Across the country, China is seeing a resurgence of local ethnicity and culture, most notably among southerners such as the Cantonese and Hakka, who are now classified as Han.

For centuries, China has held together a vast multi-cultural and multi-ethnic nation despite alternating periods of political centralization and fragmentation. But cultural and linguistic cleavages could worsen in a China weakened by internal strife, an economic downturn, uneven growth, or a struggle over future political succession.

The initial brawl between workers in a Guangdong toy factory, which left at least two Uighur dead on 25 June, prompted the mass unrest in Xinjiang on 5 July, which ended with 156 dead, thousands injured, and 1500 arrested, with on-going violence spreading throughout the region.

The National Day celebrations scheduled for October 2009, seeks to highlight 60 years of the “harmonious” leadership of the Communist Party in China, and like the 2008 Olympics, its enormous success. The rioting threatens to de-rail these celebrations.

Officially, China is made up of 56 nationalities: one majority nationality, the Han, and 55 minority groups. The 2000 census revealed a total official minority population of nearly 104m, or approximately 9% of the total population.

BBC

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Around a dozen cases, 3 deaths, as pneumonic plague kills up its heels in NW China. This is a disease that hygiene can help prevent. Get rid of the rodents and their fleas and plague disappears.

Plague is spread in two main forms, pneumonic – which is the form reported in China, and bubonic. Pneumonic plague is spread like many respiratory diseases, by being coughed or sneezed on by a sick person.

Bubonic plague can be found in the United States, almost entirely in the Southwest. It is spread by the bites of fleas, usually fleas from rats, mice or other rodents. The number of human cases varies with the natural increases or decreases in rodent populations. The NIH reports 10-20 cases of bubonic plague in the U.S. on average each year. 1 of 7 cases is fatal.

Pneumonic plague appears as a rapid onset pneumonia, with all the related symptoms, fever, shortness of breath, coughing and sometimes bloody sputum. It is very contagious for people who have close contact with the patient. The Y. pestis bacteria cannot survive longer than about an hour in open air and sunlight so personal contact is the most risky.

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The crowd defended the body against waves of policemen. However, on Saturday, a fire was lit inside the hotel, but the corpse was saved. Tu’s cousin apparently armed himself with two barrels of gasoline and threatened to blow himself up if the body was taken.

The police restored order yesterday, imposed a curfew and took the body to a funeral parlour. Today, the website of the local government has been defaced by hackers.

What’s extraordinary is the speed in which the riot blew up, and the venom directed against the local authorities. Whatever was behind Tu’s death, there’s clearly something rotten in Shishou.

But after months of calm, there have been a spate of reported riots recently. Is this because media restrictions have been lifted, allowing news of riots to spread, or has there been a genuine increase in social tension in the countryside?

It is impossible to tell. China no longer publishes the figures for how many riots take place each year, but most people put the figure at around 80,000 and the vast majority go totally unnoticed.

Telegraph

A Chinese soldier was shot dead outside a military garrison in the south-western city of Chongqing, state media have reported.

The 18-year-old soldier, Han Junliang, was on sentry duty when he was attacked by one or more assailants, who shot him dead then stole his submachine gun.

The police and military have launched a joint investigation, the report said.

Private gun ownership is illegal in China. The government has acknowledged trouble in dealing with armed gangs.

Analysts say there are tens of thousands of smuggled weapons or guns illegally manufactured inside China.

BBC

BBC map of overlapping claims in South China Sea, including the largest, by China.

China plans to step up naval patrols in disputed waters in the South China Sea to protect its interests, Chinese state media quoted an official as saying.

The fisheries administration chief cited an increase in illegal fishing and other countries’ “unfounded claims” in seas that China claims as its own.

China sent a fisheries patrol ship to the South China Sea last week, and said it could deploy more similar vessels.

The patrols come after US and Chinese ships were involved in a confrontation.

“Faced with a growing amount of illegal fishing and other countries’ unfounded territorial claims it has become necessary to step up the fishery administration’s patrols to protect China’s rights and interests,” the China Daily quoted official Wu Zhuang as saying.

BBC