A city in China’s remote western Xinjiang region has temporarily banned men with beards and women with Muslim headscarves from taking public buses. The extreme security measure to be implemented for the duration of a sports competition slated to kick off in northern Xinjiang’s Karamay city on August 8 is the latest example of the kind of religious intolerance that some say has
The U.S. Is Trying to Light the Match of Islamic Extremism in China’s Xinjiang (Image by Stock File)
“Kashgar is a key location for the land and sea interface of the Belt and Road, connecting not only westward to West Asia, Europe, the Red Sea, and Africa, but also southward to the Indian Ocean through the port of Gwadar,” said Professor Li Bo of the China Research Institute, Fudan University. It is, he told us, “a core area of the Belt and Road strategy.” Kashgar, one of the westernmost cities in China, is the main urban area of the southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Traders from across Asia have assembled at its Sunday bazaar for 2,000 years.