Terrorism
State Responsibility

In the immediate aftermath of the deadly riots in Urumqi, a FM spokesman said the violence was "instigated and directed from abroad", and the Government pointed fingers at Rebiye Kadeer, the chairwoman of the World Uighur Congress who had been imprisoned in China for stealing state secrets and released to the US on medical parole (arguably inconsistently with the Chinese law on medical parole) in 2005. Ms. Kadeer denied the allegation and challenged the Chinese authorities to release their evidence in full, even though an officer of the World Uighur Congress admitted that some Uighurs inside China "might have been inspired" by the protests that Ms. Kadeer organised outside Chinese embassies in some European countries to protest the alleged killings of Uighur workers in Guangdong in late June.

The Chinese government further insinuated the US may be responsible for the bloodshed as the World Uighur Congress and the Uighur American Association (also headed by Ms. Kabeer) receive much of their funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, an organisation created and financed by the US Congress to promote democracy worldwide. But perhaps in a showing of the weakness of the claim, a FM spokesman chose not even to name any particular country, demanding instead the "relevant countries" to "immediately stop their funding and support".