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The Baren Township Riot was an uprising and armed conflict that took place between radical Muslim Uyghur militants and Chinese government forces in April 1990, in Baren township, Akto county of Xinjiang's Kizilsu Kirgiz autonomous prefecture.

Uprising
On April 4, several hundred Uyghurs attacked the local government office. About 2 hours after the attack started, authorities arrived at the site of turmoil, and were attacked by the Uyghur fighters, resulting in the deaths of six policemen and the injury of 13. Several rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were captured. 19 of the Uyghur fighters were arrested.

Aftermath
The conflict ended on April 10, 1990, with an official report stating 23 dead total and 21 injured. In July 1990 the Chinese government in Xinjiang announced the arrest of some 7,900 "criminal activities of ethnic splittists and other criminal offenders.". An official account of civilian casualties is absent.

Soviet Involvement
The Soviet Union, although it did not take direct military action, provided intelligence and equipment support for Vietnam in the war. A large airlift was established by the Soviet Union to move Vietnamese troops from Cambodia to Northern Vietnam. Moscow also provided a total of 400 tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs), 500 mortar artillery and air defense artillery, 50 BM-21 rocket launchers, 400 portable surface-to-air missiles, 800 anti-tank missiles and 20 jet fighters. About 5,000-8,000 Soviet military advisers were present in Vietnam from August 1979 to mid-1979 to train Vietnamese soldiers. The Soviet Union deployed troops at the Sino-Soviet and Mongolian-Chinese borders as an act of showing support to Vietnam, as well as tying up Chinese troops. The Soviet Pacific Fleet also deployed 15 ships to the Vietnamese coast to relay Chinese battlefield communications to Vietnamese forces.

However, the Soviet Union felt that there was simply no way that they could directly support Vietnam against China; the distances were too great to be an effective ally, and any Soviet reinforcements would have to cross territory controlled by China or U.S. allies. The only realistic option would be to restart the unresolved border conflict with China. Vietnam was important to Soviet policy but not enough for the Soviets to go to war over. When Moscow did not intervene, Beijing publicly proclaimed that the Soviet Union had broken its numerous promises to assist Vietnam.

Another reason why Moscow did not directly intervene was because Beijing had promised both Moscow and Washington that the invasion was only a limited war, and that Chinese forces would withdraw after a short incursion. Moscow decided to adopt a "wait and see" approach to see if Beijing would actually limit their offense. In order to reassure Moscow it was conducting a limited war, Deng Xiaoping ordered the Chinese navy and air force to remain out of the war; only limited support was provided by the air force. When Beijing kept its promise, Moscow did not retaliate.