Xinjiang was designated as an autonomous region for ethnic minorities and became formally known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in 1955. The PRC has been the target of bombings, sabotage, and other terrorist attacks, primarily thought to be committed by small groups of XUAR extremists. The PRC Constitution states:
All ethnic groups in the People's Republic of China are equal. China has signed or ratified several international human rights declarations, but Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch both report that severe human rights violations occur in the XUAR. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, the potential for Sino-U.S. cooperation against global terrorism may bring changes in the policy calculations of U.S. officials, who may seek to downplay traditional U.S. concerns in the interest of assuring PRC cooperation.
Since 1996, officials of the People's Republic of China (PRC) have seen an increasing security threat in the activities of minority nationalities in its heavily Muslim Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), in China's far northwest. The PRC has been the target of bombings, sabotage, and other terrorist attacks, primarily thought to be committed by small groups of XUAR extremists (largely Uighurs). As a result, Beijing has increased police actions in the region, which many human rights organizations and Members of Congress allege have resulted in gross and increasing human rights violations. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, U.S. policymakers are faced with balancing these human rights concerns with what now appear to be common Sino-U.S. interests in combating fundamentalist global terrorism.