The New Dominion

According to Chinese-language and English-language articles from Xinhua, echoed by the Guardian, the XUAR PSB has detained several individuals for spreading rumors, primarily by text message, of an alleged bus bombing in Ürümchi on the night of Sunday 23 March 2008. The news of a bus bombing in the south part of town spread quickly through the city on Sunday night, coming to a head Monday evening, when those rumors were largely dispelled both popularly and by the official media. That day, though, the rumors also reached news agencies abroad, who picked up the story, while they also had an arc of popularity on the Web. Today, news came of the detainment of those suspected responsible for the rumors.

On Sunday night, around 11:00 PM Xinjiang local time, text messages starting spreading around Ürümchi. They said that a bus – the No. 17, it was claimed, or perhaps the No. 2 (or was it the No. 52?) – had been bombed on the south side of town, specifically on Xingfu Lu (幸福路), or maybe around Nanmen (南门), just minutes before. Apparently, the first the local police station heard of it was when the first of 110 or so individuals called to ask about the bombing. The rumors sent many people into a panic. Plans were cancelled. People passed the news along. It was the talk of the town the next day.

Monday evening, people came home from work, and the on-line world was abuzz. These, for some examples, appeared on Fanfou. Many thanks to davesgonechina over at Mutant Palm for this valuable information-gathering method!

三公主 潘打来电话，说今天乌鲁木齐市区内不太安全，传言有17路和52路爆炸，一会养也打来电话，怎么气氛一下紧张了。
2008-03-24 19:31

San Gongzhu: Pan Da called and said, today in the city of Ürümchi it’s not too safe. Rumor has it the No. 17 and No. 52 buses were bombed. A while later, Yang also called and said the atmosphere had kind of gotten tense. 24 March 2008 17:31 BJT

天煞孤星 听.爸爸说今天乌鲁木齐一辆中巴车被维族炸了…看来这些东突疯子开始响应西藏了嘛!真TM找死..2008-03-24 21:28

Tian Sha Gu Xing: I heard my dad say a medium-sized bus in Ürümchi was bombed by the Uyghurs… It looks like these East Turkestan crazies have started to respond to Tibet! They’re really f—— looking to die… 24 March 2008, 9:28 PM BJT

烟薰 “乌鲁木齐维族人开始杀人 炸公交车了” 2008-03-24 22:54

Yan Xun: The Uyghurs in Ürümchi have started to kill people and blow up buses. 24 March 2008 10:54 PM BJT

蛮子 谣言四起，百度乌鲁木齐吧都关张了。2008-03-24 23:32

Man Zi: Rumors are spreading. Baidu’s Ürümchi page has closed down. 24 March 2008, 11:32 PM BJT

It certainly seems like a lot of people out there are willing to believe in the possibility of a bus bombing.

The people of Ürümchi quickly came to realize, however, that there was no evidence for a bus bombing whatsoever. No one seemed to know anyone who’d been injured. Ürümchi’s bus system, though perhaps a little emptier, seemed to be running as normal. The people most in the dark about the supposed bombing were those who lived in that part of town: they saw nothing, heard nothing, not that night, nor the following morning. Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence was the fact that, by the time of the bombing, both the No. 17 and No. 2 lines, most popularly cited as the targets of attack, had long since stopped running. By Monday evening, the rumor had changed to “Actually, it was at 5:30 local time at Nanmen.” Yeah, right. A bus blows up during rush hour at Nanmen (Ürümchi’s Times Square), and no one notices?

Regular readers of The New Dominion probably realize that I live in Ürümchi. Xingfu Lu is, for the most part, a quiet street of lowish buildings way near the southeast end of town. It’s home to the Cadre Rest Home, a night market, and some schools. I had a look around and came to the same conclusion as had the reporters of the Ürümchi Evening News: there was no smoking blast crater, no scared citizenry, not a scrap of evidence to suggest that anything had happened there. Things seemed perfectly alright with the world, if a little dusty. Despite a general sense of tension in this city’s air since the attempted China Southern bombing, manifested by overall tightened security, there simply isn’t anything to suggest that people have been lashing out violently.

Of course, the whole thing seemed awfully credible, at least at first. The alleged incident was meant to have occurred very near to the Happy Garden apartment complex (幸福花园), the site of the 27 January terrorist raid. Ürümchi does have a history with bus bombings, including fatal incidents on 5 February 1992 and 27 February 1997 that have left a strong impression in popular memory. What’s more, since the China Southern bombing attempt on 7 March, whether it happened or not, there has been a tension in city. This probably stems from the increasingly tight security that resulted from that event, including a more visible police presence, especially near the Grand Bazaar. The Ürümchi Airport is now restricted to workers and ticket-holders, and there are absolutely no liquids allowed in the building, even water from vendors. Several flights that usually terminated in Ürümchi have been rerouted indefinitely. These changes, which look like preparations for an attack, have made people awfully credulous where the possibility of terrorist action is concerned.

So, what does all of this have to do with Tibet? My perception is, very little. News of the riots in Greater Tibet has been very sparse in Xinjiang, perhaps more so than in the Interior. When information is available, is it of the same quality and tint: Tibetan-looking youths causing mayhem, burning buildings and beating people, without any coverage of the violent police and military reaction. I often forget, living here, that Tibet is right to the south of this enormous region. It seems worlds away, with no direct transportation of much convenience and almost no cultural ties. I am told, both by Uyghurs here and by acquaintances who have lived in Greater Tibet, that, in those rare places where Tibetans and Uyghurs do live side-by-side, they do not get along. Religious differences are key. So, whatever noises the Uyghur nationalist movement and the Tibetan independence/increased autonomy movement may make abroad, I doubt they have any effect on the ground here. That is not to say that the Chinese government or the individuals who sent these text messages out – if they had any nefarious purpose – think the same.

Questions remain. Whom did the police detain, and how were they found? It may be that the PRC is capable of monitoring every single text message sent within its borders, but I doubt it. More importantly, since it’s pretty clear these rumors are false, one wonders who would benefit from such a hoax. One could point to Beijing and suggest that the powers that be would believe it in their best interest to fabricate a reason to tighten security – this is not a radical idea. One could point to some persons unknown who wanted to make the people of Ürümchi scared, either for a day or for a few weeks. It might be a twelve-year-old with an overactive imagination. At this point, it’s hard to say whether even time will tell.