Suicide Bomber Exposes China’s Complicated Relationship With The ‘Stans’

A suicide bomber rammed his way into the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyzstani capital Bishkek yesterday killing only himself. Kyrgyzstan is a Central Asian nation that used to be part of the USSR and now shares a long border and ethnic relations with China’s restless Xinjiang province. Xinjiang is home to the Uighur seperatists who are pushing for autonomy from Beijing. The seperatists are thought to have been behind the attack on a Buddhist shrine in Thailand and a mass stabbing attack at the Kunming train station in 2014. 

In other ‘Stan’ related news, rumors abound that Uzbekistan’s Dictator Islam Karimov might have died from a stroke, threatening a power struggle between his businesswoman turned pop-star daughter, aka the most “hated woman in the country,” and everyone else.