Chinese state media say that the government in the western region of Xinjiang has declared a curfew following the violence of recent days that has killed at least 156 people in city of Urumqi.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the curfew from 9 pm to 8 am was needed to "avoid further chaos," according to Wang Lequan, Communist Party boss for Xinjiang.
Urumqi was tense today, with protests happening in several parts of the city and both Han Chinese and Uighur groups facing off with armed police. Chinese riot police fired tear gas to try to break up rock-throwing Han and Uighur protesters who clashed in the capital of China's Muslim region.
Hundreds of protesters from China's predominant Han ethnic group, many clutching meat cleavers, metal pipes and wooden clubs, smashed shops owned by Uighurs, a Turkic largely Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia.
Han Chinese protesters shouted "attack Uighurs" as both sides hurled rocks at each other.
Police used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd, but it only emboldened the demonstrators, caught between two sets of anti-riot police 600 metres apart.
The violence broke out after hundreds of ethnic Uighurs protested at the detention of hundreds of people following recent violence that left at least 156 dead.
Xinjiang has long been a hotbed of ethnic tensions, fostered by a yawning economic gap between Uighurs and Han Chinese, government controls on religion and culture and an influx of Han Chinese migrants who now are the majority in most key cities.
A crowd of some 200 ethnic Uighurs confronted police complaining that family members had been arbitrarily arrested in a crackdown after rioting broke out in Urumqi on Sunday.
"My husband was taken away yesterday by police. They didn't say why. They just took him away," a woman who identified herself as Maliya told Reuters.
Fighting broke out when Uighur protesters advanced toward hundreds of anti-riot police carrying clubs and shields.
Abdul Ali, a Uighur man in his 20s who had taken off his shirt, held up his clenched fist. "They've been arresting us for no reason and it's time for us to fight back," he said
Ali said three of his brothers as well as a sister had been among 1,434 suspects taken into police custody for questioning. Local residents complained police were making indiscriminate sweeps of Uighur areas.
The crowd later started to thin out as the anti-riot police slowly retreated down the street on the outskirts of Urumqi.
Earlier today, Xinjiang's Communist Party leader Wang Lequan said Sunday's unrest had been quelled, although he warned "this struggle is far from over". Xinjiang's state-run media quoted Mr Wang as calling for officials to launch "a struggle against separatism".
Some Xinjiang newspapers also carried graphic pictures of the violence, including corpses, at least one of which showed a woman whose throat had been slashed.
Despite heightened security, some unrest appears to be spreading in the volatile region, where long-standing ethnic tensions periodically erupt into bloodshed. Police dispersed around 200 people at the Id Kah mosque in the Silk Road city of Kashgar last night, Xinhua said.
The report did not say if police used force but said checkpoints had been set up at crossroads between Kashgar airport and downtown. Kashgar is in the far west of Xinjiang.
Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director, Sophie Richardson, called for an independent probe into the unrest.
"Whoever started the violence, lowering ethnic tensions in the region requires the government to constructively address Uighur's grievances, not exacerbate them," she said.
Along with Tibet, Xinjiang is one of the most politically sensitive regions in China and in both places the government has sought to maintain its grip by controlling religious and cultural life while promising economic growth and prosperity.
But minorities have long complained that Han Chinese reap most of the benefits from official investment and subsidies, making locals feel like outsiders. Almost half of Xinjiang's 20 million people are Uighurs, while the population of Urumqi, which lies around 3,300 km west of Beijing, is mostly Han Chinese.
Chinese officials have already blamed the unrest on separatist groups abroad, who it says want to create an independent homeland for the Muslim Uighur minority.
Exiled Uighur businesswoman and activist Rebiya Kadeer, blamed by Chinese state media for being behind the violence, denied having any involvement. "These accusations are completely false," Ms Kadeer said through an interpreter in Washington, where she now lives.
In Washington, the White House said it was concerned about the deaths but it would be premature to speculate on the circumstances.
Agencies