Introduction

Although China is commonly perceived as being ethnically homogenous, nearly 9 percent of the total population consists of ethnic minorities whose importance for China's long-term development is disproportionate to their numbers. Among the estimated 106.4 million ethnic minorities, the majority have traditionally concentrated in the resource-rich western areas of the nation (NBS/EAC, 2003). Foremost among these areas is the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China's northwest – occupying onesixth of the country's total land mass and holding one of the nation's largest and most strategically important natural gas and oil reserves – where nearly 8.4 million Uyghurs, a Turkic, mostly Sunni-Muslim ethnic minority, reside in the majority.

Tensions between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese (the national majority) have dominated discussions in the region as a result of historical and contemporary incidents between both groups. For instance, during the Gulja Incident during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in February 1997, a series of riots and demonstrations occurred due to crackdowns by Chinese authorities on traditional Uyghur culture, including most notably the banning of traditional social gatherings (meshrep). More recently in July 2009, violent riots in the region's capital, Urumqi, resulted in 197 Uyghur and Han deaths and 1,721 injured (Hao et al., 2009). In general, contributing factors behind Muslim Uyghur-Han Chinese tensions revolve around policies that limit religious practice or aim to phase out Uyghur language instruction in schools. For example, public sector employees are not allowed to wear Islamic head scarves or coverings (including the doppa cap for males), nor fast during Ramadan.