In China's Xinjiang, poverty, exclusion are greater threat than Islam

Ethnic Uighur men work at a farming area near Lukqun town, in Xinjiang province in this October 30, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/Files

URUMQI, China (Reuters) - In the dirty backstreets of the Uighur old quarter of Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in China's far west, Abuduwahapu frowns when asked what he thinks is the root cause of the region's festering problem with violence and unrest.

"The Han Chinese don't have faith, and the Uighurs do. So they don't really understand each other," he said, referring to the Muslim religion the Turkic-speaking Uighur people follow, in contrast to the official atheism of the ruling Communist Party.