English Dictionary

Relations between the Uighurs and the Chinese have always been bad, but in the last few years they’ve gotten even worse, especially since early 1997, when fighting flared in Yining, the capital of the short-lived East Turkestan Republic. Details are sketchy because the central government cordoned off Xinjiang from the rest of the world, but it appears that unrest — and subsequent executions — left several hundred dead, perhaps more.