A curfew has been imposed on the city of Urumqi in western China for a second night after ethnic riots on Sunday which left 156 people dead.
Crowds of Han Chinese and Uighurs were separated by riot police
Correspondents say a heavy security presence has restored an uneasy calm to the capital of Xinjiang province.
Riot police fired tear gas to break up groups of Han Chinese armed with clubs, who said they were angry at violence carried out by ethnic Muslim Uighurs.
More than 1,400 people have been arrested over Sunday's violence.
Uighur women rallied against the arrest of family members, saying the men had been detained arbitrarily in a massive police sweep through Urumqi's Uighur districts.
 | AT THE SCENE  Quentin Sommerville, Urumqi There are many armed military police standing around, also a few remnants of those Han Chinese demonstrators, still people wandering around the city carrying poles and batons and some carrying knives. There's a great air of trepidation here as to how this night will play out. I wouldn't have thought today that I would have seen Uighur men and women acting so defiantly in the face of Han Chinese authority, but they did. I wouldn't have thought that thousands of Han Chinese would be able to walk freely through a Chinese city and march and shout slogans. Xinjiang is one of the most tightly-controlled parts of the country. Those controls seem to have slipped quite considerably. |
Later hundreds of Han Chinese marched through the streets of Urumqi smashing shops and stalls belonging to Uighurs.
The BBC's Quentin Sommerville, in Urumqi, says some of the protesters were shouting "down with Uighurs" as they rampaged through the streets armed with homemade weapons.
Police attempted to block access to the bazaar and other Uighur districts of the city and fired tear gas as the Han Chinese confronted groups of Uighurs.
The Han Chinese said they were angry at the failure of security forces to protect their community on Sunday.
One protester, clutching a metal bar, told the AFP news agency: "The Uighurs came to our area to smash things, now we are going to their area to beat them."
Xinjiang's Communist Party chief Wang Lequan announced during a televised address that a curfew would run from 2100 until 0800.
State-run news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying any ethnic violence was "heart-breaking" and blaming "hostile forces both at home and abroad" for the trouble.
'Deadliest riot'
As night fell, correspondents said there was a heavy security presence in People's (Renmin) Square in the city centre and at major intersections elsewhere.
Officials say 156 people - mostly ethnic Han Chinese - died in Sunday's violence. Uighur groups say many more have died, claiming 90% of the dead were Uighurs.
| UIGHURS AND XINJIANG  Xinjiang population is 45% Uighur, 40% Han Chinese Uighurs are ethnically Turkic Muslims China re-established control in 1949 after crushing short-lived state of East Turkestan Since then, large-scale immigration of Han Chinese Sporadic violence since 1991 Attack on 4 Aug 2008 near Kashgar kills 16 Chinese policemen  |
One official described Sunday's unrest as the "deadliest riot since New China was founded in 1949".
The unrest erupted when Uighur protesters attacked vehicles before turning on local Han Chinese and battling security forces.
They had initially been protesting over a brawl between Uighurs and Han Chinese several weeks earlier in a toy factory thousands of miles away in Guangdong province.
Urumqi's Mayor, Jierla Yishamudin, said on Tuesday that a "life and death" struggle was being waged to maintain China's unity.
"It is neither an ethnic issue nor a religious issue, but a battle of life and death to defend the unification of our motherland and to maintain the consolidation of all ethnic groups, a political battle that's fierce and of blood and fire," he told a news conference.
China's authorities have repeatedly claimed that exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer is stirring up trouble in the region.
But she told the BBC she was not responsible for any of the violence.
Tensions have been growing in Xinjiang for many years, as Han Chinese migrants have poured into the region, where China's Uighur ethnic minority is concentrated. Many Uighurs feel economic growth has bypassed them and complain of discrimination and diminished opportunities.
Some Uighurs support the notion of an independent state and there have been a number of bombings and some attacks on security forces.
Chinese authorities say the Xinjiang separatists are terrorists with links to al-Qaeda and receive support from outside the country.
Campaigners accuse China of exaggerating the threat to justify tough security clampdowns in the region.
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