The New Dominion

A 15 May lecture by Xinhua Deputy Chief Editor Xia Lin (夏林) at Tianjin Foreign Studies University began making the English-language media rounds today. You can find the English translation of the lecture, transcribed by an attendee but not yet verified, here at China Digital Times. Among other revelations, Xia Lin discusses details of the 5 July riots in Urumqi and the role of the media during and after the incident.

Xia stated that several details of the violence were kept from the public in order to preserve broader social harmony, while Xinhua journalists reported sensitive information directly to the government. This included the rioters’ organized and deliberate burning of buses full of people, the decapitation of a child and display of his head on a highway overpass, the humiliation of a dead woman, and other acts of brutality. We have no way of verifying this at this time.

More revealing to me is Xia’s casual remark that the rioters seen in the photographs were tattooed and bare-chested, that they “had nothing.” Is this an interpretation of ethnic violence through the eyes of class conflict? Is it an accurate assessment of the Uyghurs who took to the streets? Many young Uyghur men have tattoos that they grow ashamed of later in life, since they represent the excesses of a more reckless youth, though I, for one, have never learned the secrets of any of these marks. The causes and the unfolding of the riots remain a mystery, but perhaps this is a clue.