Update: According to CNN (H/T to kahraman), the plane was denied permission to land in China. It then returned to Afghanistan, where it safely landed in Kandahar. In the article Brian Naranjo, the spokesperson for the International Security Assistance Force within NATO, states

“There was an aircraft that made a precautionary landing in Kandahar,”

“But there was no hijack and no bomb.”

Whether there was indeed a bomb threat still remains unclear. However, the plane was flying from Kabul to Urumqi (and then to Kandahar), while avoiding Kyrgyzstan’s airspace, which it was denied permission to use.

“…had no reason to withdraw the film from the festival and she then proceeded to tell me that I had to justify my decision to include the film in the festival.

“No-one reacts well to strident approaches, or to the appearance of being bullied. I don’t think it’s a positive way of behaving,” he added.

He said he told Ms Chen he did not have to justify the film’s inclusion, “then politely hung up”.

This social faux paus on the of the Chinese might add fuel (in the form of public indignation) to the already tense relations between Australia and China. This occurs at a time when China has arrested an Australian businessman on charges of espionage. More details on Australian-Chinese relations can be found in an NPR report from this morning.

Is it normal for the police to fire warning shots of live ammunition inside of a city? Moreover, why are the Chinese police not equipped with less-lethal weapons as means of detainment, such as Tasers?

Update: The Jakarta Post reports disconcerting details about the events:

Photos taken at the time show one policeman raising his rifle to strike a man. Beaten, the man in a blue shirt with blood on his right leg lay on the ground. Police formed a ring around him, pointing their guns up at surrounding buildings.

If what the Daily Mail reports is true, then it sounds possible that these men were shot at point blank range.

Police said the three men attacked them when they tried to pull them off a fourth Uighur, whom they had attacked with knives and rods. (Emphasis added)

One witness, Zhang Ming, a construction worker at a building site near the incident, said he saw three men with knives come out of a mosque and attack a group of paramilitary police standing in a cluster along the road. Riot police then chased them, beat them and fired shots, he said. (Emphasis added)

If this claim is true, and that the men were armed when exiting the mosques, then we can only expect more crackdowns on Islamic institutions in Urumqi and the whole of Xinjiang. Unfortunately, this man’s statement is impossible to verify, and given the current situation, there are numerous reasons why such a statement could be fabricated for propaganda purposes, or distorted for international media consumption.

Also, did anyone else catch John Stewart, of Comedy Central’s the Daily Show, briefly reference the plight of the Uighurs in Guantánamo during his interview with Newt Gingrich? It’s only about ten seconds long, at 00:40 – 00:50 of the interview; however, it may mean that the issue is gaining traction among journalists if even Stewart is mentioning it.

We mentioned in a previous roundup that Uighurbiz, an outspoken online community, was shut down, and that its owner, Ilham Tohti, dropped off the radar for a few days. A week ago, RFA posted an article about Tohti quoting anonymous sources "close to" Tohti saying he’s being closely monitored by the authories and has been told to remain silent. This likely is a backlash to some bold comments Tohti made about employment, discrimination, and XUAR Chairman Nur Bekri in an interview with RFA International after an academic trip to France.

Also from RFA, more details on the recently announced $440 million plan to demolish and renovate parts of Kashgar’s old city. This action is to be done allegedly do to earthquake hazard concerns and to "modernize" the area with electricity and water. An official at the Kashgar Cultural Relics office says the issue is already out of their hands; an official at the Kashgar Tourism Office vaguely and ominously states that "one of the city’s main tourist attractions" would also be "affected by the plan." My guess is the Id Kah mosque.

Researchers in Canada and the United Kingdom have published their research on Internet espionage conducted by the Chinese government. Of note to us is that part of their online counter-snooping lead them to servers in Xinjiang, which is apparently where intelligence units monitoring Tibetan independence groups are based. Huzzah for Xinjiang being China’s e-fort!

Finally, an LA Times article entitled "Clocks square off in China’s West" on the curious time zone issues present in Xinjiang, two time zones away from Beijing, yet officially on Beijing time. Now this isn’t news to most people familiar with Xinjiang, but the article is worth reading, argues Jeff Wasserstorm at The China Beat. As a China academic, Wasserstorm was expecting the usual "I can’t believe it’s not China" spiel by a not-so-deeply-embedded journalist, but was surprised instead to find an article with the right balance of journalistic curiosity, reliance on academic references, and historical/geographical context.

What didn’t surprise me, however, was the forehead-slap-inducing way the China Daily obligingly tiptoed around one of the central themes of the novel, namely, that it sucked to be around during the Cultural Revolution.

Front and center, following the time-honored CCP of "shrugging off" a term they don’t like (see state usage of 所谓, translated into English as "so-called"), is the technique of putting quotation marks around the term Cultural Revolution and removing the capital letters, as if the accuracy of the words are in question and the referred-to historical event is unworthy of proper noun status. Every time the phrase is used it’s written like this.

Talking in Chinese about his best-selling novel, English, Wang describes life during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) as "constant war, real or imagined, and nothing to eat".

One time when I thought they were going to say "cultural revolution," they ended up saying "cultural reaction."

"When I learned English I found out about life, things I had not known up to that point. English represented the things we wanted but couldn’t get, like political culture and democracy," Wang says.

"We couldn’t get them then because of the cultural reaction and even since the reform and opening-up we haven’t got all of them."

I had to think about this one. Maybe "cultural reaction" is exactly what Wang said in the Mandarin interview, as in, the Chinese cultural reaction didn’t accept these types of Western ideological intrusions.  Maybe he said Cultural Revolution and when the article was rendered into English, there was a typo that maybe was corrected by spell check to "reaction." Finally, and this is the one that I’m going with, the censors didn’t like a quote that implied that a government sanctioned campaign would deprive the citizenry of things like democracy and political culture (both of which the CCP claims are being offered by them to the people today) and so they creatively edited the phrase to something that would still somehow make sense (see possibility number 1).

Also interesting is an extremely contrived and eyebrow-raising paragraph where the author assures us that Wang is as equally critical of Western capitalism as he is of circumstances during the Cultural Revolution.

He professes not to see any downside to this material progress and it is only toward the end of the interview that he admits that being overweight can be unhealthy, or that capitalism has its problems too, like the economic crisis.

Conspicuously missing, of course, is a direct quote. Oh, and also an explanation as to why the writer of this article feels compelled to "balance out" Wang’s literary criticism of of the Cultural Revolution with one of capitalism when the article has nothing to do with that and is about Wang’s book. I mean, seriously, being "overweight can be unhealthy?" What?

And so in analyzing this article I’m going from "most obvious" to "most subtle," and the last thing I’m going to point out is not in your face but frankly is the most insulting to both Wang and readers of the articles like myself. Wang is a serious writer, according to reviews I’ve read there are light-hearted and comedic tones to English but nonetheless the book as a whole is a serious exploration of a dark time in China’s history and a young boy’s way of finding purpose throughout it all. I’m glad that the article bothered to mention that Wang won a major prize for his work in 2005.

Nonetheless, it seems to be the articles driving aim to depict Wang as a sort of irreverent clown, who does things solely for the "shock value," the continuing implication being that he’s not serious or what he’s not talking about is not based on facts.

Author Wang Gang enjoys joking around, preferably over a drink or two, and it’s often hard to tell whether he’s being serious or just saying something for its shock value.

That Wang is a jovial, joking kind of guy is probably a fact to be reported on in a news article, but the second clause about "shock value" is definitely the writer’s own insertion. The article goes on to call Wang’s story "semi-mythical," ignoring a vital distinction between the words "myth" and "fiction," describes "poking at authority figures" as part of Wang’s character (as opposed to something that is justified and necessary), and ends the article declaring outright that Wang is a "contrarian." Yeah, contrarian can have positive connotations but in the context of the article it definitely seems like the idea is "the guy that says the opposite just to get attention."

Finally, there’s the title of the article itself, "Wang talks English but it comes out in riddles," which makes no sense even when put alongside the content of the article. Unless, of course, your goal is to depict some guy as a jokester who is just trying to rile people up for attention and "speaks riddles" for the sheer satisfaction of seeing someone befuddled (and so don’t believe anything he has to say about history in his mythical novel!).

For a more substantial exploration of English, I refer you once more to Bruce Hume’s thoughts at the Paper Republic, which includes an interview with the two translators. Or better yet, go buy the book make a conclusion about Wang Gang on your own terms.

Having not read the book myself yet, there’s little I can do except point to Veg’s thoughts on the topic. I can say that through the eyes of Veg, Wang’s work appears to be a fascinating read particularly because of Wang’s experience in a Xinjiang jail (he was imprisoned for copying XPCC documents, go figure) where apparently he covered a lot of ground with his Uyghur cellmate, Mukhtar, who was jailed for organizing protests. Such a scenario would provide an exceedingly rare opportunity for frank dialogue between a sympathetic Han and an outspoken Uyghur, because hey, once you’re in jail, what’s stopping you from being open?

Veg does criticize Wang for not fully fleshing out the political and philosophical underpinnings behind his conclusions on Xinjiang: greater autonomy that would flow from a more even-keeled application of representative democracy throughout China. Veg instead argues that a more practical approach would be to use the legal resources at hand, namely, the "Laws on Self-Autonomy in Minority Regions" which provides the political and legal structure for greater autonomy in areas like Xinjiang but remain, to quote Veg, a "political fiction." I share Veg’s frustration at the existence of laws that would provide greater equality and autonomy for Uyghurs if only they were actually applied.

Wang’s greatest merit, in Veg’s eyes, is his openness to dialogue and public discussion, as well as his ability to paint a "a sympathetic portrait of ‘ordinary Uyghurs,’ far removed from the usual clichés of official discourse, exoticism, or commonly repeated slurs — an important accomplishment that may act as bridge towards even-minded ordinary Han Chinese citizens." Indeed, it is refreshing to see that there are PRC intellectuals that are willing to hold discussions of Uyghurs outside the politically enforced norm – provided their publishing agent is in Taiwan.