Since violent ethnic protests and riots erupted in the western borderlands of China in 2008 and 2009, many scholars have been trying to pinpoint the sources of the unrest. They include Ben Hillman, a senior lecturer in comparative politics at Australian National University, and Gray Tuttle, associate professor of East Asian languages and cultures at Columbia University. They have edited a volume of papers and essays looking at the roots of these tensions, “Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Xinjiang and Tibet: Unrest in China’s West,” recently published by Columbia University Press. The issues explored range widely, be it environmental degradation in Tibet or economic disparities between ethnic Uighurs in their homeland of Xinjiang and Han migrants from other parts of China. In an interview, Mr. Hillman and Mr. Tuttle discussed the grievances behind recent protests and the likelihood of their resolution.

Q. One of your contributors, James Leibold, draws a distinction between ethnic conflict and ethnic protest. Could you explain?

Ben Hillman: It is important to properly characterize the unrest in China’s western regions. The term “ethnic conflict” generally refers to conflict between ethnic communities, whereas “ethnic protest” refers to protests by an ethnic community against state policies. The vast majority of “mass incidents” that have taken place in recent years can be characterized as ethnic protests. Although intercommunal violence has been on the rise in recent years, both in Tibetan and Uighur areas, it has not reached the level of “ethnic conflict.”