Beijing - As several bare-chested Chinese men enjoyed the late summer sunshine in a quiet alley near Beijing's 500-year-old Dongsi Mosque, lunchtime diners drank beer and ate lamb at the nearby Crescent Moon Xinjiang Restaurant on the fourth day of Ramadan. Despite the traditional Muslim requirement to fast between sunrise and sunset during the holy month, it is business as usual at the Crescent Moon and other Uighur restaurants in Beijing.
"We are not closing at all (for Ramadan)," said a young waitress from the mainly Muslim Uighur minority.
The Crescent Moon sells beer, wine and liquor produced 3,000 kilometres away in the Uighurs' home in Xinjiang, a vast Chinese-named region that borders Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The liberal atmosphere of this "Uighur new-style restaurant" suits the ruling Communist Party, which tries to assimilate ethnic and religious minorities into mainstream Chinese culture.
The government has stepped up security at mosques for Ramadan and ordered state-approved Muslim leaders, who accept an uneasy alliance with the party, to promote stability among the 21 million Muslims spread across China.
"Of course we should enhance vigilance and the state security department, police and officials should continue to maintain stability and make preparations in advance," said Feng Jinyuan, an expert on religious affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
"It is possible that a few separatists could use Ramadan for sabotage," Feng told the German Press Agency dpa.
At Beijing's Dongsi and Niu Jie mosques, police are to also control the celebration of the Eid al-Fitr festival that follows the end of the Ramadan fasting.
"Generally, local governments will prepare in advance and send civilian police to maintain order [at the mosques]," Feng said.
About half of China's Muslims are from the Hui group which predominates in poor north-western areas, while some eight million Uighurs form the largest minority in Xinjiang.
Many Uighurs complain of cultural and religious repression and claim ethnic Chinese migrants enjoy the main benefits of development in the oil-rich but economically backward region.
Some pro-independence Uighurs have staged small-scale terrorist attacks, prompting the party to declare a public battle against the "three evil forces" of religious extremism, separatism and terrorism.
Xinjiang is especially tense this year after deadly ethnic violence last month between Uighurs and members of the country's Han Chinese majority in the regional capital, Urumqi.
Many local governments in Xinjiang have placed restrictions on religious practice at schools and other institutions during Ramadan.
A religious affairs official in Khotan, a poor Uighur-majority area of southern Xinjiang, said local authorities in the city had "persuaded" restaurants to remain open during Ramadan.
"We did persuade to them (not to close), because China is not a Muslim country and many old people and children do not fast," the official from the Khotan Islamic Association told
