Twenty-one people are reported to have died in what Chinese authorities describe as violent clashes between the authorities and "a terrorist gang".
Among the dead in the north western region of Xinjiang were 15 police officers and local government officials, the Xinjiang government propaganda office said in a news release, adding that six assailants were killed on the spot and another eight captured alive.
"Initial investigations show this was a gang plotting to carry out terrorist acts and the case is now being further cracked open," the statement said.
A leading activist from the region's indigenous Turkic Muslim Uighur ethnic group questioned the official account, saying local sources said police sparked the incident by shooting a Uighur youth during an illegal search of homes.
Tuesday's violence began after three local officials reported a group of suspicious men armed with knives hiding inside a home in Selibuya township outside the city of Kashgar, the news release said.
The three were then grabbed by the men in the house, it added, and local police and officials rushing to the scene were taken by surprise and attacked.
Xinjiang, a sprawling region bordering Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, is home to millions of Uighurs, many of whom complain of tight restrictions and favouritism towards Han migrants.
The US initially placed one group, the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, on a terrorist watch list following the 9/11 attacks, but later quietly removed it amid doubts that it existed in any organised manner.
Rioting in July 2009 between Uighurs and Han left nearly 200 people dead in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, and there have been sporadic attacks since then.
Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the German-based World Uyghur Congress, denied those involved in the latest clash were part of an organised group and dismissed the government's terrorism claims.
"They always use such labels as a way of justifying their use of armed force," Mr Raxit said in a phone interview.
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