No need to sweat over minor unrest

The world is paying increasing attention to the situation in China's Tibetan region, and also to the recent increase in police strength in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Many people outside China see incidents in China's ethnic minority areas as one of the country's biggest challenges.

It is true that in recent years, Tibet and Xinjiang have not been as peaceful as before.

China's reform and opening-up and social reforms have brought many changes. Conflicts are on the rise both in inland and border areas. But the reform and opening-up drive has also made the country more able to maintain stability. Growing experience and knowledge is helping Chinese society eliminate many worries that China used to have.

The grass-roots level of Chinese society, including in Tibet and Xinjiang, will certainly become more diverse both in thought and interests thanks to the opening-up drive. This will make some external forces take advantage of globalization and manipulate minorities in China.

As a result, conflicts are more likely to occur in ethnic minority areas than before. But friction in these areas is more easily associated with politics and is always regarded as sensitive because they occur in ethnic minority areas. We cannot eliminate such sensitivity.

The reality is China cannot prevent every single mass incident in Tibet and Xinjiang. It would exhaust Chinese society and the governments of the two autonomous regions.

But society should place great emphasis on the grass-roots problems in Tibet and Xinjiang. First, more efforts should be made to reduce incidents that will affect stability. Furthermore, everything should keep pace with the times.