The New Dominion

A few days ago, I wrote on this page about a new series of articles, documenting one independent journalist’s trip through Xinjiang, entitled “Dispatches from China’s Wild West”, appearing on the site of the on-line magazine Slate. Certainly, this series had created a certain on-line buzz about Xinjiang - hits for “Xinjiang” have skyrocketed, and the series has been referenced by several reputable blogs. However, I do believe that the presentation of the story and the manner in which the research for it was executed raise some serious concerns about responsible journalism, the portrayal and representation of Xinjiang, and the traveler’s eye.

Kucera’s writing presents a peculiar contrast and contradiction. He clearly has a sharp eye for visual detail, at least the detail that he can decode. He notices posters, Russian-language signs, and structural aspects of the urban landscape. As for most writers who discuss Xinjiang, he notices differences in people’s physical appearance (and assumes that they clearly demarcate boundaries of cultural identity).

In large part, however, his “dispatches” reproduce the same tired tropes of Xinjiang commentary that dominate mass-media coverage of the region. The bulk of them is taken up with information and perspectives any reader could get with a Google search for “Uyghur” or “Xinjiang”: the Kanas Lake monster, Xinjiang’s economic development, Uyghur nationalism. It seems that the things Kucera could have most helpfully brought to the table - an on-the-ground view of Xinjiang society, detailed stories of daily life - are the things most lacking in his piece. I most object to Kucera’s framing the entire article in terms of great pillars of ethnic conflict: the government-loyal Han Chinese and the China-defying Uyghurs. Inserting the inevitable interview with Rebiya Kadeer (Rabiyä Qadir), whose following in Xinjiang itself seems very small, discredits him somewhat, in my view. A better-informed journalist would know that even the voices of those who claim to represent subaltern groups deserve thorough questioning. Xinjiang is not simply the location of an abstract problem of ethnonational conflict shrouded in romantic notions - it is a place where people live.

This is not to say that the articles are lacking in interviews. His section on the Kanas Lake monster shows that he did seek out sources of some authority to discuss the topic, which, although it has now appeared in international news, has received little substantive attention. Kucera has a remarkable ability, however, to locate interviewees who openly support a nationalist agenda and who speak of little else. I wonder if he had any other conversations in Xinjiang, perhaps some that would present a more diverse set of viewpoints? I do think that Kucera went into Xinjiang with a certain outlook, one betrayed by his terminology. He speaks of “the Chinese government’s racism”, as well as of his guide’s “failure to take offence” when he himself feels disturbed.

The problem lies partly, I think, in Kucera’s dependence on translators and his knowledge of Russian. A knowledge of Chinese or Uyghur might have given him a much more nuanced view of the world around him, the subtleties and rationales of ethnic conflict. It would also have given him more freedom of movement. I am honestly surprised that his Uyghur guide in Kashgar took him to a Han-run shop where the workers were not aware of Ramadan. Likewise is it strange that he not only went to the part of the Old City you have to pay for, but actually paid for it. (No savvy traveler in China pays for such things.) Even more shocking is that his guide took him to the Uyghur minstrel show. (Kucera’s phrase is very apt.) A little asking around, and he could have found any number of places to sit and chat with professional musicians performing their art in an appropriately “authentic” setting.

I must also comment on the wisdom of some of Kucera’s disclosures. It is ill-advised to indicate an interviewee’s place of work and then post photos of that interviewee on-line, especially when an article suggests that the author engaged in unauthorized journalism in a totalitarian country where he or she had conversations about sensitive topics such as nationalism. The author might simply be denied a future entry visa - the people he met along the way, even those whom he tries to protect with pseudonyms, may be in serious trouble. Certainly, conducting authorized journalism as a foreigner in Xinjiang is extremely difficult, if not impossible. However, it seems that, if this is as representative a piece of journalism on Xinjiang as I believe it to be, it seems that foreign reporters’ movements in Xinjiang may be further restricted.

This is not to say that the issues Kucera raises are not real or important, or that journalists should bow to pressure from the Chinese government. Quite the opposite. I believe that these problems of ethnic conflict are real enough that they deserve a thorough treatment from multiple perspectives. Kucera does a disservice to the problem by presenting it in such simplistic terms, and also to the people he interviewed by presenting them, not as individuals with lives of their own, but as instantiations of ethnic archetypes, situated in an imagined continuum of ethnic conflict, who give voice to pre-conceived notions of that conflict. When someone brings as much attention to a place or a problem as Kucera has to Xinjiang, it should be not only clear and understandable, but thorough and correct.