minority groups who number 15.5 million in total, about a third of the provincial population, according to the local government website.
Meng toured the railway station after arriving in Kunming to oversee the investigation, calling for patrols at crowded places to be stepped up and for a crackdown on violent crime, Xinhua reported.
Ensure Safety
“All-out efforts should be made to treat the injured, severely punish terrorist attackers according to law, and resolutely avoid the occurrence of similar cases so as to ensure the safety of people’s lives and property, and social stability,” Meng was quoted as saying.
Tensions between the state and the Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang, a resource-rich autonomous region inside China, have increased and spilled over to other parts of the country.
In October, a sport-utility vehicle plowed into a crowd at Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing and burst into flames, killing the three occupants and two bystanders. Meng, the top security official, said the people in the SUV had links to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a militant Uighur group blamed in the past for violence in Xinjiang.
Police last month shot killed eight people who attacked a convoy of patrol cars in Xinjiang’s Wushi county, according to Tianshan, a website run by the local government’s press office. In January, police shot and killed six rioters who were planting explosives, Tianshan reported that month.
Splitting Country
China is also arresting activists who have challenged the government on issues ranging from disclosure of officials’ assets to the environment and the rights of minorities.
Authorities have detained Ilham Tohti, a Uighur academic, on suspicion of committing crimes and violating laws, Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman said last month. His lawyer, Li Fangping, said Tohti was formally arrested last month on charges of “splitting the country.”
Chinese citizens are taking increasingly desperate measures to draw attention to their grievances. Last week, a man set fire to a bus in the southern city of Guiyang, killing six and injuring 35, to “get even” with society, Xinhua reported last week, citing the local authority. In July, a wheelchair-bound man detonated a home-made bomb at Beijing airport after failing to get compensation for his injuries after a conflict with public security guards.
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zhang Shidong in Shanghai at szhang5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Patterson at mpatterson10@bloomberg.net; Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net
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