China caught between two competing versions of stability

Levels of security are as high as ever in the Chinese west, where prominent Uighur rights activist Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment on 23 September, charged with separatism by a court in Urumqi. The authorities have been shaken by an upsurge in violent incidents involving a militant fringe among the 10m predominantly Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang autonomous region. There was no question of Tohti, a leading advocate of non-violence, being involved in terrorism, but the Urumqi court said he had “encouraged his fellow Uighurs to use violence”.