By blanketing the oil-rich Xinjiang with troops, China's rulers may have subdued the Uighur revolt, which began in Urumqi, the regional capital, and spread to other heavily guarded towns like Hotan and Kashgar, the ancient cultural center whose old city is to be razed and redeveloped to help drain supposed jihadist swamps. But this deadliest case of minority rioting in decades — along with the 2008 ethnic uprising across the Tibetan plateau — shows the political costs of forcible absorption, shattering the illusion of a monolithic China and laying bare the country's Achilles' heel.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party had gone to unusual lengths to block any protests from flaring during this symbolically important year marking the 60th anniversary of its coming to power.

For example, the 20th anniversary of "June 4," the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of prodemocracy protesters, went by without any incident because of heavy security in Beijing. A security siege in Tibet similarly ensured that the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan national uprising against the Chinese occupation and the Dalai Lama's consequent flight to India passed off peacefully. A confident Beijing then provocatively observed March 28 — the 50th anniversary of its declaration of direct rule over Tibet — as "Serf Emancipation Day" with a national holiday, as if it just realized it liberated Tibetans from serfdom half a century ago.