Terrorism threat transforms China's Uygur heartland into security state
Thousands of street-corner police stations have been built and surveillance cameras installed as the authorities mount a huge crackdown against Muslim separatists
Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China’s ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs.
In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armoured paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.
China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in the far western Xinjiang region. Beijing accuses separatists among the Muslim Uygur ethnic minority there of stirring up tensions with the ethnic Han Chinese majority and plotting attacks elsewhere in China.
A historic trading post, Kashgar is also central to China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign and economic policy involving massive infrastructure spending linking China to Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
China’s worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year’s diplomatic set piece, a “One Belt, One Road” summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May.
State 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.