China's Far West; Uighurs: Xinjiang

The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim group who number about nine million in Xinjiang, a vast, restive desert region of Western China. Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since since 1949, when Chinese troops crushed a nominally independent Uighur nation, known as the East Turkestan Republic. ManyUighurs resent rule by the Han Chinese for a variety of government policies related to employment, language and religion and the discontent flares up periodically and violently. In 2009, nearly 200 people were killed, manyof whom were Han migrants, and 1,700 were wounded in ethnic rioting in the regional capital, Urumqi. While an inability to speak Mandarin shuts some Uighurs out of Han-run companies, many say the larger force behind their economic marginalization is naked discrimination.

An Uighur man rides motorcycle through traffic and herd of animals in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. Riots involving Uighur and Han ethnic groups killed nearly 200 people in the region in 2009.
  
An Uighur girl prays at market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. The Uighurs, who make up just under half of Xinjiang’s 22 million people — down from more than 90 percent in 1949 — harbor their own deeply felt animosities.
   
Uighur men receive free meal at mosque at the break of Ramadan in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. Government concerns about the radicalizing influence of Islam play out through a raft of religious restrictions, including strict limits on the number of Uighurs who can travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the annual pilgrimage and rules that force students and government workers to eat during the monthlong fast of Ramadan.
     
  
Uighur women make their way through night market in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
  
Uighur men pass time at market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. Beijing is determined to dilute Uighur culture, they say, while Han migrants often end up with the best jobs, especially in government bureaucracies or in the factories of the prosperous “bingtuan,” the largely segregated Han outposts carved out of the desert by the People’s Liberation Army in the 1950s.
   
Uighurs shop at the market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
     
  
LEFT: Uighur men eat meals at sundown during Ramadan in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.RIGHT: Uighur women eat meals at sundown during Ramadan in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
   
  
Uighurs pass time in Khootan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
     
  
Uighur women shop at market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
   
LEFT: An Uighur woman sells scarf in market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. RIGHT: Uighur women make their way through market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
   
Uighurs gather at live stock market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. Khotan has one of Central Asia’s biggest livestock markets, which each Thursday draws farmers and shepherds from across the region.
     
  
An Uighur boy works at live stock market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
  
An Uighr woman in Kashgar, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
  
Uighur women shop clothes at market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010
     
  
An Uighr waitress works at the Altun Zardar restaurant, in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
   
Uighur men watch television at outside cafe in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. In an effort to pacify another restive ethnic region, the government has spent huge sums of money to try to help Xinjiang’s economy catch up to eastern China, where income and production are on average twice as high.
   
Uighur children sell food at night market in Yarkand, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
     
  
   
LEFT: An Uighur woman sells plastic flowers at market in Khotan, Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010. RIGHT: A farmer makes his way through sunflower field along the southern branch of the Silk Road in Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.
   
Ruzmamat, a camel man, makes his way through Taklamakan desert with his camels in Xinjiang province in China, August, 2010.