China on the Edge China’s Border Provinces and Chinese Security Policy

The Center for the National Interest Johns Hopkins SAIS China Studies

As violence rocked Tibet in 2008 followed by Xinjiang in 2009, China delivered an
apparently contradictory message to the international community. Its spokespersons
asserted that events in these regions were “strictly an internal affair;” in the same breath,
they sharply condemned “external forces” for inciting the violence.