From PRI, Public Radio International and KCRW Santa Monica, this is To the Point.

Is China really a melting pot?

Hello again, I'm Warren Alney, and this is To the Poet from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

Last week's deadly violence in far western China has been followed up by a security crackdown,

a scenario much like that in Tibet before the Olympics.

Muslim Uyghurs were the majority in a province the size of Texas.

Now they're being squeezed by a government-sponsored migration of Han Chinese.

But Tibetans and Uyghurs are by no means alone among 56 ethnic groups

with cultural and linguistic differences exaggerated by economic inequality. As the government prepares

to celebrate what it calls 60 years of harmony, we'll hear about potential threats to central authority.

On reporter's notebook later on, a veto threat and presidential credibility.

First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from subscribers of KCRW Santa Monica and from the Public Radio

International Program Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D.

and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Hello again, Mormon Alney, back

with To the Poet. First, the Tibetans, now the Uyghurs are challenging China's central authority.

Can 56 very different cultural and linguistic groups continue to get along? On reporter's notebook,

President Obama threatens to a veto to stop the F-22 warplane, does he really mean it?

First, this news update.

Under grilling by Republican senators at her confirmation hearing today, Judge Sonia Sotomayor formally denied racial bias.

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