Summary Through the end of May, the Chinese government will target ethnic minorities in northwest China under an official cleanup program aimed for criminals and separatists. The targets are the region's ethnic Uighurs, a group marked by the Chinese government for having ambitions for an independent state. China's western frontier is secure for now, but Chinese forces are routing separatist influences across the border to protect strategic domestic interests. Analysis Over the past three weeks, more than 480 individuals in China have been executed, all the targets of a new campaign against “criminals” and “separatist influences.” Under the Chinese government's “Strike Hard” project, the majority of executions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have been of ethnic Uighurs, suspected of separatist or illicit activities. One of the region's communist party leaders, Wang Lequan, appears to have given the deadly project his approval.