A report on Xinjiang conflict, 2014 Kunming attack and Xinjiang

The Xinjiang conflict, also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict (as argued by the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile), is an ongoing ethnic geopolitical conflict in what is now China's far-northwest autonomous region of Xinjiang also known as East Turkistan.

This has taken the form of both terrorist attacks and wider public unrest such as the Baren Township conflict, 1997 Ürümqi bus bombings, protests in Ghuljia, June 2009 Shaoguan Incident and the resulting July 2009 Ürümqi riots, 2011 Hotan attack, April 2014 Ürümqi attack, May 2014 Ürümqi attack, 2014 Kunming attack as well as the 2015 Aksu colliery attack.

Xinhua News Agency and the government of Kunming said that the attack had been linked to Sunni extremists which were a faction of Xinjiang separatists.

Police said that they had confiscated a black, hand-painted East Turkestan flag at the scene, which is associated with the Uyghur separatists from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

From the 1990s to the 2010s, the East Turkestan independence movement, separatist conflict and the influence of radical Islam have resulted in unrest in the region with occasional terrorist attacks and clashes between separatist and government forces.

The ongoing Xinjiang conflict includes the 2007 Xinjiang raid, a thwarted 2008 suicide-bombing attempt on a China Southern Airlines flight, the 2008 Kashgar attack which killed 16 police officers four days before the Beijing Olympics, the August 2009 syringe attacks, the 2011 Hotan attack, the 2014 Kunming attack, the April 2014 Ürümqi attack, and the May 2014 Ürümqi attack.