Could the Chinese state media be right -- is violence in Xinjiang the result of a few bad apples and nefarious foreign terrorists? There is an organization called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) which both the Chinese and American governments claim has ties to al-Qaeda and which, according to Beijing, has been responsible for a series of terrorist attacks in China over the past 15 years. However, ETIM is estimated to have fewer than 100 members and little external support, and no evidence links the group with any of the recent Xinjiang violence. In addition, few Uighurs are able to leave the country, much less travel to Turkey or Syria -- assuming those individuals have fomented much violence is likewise a stretch.

If evidence of foreign meddling in the Xinjiang violence is so thin, why does the Chinese government continue to promote it? Why doesn't the state media simply acknowledge that ethnic tension in Xinjiang exists, and that they're working on resolving it?

First, acknowledging ethnic tension is to say that the "harmonious society," one of Hu Jintao's principal governing philosophies, is little more than an empty slogan. China's policy of blaming domestic instability on external forces also applies to its handling of Tibet, where uprisings are usually attributed to the Dalai Lama, even though he hasn't lived in China in over half a century. This strategy -- by no means exclusive to China -- preserves the illusion that all of the country's internal violence has an external origin.

Secondly, saying that Uighurs have a legitimate grievance would force Beijing to actually do something about it. Will this change? Russell Leigh Moses, in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the Xi Jinping administration is taking a softer approach to Xinjiang, but Beijing still lacks any kind of strategy for alleviating the root causes of the violence. Blaming ethnic violence on external forces may be good public relations, but if Beijing actually believes in it there's no reason to expect the violence will end.

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