Suddenly it becomes clear that the idea of harmonious business that Beijing stresses so often is no more than a propagandistic catchphrase. In reality there are deep rifts right across this country. And how quickly the violence can escalate. Beijing is acting on an old reaction in Urumqi, the violence is never analysed, there's no reflection and everything is blamed on outsiders. But the young people of Lhasa and Urumqi who were so prepared to use such violence are not being educated by evil puppet masters overseas. They are the results of Peking's long term failure to find any kind of realistic, political solution to issues concerning their ethnic minorities. In terms of media coverage, the Chinese government is taking a completely different approach to the one they took last year during the unrest in Tibet. They found themselves on the defensive back then, roundly criticised for their heavy handed and restrictive approach to coverage of the protests in Lhasa. This time around the Beijing-controlled media had already prepared numbers, pictures and background information before any of the Western media even knew what was going on. The world's media ended up getting the shocking news 180 dead after ethnic violence from the Chinese state news agency itself. This difference is reportedly the result of a directive issued about a year ago by Chinese President Hu Jintao. He told the Chinese media that, in order to beat critics, both at home and abroad, they should set their own agenda when it came to fast-breaking news stories. It is only too clear that ethnic integration in China is experienced differently, by different races. What is also clear is that when those differences are ignored they make for the sort of situation that can explode into violence at any provocation. Just as they did after the Tibetan protests last year, the Chinese administration has been quick to point the finger. But just as it was in Tibet, the reasons for the violence are not as clear as the propagandists would have us believe. As with any case of political excess, one must point out the difference between the triggers in a situation and the actual, over arching reasons for conflict. In this case, the trigger could well have been the racially motivated killing of Uighurs in the Guangdong province. But there must be more to the intensity of the protests that exploded in Urumqi. Quite likely, it is the repressions of the Uighur people as the Han Chinese seek to become a majority in that area. Organised terror, which is what Beijing claims is going on here cannot be responsible for this kind of rage. Massive and violent protests like this breed in the hotbed of political repression and religious intolerance. Beijing is 5,000 kilometres from Xinjiang but as in all of China, everyone is on Beijing time. School starts at six in the morning, the lessons are all in Chinese and the Uighur speech and culture is being reduced to folklore, just singing and dancing for the tourists. Members of the Communist party and civil servants, such as teachers and police, are not allowed to attend Jumma prayers on Fridays. Massive immigration of Han Chinese encouraged into the area by financial incentives, means that slowly but surely the Uighurs are becoming a minority in their own land. China is notorious for not being understanding of other cultures. Ethnic minorities have equal rights here but only on paper. Many Han Chinese treat their Uighur brethren with thinly disguised contempt and racist arrogance. The proverbial spark that set this violent fire had to do with the unexplained deaths of two Uighur factory workers. The fact that such a spark could set such a blaze in Urumqi, a historically multi-ethnic city in which Chinese, Uighurs, Kazakhs, Russians and Tartars have all lived peacefully together.