China's Xinjiang Crackdown Jeopardizes Ties With Turkey, Muslim World

A string of self-immolations and a dramatic crackdown in China's Sichuan Province has kept Tibet in the public eye in recent months. Yet the deaths of 20 people in violent clashes Tuesday in China's other restive border region, the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, brought Beijing’s other major domestic crackdown back into the international spotlight.

Xinjiang is home to a large population of ethnically Turkic Uighurs, who refer to their homeland as East Turkestan and have long resented Chinese rule. In recent years, restrictions on the use of the Uighur language in schools, an influx of Han Chinese migrants and curbs on the religious freedoms of the Muslim Uighurs have exacerbated ethnic tensions. ...