See this article in The Japan Times which deals with the ethnic troubles China faces in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. The article contains some interesting factoids:
Xinjiang's cultural capital, Kashgar, is closer to Baghdad than to Beijing.Lhasa, Tibet's capital, is almost twice as far from the Chinese capital as from New Delhi.The restive homelands of ethnic minorities make up 60 percent of Chinese territory — with Tibet and Xinjiang, by themselves, constituting nearly half of China's landmass.China is the only significant country in the world whose official internal-security budget is higher than its official national-defense budget.
