Monday, July 13, 2009

Xinjiang unrest reveals fragility of Chinese state

John Chan | wsws.org, 13 July 2009

The protests by Xinjiang’s Uighur workers and students on July 5 and the brutal military response of the Chinese government, reveal that, as celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the 1949 revolution approach, the very foundations of a unified China of 1.3 billion people, 56 ethnic nationalities and numerous languages, are being called into question.

The promises of the Chinese revolution—of building a land of socialism and equality based on the common ownership of means of production, thus unifying workers and peasant masses of all ethnic backgrounds—have long vanished.

The military-police and communal violence that claimed hundreds of lives in Urumqi last week have highlighted the glaring divisions between classes, ethnicities and geo-political regions throughout China, caused by the unequal distribution of social wealth. At the same time, the deployment of heavily-armed troops to Urumqi and other Xinjiang cities once again demonstrates how capitalist exploitation is being imposed.

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