After almost an entire year under an Internet blackout, Xinjiang has finally been liberated from its digital iron curtain.
The grand reopening is currently the main headline on the Xinjiang news site, Tianshan Net. Bold, blue characters in much larger font announce, “Xinjiang Internet Service Completely Resorted Today.” The two links immediately below the headline are links to articles titled, “An Open Letter to All Netizens of Xinjiang” and “Vigilantly Keep Guard for a Healthy and Open Network Environment.”
This really is wonderful news. In my opinion, Internet access is still interpreted and construed as more of a luxury than an information necessity. And it’s true that many in Xinjiang, in China as a whole, and all over the world use the Internet to waste away free time on games, chat, and gossip; inarguably the Internet has a significant leisurely component to it, and leisure by its own definition is something that can be sacrificed or spared in times of crisis. Nevertheless, I think at this point in time we can all agree that the Internet has become far more than just a novelty or a luxury. For those of us outside Xinjiang, I imagine not a single one of us could imagine work, education, and personal and professional communication without the Internet. Having been at a university in Urumqi myself, I can testify that the Internet plays just as important role in the educational life of the students in Xinjiang as it does, say, in Shanghai, or even in the US. The computers labs used by the kids at Xinjiang University may be dingier or have older computers by dint of Xinjiang being one of the more remote and lesser developed regions, but if you were pulling up Western newspapers to practice English or searching tried and trusted sites for whole pre-written papers you could print and submit to your professor, you needed Internet. And you had it, until the riots hit the city – and it’s been rarely mentioned how, fascinatingly, a vast area—always cited in Chinese material as “one-sixth the landmass of China”—was collectively punished for the (indeed, violent) crimes of a few hundred people in one city.
The reopening of the Internet was not unanticipated. First, I have to cite a spotlight on and throw some major kudos to Xinjiang Twitterer, native son of Urumqi, and friendly debate rival Leong, who through some apparently outstanding guanxi (Madarin: in-the-know contacts) predicted the restoration of Xinjiang Internet back on May 7th. He was off by 3 days, but in the dark and frequently misinformed world of Xinjiang policies that is pretty damn impressive. If anything, you should follow his tweets and pay close attention to whatever info he gets from the grapevine that he has stashed in his Secret Xinjiang Vineyard of Awesome Information.
Josh over at Far West China has got a detailed timeline of the Xinjiang’s journey through the land of no Internet. Josh’s perspective on this whole fiasco is particularly poignant since he experienced the blackout himself for a good part of its 300+ days—a bit of an inconvenience for someone trying to write a respectable blog. Josh links to a China Daily article from March 8 where dear leader and XUAR chairman Nur Bekri (misspelled in the article as Nur Berkri) announced that the Internet would be back soon. Quoted in this article is Zulifeiya Abudukadeer, director of the Xinjiang road transport bureau:
Authorities should focus on managing the Internet more effectively when the service is fully resumed, so it won’t be used by criminals as a tool of communication.
Indeed, crowdsourced online security seems to be a prominent theme in all the articles and announcements related to the opening. There is now a regional hotline and an email address through which one can “report harmful information,” the delightfully remember-able 0991-12321 and 0991-2398343. I hope an enterprising journalist for a mainstream newspaper calls the number for a little chat to ferret out who exactly is on the other end of the line. As for the email address, jubao@xjts.cn, this is an account belonging to the Tianshan Net domain. This is not surprising since the official announcement of the opening was issued by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People’s Government News Office.
Now that the Internet’s back, there a number of things to look out for:
First, what kind of informational outpouring will we see coming from a region with 21 million people who choked down any information they wanted to share on the Internet for ten months? The Internet’s only been around for a few decades and this is one of the few, if only, instances where the Internet was systematically shut down for a huge subpopulation of a huge country for a significant, peacetime period, since, as violent as the riots were, we’re not talking about armed battles so spectacular they destroyed public infrastructure. Anyone interested in the Internet as a social phenomenon should give rapt attention to Xinjiang Internet users as they come out of Plato’s cave, blinking in the sunlight.
Second, how will the reopening be covered in the media, both domestic an international? We obviously already have an inkling of how the Chinese government is portraying the reopening (and therefore the preceding closure) in the “Open Letter,” which we’ll translate in a post closely following this one. Also interesting is how the Western media will see it. The closure of Xinjiang’s Internet garnered considerable attention in the wake of the riots, but, fickle as the media’s attention span can be, reporters and journalists moved on to other, more pressing things, with a few follow up reports such as this BBC article looking at people traveling all the way to Gansu for Internet access, or this other front-page feature on BBC written by Josh from Far West China. Is the reopening of the Internet to the people of Xinjiang something exciting enough to be newsworthy to the likes of the New York Times or BBC?
Finally, and most obviously, we should pay attention to what exactly this new atmosphere of security will actually translate to for real Internet users. As much as the Xinjiang pavilion at the Shanghai expo says otherwise, Xinjiang is still a region plagued by ethnic tensions and pressing social issues. The Internet is a forum that loans itself to the expression of grievances, and the government knows this full well. In the coming months, will someone in Xinjiang suffer consequences for posting politically unsavory material online? Will there be an ethnic divide in access to the Internet, as we see with access to jobs, or even finding a hotel to stay in at Beijing? While saying much on the importance of stability and harmony in Xinjiang, the government really isn’t helping community tensions by creating a system where anyone can inform on anyone.
And so, as to the issue of Internet and information access in Xinjiang, we’ll do our utmost to “stay connected” to the issues.
Comments 10
Sorry for contradicting you in one point. It weren´t a few hundred who went on a rampage. There were thousands. And their emotions were shared by millions. That is terrible but one has to face the facts. That is why the internet was shut down.
Posted 14 May 2010 at 9:17 pm ¶I wonder: is the internet really free? What about Uyghur language posts? Why do the authorities believe they can risk it?
I speculate they either are sure they have successfully suppressed all opposition or else and more likely the authorities found that it much more difficult to continue to flood the province with Han if there is no internet. We´ll see.
You’re right, Tom. Apologies, as I just was about to go to sleep when the news broke. My brain wasn’t expecting to do any thinking at that point, let alone analyzing or translating. I’ll correct it when I get the chance, as I’m currently out and this mobile browser doesn’t open the editor properly. Nevertheless I think that the point I was going for was that twenty million people had to go through a, in my opinion, unnecessary deprivation of Internet access for the crime of (compared to twenty million) a much smaller number of people. Thanks for your input.
Posted 15 May 2010 at 12:18 am ¶Hi, Tom,
I agree with you that there were thousands of people on the street that day, but I don’t know where you get that “their emotions shared by millions.”
I understand that was a complex emotion, including the anger over the government inaction to the brawl in Shaoguan. But, on that tragic night, many of my Uyghur friends immediately expressed their opposition to the indiscriminate violence against innocent people, and many of them later believe those murderers’ crime has put Uyghur people in a more difficult position. If you are saying millions are sharing murderers emotions, you are fundamentally wrong.
Also, to say the Chinese government is flooding the region with Han Chinese is not accurate. There are many Hans migrating to the region, but not by the government. They are coming as “Gold Rushers”, seeking better business opportunities. And, most of them are concentrating in northern Xinjiang. As of last year, over 90% of population in southern Xinjiang are Uyghurs, and 88% of Uyghurs are living in southern Xinjiang.
Posted 15 May 2010 at 5:03 pm ¶I don’t think that there was ever a risk in restoring the internet earlier. What effects this policy would have were completely unknown at the time, as this measure was unprescendented, certainly on this scale (correct me if i’m wrong). While the government can claim it prevented further violence, there is not much evidence to support this claim. Its equally likely that restrictions on communication made it more difficult for regular citizens to know what was truly happening or helped to perpetuate ‘heard on the street’ type rumors. My gut feeling (i was in Urumqi when the rioting began) has always been that this was a panic induced response by a regional government that had a poor grasp on what was actually happening at the time.
Posted 15 May 2010 at 11:21 pm ¶Hi you all
Posted 17 May 2010 at 7:24 pm ¶Love the blog. Fact is my wife is half Uighur and I was there in 2006 for three weeks. Neither she nor I have Chinese. My impression of Xinjiang was deeply shocking. If Uighurs were alone with us they expressed such feelings of hatred and despair as I have never experienced. And I know the former Soviet Union. My wife didn´t know either what was waiting for us before we came to Xinjiang. She is completely uninterested in politics and in the -stans China is never criticized in the media. And concerning her relatives: As I said she stays clear of politics.
What was equally and more shocking to me was that people would say one thing in private and something completely different if there was another Uighur. Then everything was ok.
When I came back I was sure there would be a violent explosion and I said so to everybody I met. Violence seems to be the only language left. That is a most terrible thing I know. But this feeling of being backed into a corner was universal. I talked to a former high cadre in the communist party who left for academia in the eighties and he left because he saw no future for Uighurs. He told me how they settled Chinese upstream from the oasis who get supplied by an intricate system called quanat. They simply take the water and waste it. There is evidently a huge water problem in Xinjiang connected to Chinese land use practises which can´t be talked about. I talked to a teacher of history at the university who told me that even the mummies they found in the Taklamaken have to be called “Chinese” although everybody can see they have no asian features.
Taxi drivers begged us to tell the Turks how they were suppressed in their own country. A young man expressed the hope that the three gorges dam would burst so to kill as many Chinese as possible.
Sorry Leong. I don´t k now what nationality you are but I don´t believe you got to the real feelings of Uighurs.
I believe that the Chinese authorities had no choice concerning the internet. And let´s not forget Chinese nationalism. In the days after the 5.July they killed at least one Kasakh businessman and maybe more. Anybody with a non Han look was fair game. Beijing couldn´t let that get out of hand. Maybe my three weeks gave me a wrong impression but I don´t think so. Ever since I was there Xinjiang has fascinated me.
Maybe morbidly but it did. And just to make one thing clear: No I don´t think Xinjiang should secede from China. There would be even more bloodshed. I just hope that in Beijing they come to their senses.
Hi, Tom,
You are right, this is a great blog. I don’t dispute what your are saying here but they are only part of the facts. As you are saying you are not interested in politics, but everything in Xinjiang is about politics, as you are saying “I don’t think Xinjiang should secede.” This is politics.
I am a researcher and so won’t see this world through some feelings. If talk to 100 taxi drivers, they may give me 99% similar feedback. I don’t think Uyghur is a people with a unified or one-dimensional feeling. I was wondering if you have read a book “Awaken” by an Uyghur intellectual from Turpan, or have talked to the business community, or spoke with intellectuals about their concerns, or sat down with farmers, or enjoyed a cup of tea with members of a burgeoning Uyghur middle class in Urumqi, which is generally benefiting from a booming economy and has a comfortable life.
Among 500thousand Uyghurs in Urumqi, 200thousand are migrants from southern Xinjiang. They are marginalized and struggling to find a way in this metropolis, but unfortunately they are not the mainstream in this city.
BYW, I’m Han. If by “real feelings” you mean “murderous emotions”, you are right, I will never understand that. But I do hope you are saying “legitimate grievances” rather than things like “three gorges will burst,” “Japanese Imperial Army should have killed more Chinese in the 1930s,” “Americans will send its military to ‘liberate’ Xinjiang”,etc. Hatred certainly will not sustain a people with over 1000 years history.
Posted 18 May 2010 at 8:18 am ¶Hi Leong
Posted 18 May 2010 at 8:36 pm ¶Great that you are Han. Seriously! I really am so glad that there are also people like you. The Hans I talked to were unfortunately not in the least able nor even willing to understand the Uighur point of view.
People like you give me hope.
Finally please read my comment more carefully. My wife isn´t interested in politics. I am very much.
I should also clarify my thoughts on the internet situation. I believe that the Government reaction after the 5. of July must have been horrific. And I believe that news of that had to be repressed by any means possible. The Chinese government seems to think that to lock the Uighurs out of international communications will let the problem go away.
As to the millions I believe that most Uighurs don´t condone the violence done but there must have been wide spread sympathy.
But I also believe very much that Beijing has a serious problem with Han chauvinism and there´s no doubt that they were also fearful of it as well. Remember Xinjiang and especially Urumtshi lives very much on account of central asian trade and it isn´t good for business if traders from those countries get killed just because they resemble Uighurs. By the way I talked to some traders
I also have to admit I do know China a bit better than that. I studied Sinology twenty years ago and although I never finished it, China and Chinese history continue to fascinate me. I believe there´s much to learn from China. But it is not what the authorities in Beijing are proud of. More from a man like Sima Quian.
If you have anything published in English anywhere (you seem to be a Sociologist) please tell Porfiriy so he can publish a link with your work. And please continue to comment.
@Tom
Mr. Sinologist. The dude’s name is Sima Qian
Posted 19 May 2010 at 2:35 am ¶Never said I am a Sinologist. But you sure seem to know what I mean. Anyhow better to have some Uighur. And yes, Xinjiang made me doubt the common humanity of Chinese. But then there are also other voices…Like Leong.
Posted 19 May 2010 at 8:36 pm ¶In this blog post I wondered if someone would try calling the hotline and get some info. It appears that RFA’s done just that.
http://bit.ly/bYHfNK
Posted 20 May 2010 at 3:33 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 2
[...] part of the announcement of the reopening of the Internet in Xinjiang, the regional government wrote an “Open Letter” to the Internet users of Xinjiang. [...]
[...] Netizens, Tianshan Net also published an article by a commentator on the significance of the reopening of the Internet and the responsibilities expected of netizens now that everything is back to normal. Here is our [...]