#Kunming casualties pic.twitter.com/yyjCyT9gmI

— Offbeat China (@OffbeatChina) March 1, 2014

On Saturday, at least 29 people were killed and 134 injured in a horrific knife attack at a subway station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming:

The attack on the evening of March 1st has shocked China, and prompted a call from Xi Jinping, the president, “to crack down on violent terrorist activities in all forms”. Initial reports said there were ten attackers, all dressed in black, and witnesses described grisly scenes of victims bleeding after being struck by curved knives and meat cleavers.

On Monday police announced that eight attackers had been involved in all, including the three most recently captured. Police said that at the scene of the attack they had shot and killed four, and injured and captured one. Police also named the leader of the gang as Abdurehim Kurban. The name appears to indicate a member of China’s Uighur ethnic minority, a Muslim Turkic group from Xinjiang.

Peter Ford expects a heavy-handed response:

Now they will crack down hard, as they have done before. Police have already begun rounding up Uighurs in Kunming for questioning. …

The prospects for ordinary Uighurs in Xinjiang are grim. Already they chafe under strict controls on religious expression, education and other cultural aspects of daily life, and under the close eye of the police. For years, Western governments have privately advised Chinese officials to ease popular resentment by relaxing those controls. But Beijing is in no mood to win hearts and minds in the aftermath of a terror attack that a state newspaper dubbed China‘s 9/11. And, judging by the anger and shock expressed on Chinese social media, a steely approach to terrorism resonates with the public.

David Wertime and Rachel Lu examine how the attack reverberated through China’s tightly controlled press and social media:

Related chatter has dominated Sina Weibo since. “Kunming” is the most popular discussion topic by far, with many lighting digital candles, writing, “pray for Kunming” or “we are all Kunmingers,” or sharing graphic images purporting to show the aftermath of the slaughter. Several users wrote that the incident “was our 9-11,” in reference to the far more deadly terrorist attack on U.S. soil in September 11, 2001.

This attack may also presage a further deterioration in the relationship between the majority Han, who comprise approximately 92 percent of China’s population, and the country’s approximately 10 million Uighurs, a Muslim minority who predominantly live in Xinjiang. The carnage has “deepened my prejudice against Uighurs,” admitted one Weibo user; “don’t tell me most of them are good.”

James Palmer has more on Uighur-Han relations. Meanwhile, Julian Ku wonders why the US has hesitated to call the Kunming attack an act of terrorism:

[T]he failure of the U.S. State Department to use the term “terrorist” has drawn outrage in Chinese social media. I understand the U.S. government’s reluctance to endorse the Chinese government’s description of these attacks, but I still think the term “terrorist” is perfectly appropriate for this situation.  The attackers indiscriminately killed and injured civilians in a train station, and there seems plenty of evidence that it is motivated by politics and ideology.  To be sure, the international definition of terrorism remains contested, but the US law definition seems applicable.