China sends thousands of troops to combat Xinjiang violence: Isnt That Overkill

China sends thousands of troops to combat Xinjiang violence

Thousands of ex-soldiers are to be deployed to villages and towns in China's troubled northwest to counter a spike in deadly inter-ethnic violence and terrorist attacks that has claimed scores of lives this year.

At least 3,000 former members of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) will be shipped into communities in Xinjiang, a sprawling region of deserts and mountains that shares borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Xinjiang, which is home to an increasingly discontented population of Muslim Uighurs, is witnessing a dramatic surge in violence that Beijing blames on separatists and religious extremists but experts believe is also rooted in the social and economic exclusion of Uighurs.

"The situation in Xinjiang is getting worse and the government needs more people to prevent further riots from happening," said Pan Zhiping, an academic from the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.

The initiative to send former PLA troops to Xinjiang follows another Communist Party project to send 200,000 officials to rural areas to collect intelligence on Uighur communities and attempt to improve relations between them and China's ethnic Han majority.

A "people's war" on terror – launched in May – has seen a major deployment of troops across the region as well as a jump in the number of people being executed for terrorist offences.

Since the anti-terror campaign began, at least 21 people have been executed for such crimes in Xinjiang, compared to just five in 2012 and one in 2011, according to an analysis of publicly available media reports.

One hundred and fifteen suspected terrorist groups have been dismantled and 334 people arrested, Xinjiang's government announced last week.

Earlier this month 22 Uighurs – including a number of "underground imams" – were given heavy jail terms in the city of Kashgar for "conducting illegal religious activities."

Such arrests have lead some to question whether a crackdown on Islam as well as terrorism is also under way.

Xinjiang officials are now seeking former troops of "high political quality and military experience" to beef up security in the region, state media announced on Friday. Candidates should be under 30, have no criminal record and be "against separatism and illegal religious activities," according to the Civil Affairs Bureau in Urumqi, the regional capital. Successful applicants will receive salaries of at least 3,000 yuan (£310) per month and help relocating.

The initiative represented the latest phase in the "securitisation of Xinjiang with a clear focus on protecting the Han population," said Dr James Leibold, a specialist on China's ethnic policy from La Trobe University in Australia.

"These attacks have really spooked the Han population in Xinjiang and the Party cannot afford to lose their trust and faith," he added. "Clearly they don't feel they have enough in terms of security folk."

During a recent trip to Hotan, a city in southern Xinjiang that has suffered repeated outbreaks of violence, Dr Leibold recalled seeing around 50 Han Chinese civilians dancing in a public square. Around them stood more than 70 armed police officers with machine guns.

"They just come when the Han come out to dance and when the Han leave, they leave too," Dr Leibold said. "It was pretty weird."