Uyghur rights and China
The Uyghur people's modern relationship with China is often sketched by analysts in terms of historic milestones. For example, the onset of the reform period in China in the late 1970s ushered in a period of détente; a signal that this was eroding came with unrest in 1990 in Baren. The definitive turning-point was, however, reached when Chinese forces killed Uyghur protesters in Ghulja in 1997. If this led Uyghurs in general to lose whatever belief they had had in the Chinese state, the deadly inter-ethnic violence in Urumchi in 2009 is cited as the moment when relations between Han and Uyghur communities became irretrievable.
