President of the World Uighur Congress, Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer started her five-day Japan trip on July 28. Beijing, which accuses Kadeer of being the mastermind behind the uprisings in Xinjiang earlier this month, and is angry that Japan guaranteed her entry.
According to a Central News Agency report, the 62-year-old World Uighur Congress (WUC) president said she would use the trip to gain more support for the Muslim minorities in Xinjiang when welcomed by a group in the airport in Tokyo. Some supporters held banners saying “Free the Uighurs.”
Staff from WUC Japan branch said Rebiya met with lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party and held a press conference in the Japan Journalists’ Club.
The trip sparked an angry response from Beijing; the Chinese regime labeled the visit as “anti-China” and “separatist activity.”
Professor Xie Tian from Drexel University's LeBow College of Business believes that behind the ethnic and political issues in Xinjing lies the economic issue. The natural resources in Xinjiang, and its strategic importance, are the roots of the ethnic conflict, he says.
Xie said, “While Han race people emphasize the billions invested in Xinjiang every year, and the developments of the past decades, the ethnic Uyghurs see ten times more crude oil flow out at very cheap prices.” Therefore, the regime’s tyranny, its ethnic and economic policy, are the root causes of the ethnic conflict in Xinjiang, according to Xie.
Read the original Chinese article.
