This situation, of course, is not from neglect or lack of trying – journalists and academics come to Xinjiang frequently with the express purpose of ferreting out elusive Uyghur commentary on various subjects – the Olympics, the Uyghur way of life, terrorism, inter-ethnic relations, etc.  Naturally, there is no one Uyghur voice on these topics, and we can hold as axiomatic the fact that across the millions of Uyghurs in Xinjiang there are a wide range of stances, from one extreme to the other and everything in between. However, a robust network of rules,(some written, some not), surveillance, and punishments works quite efficiently in curtailing access to Uyghur opinions on a significant scale. Thus we are left with isolated, anonymous, and often furtive voices that crop up in media reports and academic treatises, to stand alongside the very vocal and hardly unchecked accusations of diasporic Uyghur activist groups. Furthermore, those voices are mediated – delivered to us through a writer who despite even the best efforts to be objective nonetheless has an agenda in writing the report or thesis, one that may differ from the objectives of the Uyghur source referenced.

But the exposé linked in the last post is notable because it includes surprisingly frank, critical, and penetrating commentary by Uyghur members of the Uighur Biz online community. This, of course, is not “unmediated” Uyghur opinion nor can we call it representative. Searching for opinions on the internet unleashes a whole separate type of skepticism – who can own a computer, who navigates online BBS’, who is willing to put forward their ideas, what does anonymity do to peoples’ self-expression. Nonetheless, it is, I believe, an untapped source for ascertaining Uyghur thoughts on these issues and it is far more direct and open than what comes out of an encounter with a journalist in a Kashgar alleyway. And so what is said in the commentary accompanying the notice is a lot more substantial and eye-opening than the usual one-liner delivered in a press release. And this is what I’d like to share with our readers today.

An important disclaimer – my Mandarin has lots of limitations. I welcome corrections.

Son of the West (西域的子) tells us how these policies personally effect people by describing the arrival of two PhD holding Uyghurs from Germany to watch the Olympics.

I had two friends from Germany come over, originally to watch the Olympics, they arrived at Beijing at noon on August the 6th, I went to pick them up, they received extra scrutiny when they passed through security, I had to sit around and wait at the airport for two hours until they came out, furthermore, I received a call from the police, and they made me report their travel arrangements, and they called me every two hours to ask about their every action, I brought them to an office run by Xinjiang folks to arrange lodging, but mysteriously the charge per night was 980RMB (usually it doesn’t approach 200RMB), but they thought that was too expensive, so they started looking for a place to stay, they went to several hotels but were rejected by all of them, and by the time it started getting dark they still hadn’t found a place to stay, originally they were planning on calling 110, but that was too much trouble and they didn’t call, and they had no choice but to buy a ticket for that day to go back home to Urumqi. These two got their doctorates in Germany, they both got scholarships, and have participated in important research projects. They’ve lived in Germany for four years now, and when I met them the first words they said were, “It’s great to be back home, and it’s really exciting to hear again the sounds we were used to hearing.” But they were very disappointed in Beijing, even in their own country they weren’t able to find a place to stay.

The notice posted on the wall in Beijing required inn owners to report Tibetan and Uyghur lodgers to the police, but we may speculate from the story above, and from other stories on Uyghurs being refused lodging, that hotel owners may have decided to circumvent the inconvenience simply by refusing Uyghur and Tibetan guests or charging unreasonable prices.

Several commentators observed the legal significance of this situation. This is first indicated by the rhetorically challenging title of the article itself, “Netizen Takes Picture of Notice Below, Reminding Us of Former Times in South Africa.” While the reference to apartheid obviously is meant to draw attention to the inherent racism of the police policy, one assumes that it also is a reference to the gradual and peaceful legal evolution which ultimately resulted in a fairer South Africa. Even more vexing to some commentators is the fact that technically the legal framework that renders these kinds of policy illegal already exist, and simply are just being flouted by the police. One solution, according to Gulzar, is making public knowledge of the law more widespread and available.

Even the police are issuing these kinds of emergency notices, so who’s left to protect our legal rights? With this kind of police notice, what kind of inn would be willing to take in Uyghurs or Tibetans? Whatever happened to the essence of the State Council’s document no. 33?

Actually these so-called “national regulations” are simply excuses certain departments have found for their local policies. National lawmakers should make the law publicly available to the masses, ensure that all people are aware of it, and resolve what it stands for and what it doesn’t stand for. So obviously, this statement of “national regulations” is absolutely an excuse, a strategic decision ejected from the ass of some public servant. It simply doesn’t have any legal foundation.

Of particular interest in Gulzar’s words is the insistence that these civil rights incidents are the work of corrupt and evil local officials who are ignoring and flouting a national legal framework and the edicts flowing forth from the centralized government. This is actually a growing theme in China that extends far beyond the Uyghurs – even in cases like the Sanlu Milk scandal and shoddy architecture in Wenchuan, “evil local despots” are decried by the people in contrast to the wiser rules at the center.

Other commentators pointed out that an entire ethnicity should not be punished for the actions of a small, violent minority – a rather poignant point since official documents regarding terrorism in Xinjiang always insist that the discontent is confined to an extreme and isolated group of people (极少数). Should this be the case, two different users named Azamat ask, why should all be punished?

Government measures have a direct influence on society. In any given country, inter-ethnic relations are a very sensitive and complicated issue. Criminal elements and terrorist extremists when all is said and done are an extremely small minority, if you can’t distinguish between these individuals and everyone else, you’re only going to proliferate the negative sentiments among the people. If a terrorist really wants to wreak havoc, he’s not going to check into a hotel and do business as usual. And as for these panicky prevention measures being carried out by the police, I’m afraid the only thing that’s being harmed are the sentiments of minorities. The police can ask hotels to strengthen safety measures in general but shouldn’t draw attention to ethnicity.

It’s the job of the government to combat criminal elements, but this absolutely must not come at the price of violating the rights of the people, and you simply can’t make an entire people the target of one’s suspicions, by doing it this way you’ll just strengthen the mistrust among certain sectors of society, create an even deeper chasm between peoples, to go from combating individual criminals to fomenting the mistrust of an entire people, this actually shows the incompetence of local governments and various departments.

Not only is the policy a type of collective punishment, the two Azamats observe, but it also has a very high chance of backfiring and simply increasing resentment among Uyghurs and Tibetans.

A user named Unique (唯一) points out that these types of policies are completely missing their target and are failing to address the fundamental problems behind the unrest in Xinjiang, interestingly invoking the Yang Jia, a 28-year old who walked into a Shanghai police station and killed 6 police officers. Interestingly, Yang Jia has become somewhat of an internet phenomena, receiving an outpouring of sympathy as a victim of circumstance, and later, of police shenanigans, despite his gruesome crime. Yang Jia expectedly got the death sentence, but Unique asks if the reasons compelling him to the crime in the first place were addressed.

The problem simply is not addressed by these kinds of methods.

It’s just like the Yang Jia incident. You kill someone, you pay with your own life. Otherwise the law is nothing but words. But the key here is why he resorted to murder.

And so the crux of the matter remains unresolved. You can’t keep on covering it up. The tension brought about by suppression will accumulate day by day, society itself will feel its effects, the feeling among the people will become more and more widespread until it spills over. And when the time comes the problem won’t be that of “a tiny cabal” or a few “unenlightened groups.”

Lastly, I’d like to end with the words of Yilihamu (伊力哈木), whose insightful analysis of history, various vested interests in Xinjiang, the “minzu” system, and the rise of a Uyghur ethnic consciousness is rendered even more powerful in that it is an authentic Uyghur voice. Yilihamu’s eloquent language for me evokes the powerful ideas explored by Ralph Waldo Ellison in The Invisible Man, a literary masterpiece on what it means to be a racially and ethnically marginalized stranger.

Both history and the present cycle of unpleasant disputes make it very difficult to resolve the complications that exist among Han Chinese and Uyghurs. During the times of authoritarian rule, the Uyghurs had the highest population and also the status of “autonomous ethnicity,” but because the resources they were able to take advantage of were relatively few, they continued to play the role of the “invisible people,” to retreat behind their own bodies. Further vexed by the so-called “East Turkestan” movement, Uyghurs wouldn’t dare come forward and hold their heads high, and gradually, they became the “unseen masses” and because of this the spirit of the Uyghur people faltered.  With further democratization, pluralization, and a growing feeling that their culture was gradually seeping away, Uyghurs started to acknowledge with ever-increasing awareness the presence of a crisis, and greatly inspired by the rise of the “human rights defense” movement, formed an ethnic Uyghur group consciousness. This, for the Uyghurs, is actually ethnic dignity and this self-awareness is actually a form of self-defense.  Society in modern Xinjiang is a fragmented society, and the antagonism among ethnic groups has caused a widespread crisis of confidence among the people of Xinjiang, on one hand everyone is a “person of Xinjiang” but each ethnic group has various, conflicting interests, each group disdains and quarrels with the other. Let’s think about this – Xinjiang has over 20 million people and it has been divided into several antagonistic ethnic categories, and at the same time within each ethnicity there are different groups, in this kind of situation anyone can be taken advantage of, oppressed, or sold out by someone else, in this kind of situation who else can someone from Xinjiang trust? On top of that in today’s Xinjiang various groups with vested interests are jostling with each other, the different administrative regions, the XPCC, centralized industries, the common people, these groups often clash for the sake of their own interest and often are antagonistic towards one another, in this type of situation both among ethnic groups and among groups with vested interests there is absolutely no trust, and there is a universal lack of confidence among the people.

I express my admiration to these individuals, not only for the insights they have put forward, but also for the courage to publish them on a website based in the PRC when similar sites have been closed before.

Urgent Notice

To all inns and bathhouses of the administrative district:

In compliance with a request from the local PSB substation, starting today, investigations will be carried out on the lodging circumstances of all individuals of  “Tibetan” and “Uyghur” ethnicity residing at inns and bathhouses of the Haidian District. Reinforce inspection and verification of any lodger matching the description above and report all cases to the local dispatch station.

Furthermore: every inn and bathhouse, when registering travelers, must double-check and accurately fill out the registration form.

All who receive Tibetan or Uyghur individuals for lodging must immediately report to the local dispatch station.

Officer to Contact: Wu Hu Cell Phone: 13801093916

Huayuan Dispatch Station On-Call Phone Numbers: 62014692 62032656

Minority individuals from “sensitive” regions being monitored in hotels is not something new – as far back as July, before the Olympics, there was a news report by Globe and Mail about how the unfortunate parties to a forced, mass Uyghur exodus from Beijing were invariably denied access to an inn or hotel after pulling out their ID cards identifying them as Uyghurs. And while the link above with the photograph of the notice was published on the 3rd of October, it’s unclear whether or not the picture itself was taken recently or long ago. Nonetheless, standing on its own the picture does at least constitute a form of evidence for this type of ethnic discrimination a tad more concrete than word of mouth.

But the notice does remind us that one often overlooked aspect of “being a Uyghur in the PRC” is the civil rights component. I identify this in contrast to aspects that gain greater coverage on media outlets, things like terrorism and separatism, or, the “humanitarian crisis” which I feel overlaps with civil rights issues but are usually more egregious yet more targeted violations of minority rights – for example, religious restrictions during Ramadan, or forced deportation of young Uyghur girls to Eastern industrial areas for labor. While these crises are absolutely worth knowing and analyzing, it’s also worth recalling that sometimes its the smaller troubles with a wider range that trigger greater consequences – the uncalled for nuisances that are capable of affecting all Uyghurs, regardless of whether or not they are man or woman, religious or secular, rich or poor, young or old. Something inexplicably, illogically, and absolutely tied to something as inconsequential as the way you look or a character on your ID card. Like these hotel restrictions.

I can’t help but consider the a similar situation that I became familiar with as a child of the US – namely, the American Civil Rights movement. Just for all you internet critics out there, I underline similar and do not say analagous, because they are not. But I think that on a generalized level there are some comparisons that can be made. For example, while during that time there were frequent and brazen acts of terrorism perpetuated against blacks in the South, most notably and gruesomely vigilante lynching, it was an act of resistance against a far more mundane yet more ubiquitous injustice that today represents the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement – Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of the bus.

Rosa Parks also reminds us that offenses against an individual’s civil rights does not a  Civil Rights Movement make. It takes two other things: one, an understanding by the minority community of what these violations are, how they operate, and where they come from, and, two, a willingness to speak and act out against those violations.

And so I was a little surprised and intrigued that in the link posted above, the one publishing the photograph of the police notice, there also were some reactions and commentary written in Mandarin by other Uyghur members of the Uighur Biz online community. I say surprised because Uighur Biz is a site based in China, written in Mandarin, and, like all sites in China, has registered an ICP license with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Despite this, community members have voiced some insightful, penetrating, and surprisingly frank comments on the discriminatory hotel policy, its implications, and its origins, to which I turn to in an article that will be posted shortly.

And so for now, I’d just like to share just a few links to some post-Olympic stories of note.

The biggest thing, of course, is the post-Olympic crackdown that is currently going down. It so far has taken the form of a religious clampdown, going so far as to put pressure on outward signs of religiosity like beards and the veil during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It goes beyond that, of course, but for analysis and discussion I direct you to Michahel’s Collective Punishment and Anti-Ramadan campaign posts. The Shanghaiist has done the great task of finding some of the original documents with the crackdown guidelines, such as this Huocheng County site and this blogger’s thoughts on the newly minhted regulations.

A story from the Shanghai Daily, less about Xinjiang itself, but nonetheless occured in Xinjiang and is of note: a shocking family tragedy comes to a violent close with the execution of Abduhalik Muzht on the 4th. Muzht went to his daughter’s school in December of 2006 wielding a knife, ultimately killing two students and injuring a teacher and two other students. Worse yet: the alleged motivation for Muzht’s attack was revenge for his daughter’s death – who was strangled by her brother, Muzht’s son, because he was embarassed by her poor grades. Now that is a lot to digest – something so tragic and convoluted it would be more likely in a soap opera than among a Xinjiang family. Again, I emphasize that on this information alone there is nothing particulary “Uyghur” or “Xinjiang” about this tragedy – given the stress one places on success in China, and the stresses the education system places on the children, this could’ve happened in Xinjiang, Guangdong, or anywhere in between. Still, who was this brother and why was he that obsessed over his sister’s grades (note that this was a younger brother still in primary school)? Why did the father kill his daughter’s classmates in revenge, when she was killed by her brother? Where was mom, and what will happen to the original murderer, Muzht’s son?The story is so bizarrely moving I’m compelled to look further into it when I have the time and I’ll post anything of note here.

The next story: the economic relationship between Xinjiang and the rest of China I feel is elegantly illustrated by the natural gas pipelines between the two. The first goes from Xinjiang to Shanghai. The second goes via Shanghai to Guangdong. Now, feasibility studies for the third pipeline have begun, according to the People’s Daily. One notices that poor Fujian, another economic titan of the East Coast, gets bypassed by both of the original routes. The solution, of course is another pipeline, and Fujian is the projected destination of the third pipeline should the plans go through. Railroads in, pipelines out. Does anyone know if the second pipeline passes through Zhejiang? If not, 浙江真可怜!

Finally, a fascinating report from Reuters on Nur Bekri, chairman of XUAR. Since Nur Bekri’s ascension to the Chairmanship back in December, I’ve been wondering who exactly Nur Bekri is and what he’s like – it was hard to find anything other than his official biography which unhelpfully lists all the positions he held. This Friday, however, in a speech to communist party officials, Bekri in no unclear terms stated his firm conviction that Western powers are directly supporting unrest in Xinjiang, likely alluding to the attacks that occurred back before the Olympics. From Reuters:

The region’s governor, Nuer Baikeli, said “Western hostile forces” unhappy with China’s rise were directly supporting groups opposed to Beijing’s rule in the region in the name of democracy and human rights.

“They all along have been direct behind-the-scenes backers and patrons of the ‘three forces’ at home and abroad,” Baikeli said, referring to terrorism, separatism and extremism.

“They are the most important external factor in the continuing rise of ethnic splittist, destructive activities in Xinjiang, and the large threat they pose from abroad to our national security and social stability will exist for a long time,” he added.

“Our struggle against ethnic splittism, in essence, is a struggle against Western hostile forces’ plots to ‘Westernise’ and ‘split’ our country, it is the continuation of the struggle the Chinese people have had for 100 years or more against imperialist plans to split China.”

I feel this is pretty significant, and can’t help but wonder how much of this is official party belief (either among officials in Xinjiang or national level officials) and how much of this is Bekri’s personal opinions, but the Reuters article does note some indirect sanction of Bekri’s words: his speech was hosted on the Central Government’s website on Friday. While unpersuasively accusing Xinjiang unrest to have backing from Muslim extremists in Central Asia and international terrorist networks is quite expected, claiming that the Western governments are directly supporting the same unrest Bin Laden himself is supposedly helping out is a very new development. Confidently accusing a foreign government of backing terrorism on one’s own soil is a profound thing, as anyone in the United States can tell you. The question, thus, is the one I asked before and I bring up again: as Chairman of the XUAR, how much respect should we ascribe to Bekri’s words? What does the Central leadership think about these statements? After all, VP candidate and governor of “America’s Xinjiang” (If I may take liberties to call Alaska that) Sarah Palin has been posturing quite aggressively towards Russia recently, but again, on the other hand, the democratically elected governor of a state in a Federal union is quite different from the de facto appointed mouthpiece in one of China’s “Autonomous Regions.”  Thoughts?

The Karshi police said that one of the attackers drove a tip lorry to hit a team of more than 70 policemen who were jogging to pass the Yiquan Hotel in a regular morning exercise at about 8:00 a.m. In the meantime, the other suspect threw an explosive toward the gate of the station.

The driver then abandoned the lorry to throw explosive at the policemen, after the vehicle veered to knock on a roadside wire pole, said the Kashi police.

The police confirmed that the driver blew up one of his arms after igniting the home-made explosive.

Police found 10 home-made explosives, a home-made hand gun and four knives from the vehicle.

Changing at least earlier reports that one of the suspects had injured his leg – apparently, instead, he’s lost his arm. Joy. Anyways, while checking the Chinese language coverage for updates, I find one page that after repeating the same one-sentence summary was at least nice enough to say “Stay tuned for updates”. Also on this page is a still that was marked 8/4, and depicts a guy in a prison suit who may possibly be one of the suspects (likely not the de-armed one). We see CCTV in one corner but the word for China in Russian in the other corner (???). On top of that, Chinese news websites are notorious for jumbling a bunch of totally unrelated crap into one article and without any alt text or captioning we have no idea what it is, but I’ll throw it out there for you guys anyways.

与人民为敌的，最终结果是自取灭亡！！！

For those against the people, the end result is to bring annihilation upon oneself!

向烈士致敬，一路走好

I salute the martyrs, and bid them farewell!

向死难的官兵表示最沉痛的哀悼,
恐怖行为，必须采取非常手段严厉镇压.

To those officers who died during the incident, I express my deepest sorrow.

As for the terrorist activities, we must implement extreme measures to thoroughly suppress them.

唉~~~缠头干的事。

Yeah… the towelheads did this.

恐怖行为越来越猖狂了，必须采取非常手段严厉镇压

Terrorist activities are getting even more savage, we must implement extreme measures to thoroughly suppress them.

哎~~~瞅瞅,咱中国办个奥运容易嘛…

Ah… can’t we Chinese host the Olympics in peace?

维吾尔族 的朋友们，我们都是同胞，我们都是中华民族，新疆自古以来就是中国的一部分，大部分的维族朋友们，是非常好客的，也是非常欢迎我们其他民族的，不过有极少 部分维族朋友，不满于现在的生活，不满于现在的政策。有时你们该想想，就算继续这样继续下去“继续100年200年还是这样“或者自取灭亡“`那又 是何必呢“知足常乐`！

My Uyghur friends, we are all fellow countrymen, we are all nationalities of China, Xinjiang has from ancient times remained a part of China, most Uyghurs are really friendly, and they genuinely welcome other nationalities, however, an extremely small amount of our Uyghur friends are unsatisfied with life today, are unsatisfied with current policies, sometimes they should think a bit, if things continue like this they’ll go on and on for 100 years or 200 years just like this, eventually bringing destruction upon themselves, or they can think “There’s no need for that!” and that’s enough to bring about real satisfaction.

早晚收拾他们

We should take care of them sooner or later.

我是新疆人“`
但我看到这些很伤心“`
这种极端的败类应该彻底消失“`
不然新疆永远都是一颗定时炸弹

I’m from Xinjiang

But when I see this it really gets to me

These kinds of extremist scum should really disappear

Otherwise Xinjiang will always be a time bomb

发生了那么大的事啊~快顶上首页给大家看~一定会是头条~奥运近了~危险近了~那些垃圾在作乱~

Something really big has happened… hurry and rate this video so it will reach the front page and everyone will see it… it really is a lead story… the Olympics are approaching… danger is near… those trash are blowing things up…

我是新疆人,当我早上看到这条新闻.我很震惊!
我是汉族,我有很多朋友是 维族 哈族. 他们跟我们一样都热爱伟大的祖国!
那只是少数的极端分子 蓄意破坏边疆的安宁与稳定.
我坚信少数极端分裂主义分子的阴谋不会得逞!
伟大的祖国只会越来越强大!
中国万岁!
中华民族万岁!

I’m from Xinjiang, when I saw the news this morning I was really shocked!

I’m Han, but I have many Uyghur and Kazakh friends. They’re just like us and really love the great motherland.

It’s only a small amount of extremists who plan on disrupting the peace and stability of the borderlands.

I firmly believe that the separatist ideology of this tiny minority will not succeed.

The mighty motherland will become more and more great!

Long live China!

Long live the people of China!

作为一个普通的维吾尔人，绝大多数维吾尔人是热爱祖国大家庭的，所以极少数分裂分子的阴谋是不会得逞的，我们反对分裂，维护统一；我为和平祈祷，为奥运的圆满举行祈祷。

As an ordinary Uyghur I can say, a large number of Uyghurs love the great family of the motherland, so the conspiracies of these few separatists will not succeed, we are against splittism, we are for unity, we pray for peace, and we pray for the success of the olympics.

奥运后，国家必须要采取强硬方法解决此类事件了，严惩不贷，彻底解决，还老百姓一安家和睦中国，中国加油！

After the Olympics, we must implement tough measures to resolve these types of incidents, we have to punish without excuses, completely resolve the problem, and give the ordinary people a calm and friendly China, go China!

And those are some of the interesting ones for now. Some themes: rapid unity over the death of the young officers, similar unity around fury towards the perpetrators. Note that although as of right now no news agency has made an explicit connection between Uyghurs and the attack, this is already a given in the discussion among the public. Several people have come forward urging calm among their (implied Han) countrymen, to not direct their anger in Uyghurs in general and repeating the mantra distributed by the state that the discontent is isolated among an extremely small majority, also, people coming forward and claiming themselves to be Uyghur while saying that the attackers do not represent the will of the majoriy (they invariably use the phrase 大家庭, or “great family” of which all the minorities are metaphorically a part of).

Also interesting are comments that state tough measures should be carried out after the Olympics. I find this fascinating. It seems to indicate to me that the ordinary citizens of China perceive all the tidying up that occurred before the games – including, one would imagine, the relaxation of censorship and the lip service to human rights – to only be temporary measures whereas analysts in the West have been praying (albeit with little hope) that the Olympics would be a catalyst for permanent changes. Instead, we can see here that even the 老百姓 ordinary Chinese are clearly aware that the stuff the government has been doing lately has been only for the Olympics and that the “normal Chinese way of doing things,” for example, harsh crackdowns, can return to the forefront when all the bleeding heart Westerners leave after the Olympics. Intriguing…

Of course, we can always count on some folks to throw in some comic relief…

杀死韩国猪

Kill the Korean pigs

喀什的事件 跟韩国猪什么关系？莫非你认为喀什和韩国相邻？你真的该学学地理了

What does the incident in Kashgar have to do with “Korean Pigs”? Could you possibly think that Kashgar is near Korea? You really should brush up on your geography

Not much can be said until we have an opportunity to view the video. The last time there was a buzz about an East Turkestan Islamic movement produced video, the resultant surprise and concern were quickly quashed by the content of the actual video itself which, as we covered here at The New Dominion, contained a number of inconsistencies and puzzling questions, all but ruling out the authenticity of the video’s claims.

Yet even with what little information we have, there are a number of eyebrow-raising points to consider…

First, why the delay? Why would such an organization carry out these attacks only wait until now to claim ownership of the violence?

Why would China remain silent on such issues even if they had the slightest inkling that East Turkestan terrorists were responsible for the acts? There’s a trend among the government to exploit every opportunity to justify increased Olympics security and crackdowns in restive minority areas, as evidenced by the glowing report released recently on “busting up terrorist cells”, as well as the intense domestic press coverage of incidents with really spurious, if not entirely fabricated links to religious terrorism. One would assume that these bus bombing incidents would also be revealed to the public as the machinations of Muslim terrorists, and thus further justify both iron security at the Olympics and massive crackdowns in Xinjiang – though I also acknowledge the possibility of a face issue, where the CCP is willing to acknowledge the threat itself but not actual instances where terrorists slipped through cracks in the Great Security Wall. It remains a fact, however, that the official government word on both the Kunming and Shanghai bus incidents is that while they definitely weren’t accidents, they aren’t linked to terrorism or the Olympics. Obviously the CCP and Seyfullah can’t both be correct.

Who is Seyfullah? What is the Turkestan Islamic Party? Much scholastic criticism concerning Chinese and American policy towards the East Turkestan Islamic Party (which apparently also goes by Turkestan Islamic Party, which also happens to be another possible name for the successor of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which may or may not have been eradicated) centers around the question of whether or not such an organization even exists on a structurally significant level. I’m willing to wager that if we were actually see this video we could ascertain just from the content whether or not there are genuine links to Uyghur-related unrest or if it is a deliberate but sloppy attempt to agitate, as the last video appeared to be. I would be interested to see what kind of background Seyfullah delivers his statement in front of, what language he speaks in, what kind of attire he wears.

What are the abilities of this shadowy movement? Violence attributed to Uyghurs has been on the decline for the past decade, yet suddenly there’s a Uyghur movement that is capable of striking in places as distant as Wenzhou, Kunming, Shanghai, and Guangzhou? Just as I believe the Chinese government is not beyond attributing Islamic, terroristic motives to secular hooligan gang violence in Urumqi, I wouldn’t put it past international agitators to attempt to weave a pattern between various violent occurrences, a pattern with no real basis in reality.

So basically, as is the case for most information coming out of China concerning Xinjiang or the Uyghurs – it’s time to suspend judgement. There are reasons this could be legit, and there are (probably far more) reasons this could be just troublemakers throwing fuel onto the pre-Olympic fire. But until we can see some primary sources on our own – rather than receiving information filtered through layer after layer of various news organizations – it’s hard to say what’s what. Trying to report on the facts about Xinjiang reminds me of what terrorism and “the war on terrorism” is all about – in the end, much of it is information warfare – it’s out-mis-informing the misinformation of the other side, until nobody knows what the hell is going on. That’s basically the situation we’re looking at when we try to analyze East Turkestani terrorism.

For now, we’ll just try to point out what we can and encourage a critical analysis and discussion beyond what reliable is simplly verbatim repitition of either Xinhua or “the terrorists” on the parts of the major news agencies. And in that spirit, if anyone has any comments, observations, or better yet, links to the alleged video, please do share in the comments below or in the contact form above.

Of course the answer is obvious: Uyghur terrorists!

So Mr. Sun,  23, Mr. Wu, 25, and Mr. Wang, 41 (Good Uyghur names, ah-yep) called in to an as of yet unamed company posing as East Turkestan terrorists and demanding that the above amount be wired to their bank account, or else! Or else they would blow up something. The conclusion hardly need be stated: the police were notified and the unlucky idiots were immediately identified by the personal information attached to the provided bank accounts and quickly arrested.

And that’s pretty funny. It’s funny because the guys put some effort into concocting the appropriate alternate identity without bothering to wonder if their bank accounts would give them away. It’s funny because when in April details about alleged foiled terrorist plans emerged, it really seemed crystal clear from the terrorists’ purported arsenal – athletes as hostages, poisoning foodstuffs, suicide bombers – that money really wasn’t a top priority for the phantom ETIM villains.

But in spite of everything our Chinese Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe got wrong, I think they got one tiny thing right, and that’s if there’s one costume to adopt that while cause people to sweat under the collar, if there’s one shadowy specter that will get give cadres the heeby-jeebies and get the armed police moving, it’s the Muslim Uyghur Terrorist. With the silly Olympic Mind Games occuring with the torch in Xinjiang and Tibet (China gets gold for the Fool-The-Terrorist-Switcheroo event) and ghost plots that may or may not have been real appearing and disappearing into the pre-Olympic haze, I think it’s becoming clear that the image of Uyghurs is evolving in the Han popular imagination. Sure, the dancing and singing part is there, but that’s only one half the dual mold that Uyghurs and jammed into – the other half, most readres will know, was “theives.” We saw it a few weeks ago when we looked at some joke maps circulating on the internet. And anyone who has told Han friends that they’re going to Xinjiang undoubtedly was told to watch out for pickpockets. But for the sake of building the foundation of a secure and stable Olympics, a new domestic enemy has been fabricated – no longer Uyghur the theif, now its Uyghur the terrorist. And even a few dumb saps in Shandong “know” that.

So, having said that, without further ado, I present the next blip on the Uyghur radar as we draw closer and closer to the Olympics, courtesy a Hong Kong tabloid via the Shanghaiist. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words…

At around 9:00 AM on Monday, during peak traffic hours, a Shanghai bus filled with passengers caught on fire, resulting in 3 deaths and 12 injuries. The first official reports released about the event used the words “explosion incident” (爆炸案) but now that two days have passed and eyewitness accounts have proliferated, specifically about whether or not people in the neighborhood actually heard an explosion (most witnesses did not), most news stories are now using the phrase “combustion accident” (爆燃事故). There are a few certain things floating around – first of all, the police are being unusually ambiguous about the cause of the incident, deciding only to divulge that someone had brought “flammable materials” on board, thus ruling out an equipment failure of sorts – no word yet on whether or not it was deliberate, and whether or not there are suspects. The second certainty: with such ambiguity floating around such a sensational story, there’s no way in hell that nobody’s going to capitalize on it, and who else to do the job but a newspaper based in Hong Kong, China’s capitalism capital? While more official outlets are cautiously using words like “incident” and “combustion,” Hong Kong’s Apple Daily unabashedly proclaims in huge font on its front page: “SUICIDE STYLE BUS BOMBING IN SHANGHAI” (上海自杀式炸巴士). The usual sensationalist speculation one would expect from such an introduction (What, precisely, is suicide style? Something I can buy at Hot Topic? I thought a suicide bombing was pretty much all or nothing…) has already been translated by the impeccable Roland Soong at ESWN, but here at The New Dominion we’re more interested in another part of the article.

对于巴士起火的原因，上海市公安局在其官方网站上发布的公告称： 「经初步勘查，火灾是乘客携带易燃物品上车所致，有关情况警方在进一步调查中。 」不过，消息人士透露，有人用皮囊带汽油上车再点燃，结果引起车厢大火和爆炸，疑犯一度传出已被烧死，但后来证实已被拘捕，身份尚不得而知。
公 安部早前公布在新疆破获东伊运恐怖团伙时曾指，该团伙预谋于5月份开始在北京、上海等地进行投毒、爆炸等恐怖破坏活动，图谋干扰破坏北京奥运会，而北京奥 运圣火将于5月20日至21日在上海传递，上海巴士在早上返工高时间发生爆炸，令上海市民和内地网民议论纷纷，对公安的公告更冷嘲热讽，讥笑以后搭巴士要 像搭飞机一样执行安检。

As to the cause of the bus fire, the Shanghai Municipal PSB has published this official announcement on its website: “According to the initial investigation, the fire was caused by a passenger bringing flammable materials aboard the bus, the police are continuing the investigation of all relevant matters.” However, a informant has divulged to us that someone brought gasoline on board using a leather bag to ignite a fire, thus causing the resulting inferno and explosion inside the bus carriage. At first it was said that the suspect perished in the fire, but later it was confirmed that the suspect was arrested; the suspect’s identity remains unknown.

The Ministry of Public Security previously has made public that investigations following the breakup of a East Turkestan Islamic Movement terrorist cell in Xinjiang uncovered the cell’s intent to begin terrorist activities involving poisoning and explosions in Beijing and Shanghai starting from May, with the intent to disrupt the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai leg of the Olympic Torch Relay on May 20th and 21st as well as carry out attacks on buses during morning rush hour, causing Shanghai residents and mainlander Chinese netizens to discuss the matter and sarcastically suggest that boarding buses should have the same security preventive measures as airports.

Thus, our Hong Kong rag never bothers to explicitly create a connection between the “combustion incident” and East Turkestan terrorism, but, the obvious implication is there in that the Ministry of Public Security allegedly uncovered Shanghai bus attack plots in the previous crackdown. Also amusing, but a side note, is a sort of Hong Kong scorn for mainlanders getting their just desserts – the newspaper conspicuously uses the word for mainlander Chinese netizens as those who laughed and scorned the potential of an attack originating from the dark depths of the New Frontier.

I don’t even want to acknowledge the material by analyzing how suspect the article is – a single newspaper, an already sensationalist reputation, blaring loudly out of the one place where censorship is sort of in check, with a single, shady anonymous source – but as sensationalist as it may be, we must acknowledge the fact that the Shanghai PSB was sort of asking for it by being unusually scarce with the details. In fact, I’d say that the paucity of details divulged by government apparatuses leads one to conclude that it wasn’t a Xinjiang-based terrorist attack given the government’s eagerness to lay the blame at least four times after attempted plots and preemptive strikes in and around Xinjiang. There are differences though – a successful terrorist attack in the throbbing heart of one of China’s model metropolises is quite a different matter than a botched hijacking over Gansu province – but, unfortunately, there’s no use speculating unless the government decides to come forward with a little more information. We can rest assured that the bigwigs of the Shanghai PSB are discussing just that as they scan over what they know so far about the incident.

What we can wonder about, however, is the swiftness and enthusiasm with which an independent Hong Kong newspaper strongly suggests that “Uyghurs done it.” Why? It has already become quite apparent that the concept of the “dangerous Muslim terrorist Uyghur” is gaining currency in the Han social imagination, especially as the Olympics approach, through viral rumors about rogue, AIDS infected Uyghurs turning their kebabs into biological weapons to officially propagated accounts of minority shenanigans in apartment blocks leading the buildings’ Han Chinese residents to rethink whether or not they heard grenade explosions. Does the Shanghai bus bombing, I mean, bus burning resonate within existing ideas about dangerous Uyghurs? It most certainly does – as it was only a few months ago when another rambunctious Uyghur allegedly entered a mass transportation vehicle with some flammable material in an suicidal attempt to set the whole thing ablaze.

As much as we like to see Hong Kong as the ideal implementation of “One Country, Two Systems” policy, a bastion of capitalist-driven democracy and free thinking, I think that the freedom of press in Hong Kong can work both ways, and that we’re seeing through this tabloid a rare instance where mainlander nationalistic sentiment has only Hong Kong as a valve to express itself while state-run media outlets on the mainland obediently await the verdict on “what happened” as it is being decided right now by a very cautious Shanghai PSB – despite, of course, the can’t-be-helped swipe at mainlander sarcasm. Just as an unchecked, unedited, and unsupervised Internet has played an increasing role in the West as a barometer for “what everyone is thinking” regardless of journalistic integrity or credibility, Hong Kong’s freedom of press may in this instance have provided a voice to the type of mainlanders who refused to eat kebabs after receiving harrowing text messages. And with so many Chinese still simmering over the various catastrophes that occurred during international legs of the torch relay (a sentiment likely shared by Hong Kongers given the turnout at the Hong Kong portion of the relay), theres no wondering that the Chinese are ultra sensitive to threats to the integrity of the Olympics, and by proxy, national pride. With the torch abroad, the “Tibet splittests” insane enough to attack a woman in a wheelchair were the bad guys… now that the torch is in China, Chinese audiences are perhaps turning inward to find their enemies – and unfortunately, the rather rash conclusions the Hong Kong paper has jumped to indicate that Uyghurs may be the prime scapegoat. Should this be the case then it’s no mystery at all that the model bridge between China and the West would be the first place to gleefully express a gathering suspicion directed at the indigenous peoples of exotic Xinjiang.

]]> http://www.thenewdominion.net/168/hong-kong-tabloid-wildly-speculates-on-xinjiang-involvement-in-shanghai-bus-fire/feed/ 8 http://www.thenewdominion.net/29/xinjiang-roundup-25-november-to-1-december-2007/ http://www.thenewdominion.net/29/xinjiang-roundup-25-november-to-1-december-2007/#comments Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:31:15 +0000 Porfiriy http://www.thenewdominion.net/?p=29 This week, Xinjiang’s Olympic athletes began their final winter training session, the number four was banished from future Urumqi license plates, a medical specialist blew the whistle on lead poisoning problems among Xinjiang children, Urumqi triggered its level “blue” early warning pollution alarm for the first time, the Xinjiang PSB went to the other end of China to bust a drug smuggling ring, and more, under the break.

Xinhua Network News Xinjiang Channel 新华网新疆频道

• 25 November 2007: Twenty-one culture officials from four Central Asian countries arrived in Xinjiang representing the “SCO Member States Culture Officials High-level Research Team.” Before coming to China, the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Krygyz who make up the team studied the cultural and economic history of Xinjiang. After arriving the officials conducted research related to cultural and economic spheres, doing things such as holding informal talks with notable cultural figures of Xinjiang (such as tightrope worker Adili Wushouer and dancer Dilnaer), visiting cultural sites such as the Xinjiang Cultural Art Museum and the Great Bazaar in Urumqi, and swapping observations about cultural and economic affairs in their own respective countries with Chinese counterparts.
• 26 November 2007: For the first time, AIDS prevention information will be inserted into the curriculum of migrant worker after-hours schools. Based on statistics on attendance at these special after-hours schools, this information will reach over 200 thousand people. At the opening ceremony, Regional Health Department Vice-Director Zhang Yongzhong underscored the potential effectiveness of this curriculum by recognizing migrant workers, due to the nature of their work and lives in Xinjiang, as one of the primary vectors for the disease. There are over 20 thousand HIV-positive individuals in Xinjiang, ranking the province 4th in the country.
• 27 November 2007: Delegates from the Xinjiang Science and Technology Department presented at the “Arabic Software Technology Exchange and Product Introduction” meeting held at the Egypt Information Technology Institute in Cairo on the 26th. The institute’s president expressed hopes that further technological exchanges could be carried out between China and Egypt. The Xinjiang delegates discussed developing trends in operating system software and office software and presented an Arabic Linux system, Arabic office software, Arabic multi-lingual dictionaries, telecom platforms, and small “knowledge-increasing” games.
• 28 November 2007: Two members of the Regional Standing Committee, Fu Qiang and Bai Zhijie, toured various destinations in Xinjiang to inspect the ongoing implementation of an electronic-classroom program funded by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The program equips educational institutions throughout Xinjiang with computers and other multimedia equipment with the hopes that they will help raise educational standards in Xinjiang. Fu and Bai encouraged the continuing use and care of the equipment at their respective destinations.
• 28 November 2007: A new price-monitoring system has been setup in Urumqi to detect abnormal fluctuations in the prices of daily-use goods and alert the property government organizations should prices rise past a certain threshold within a certain period of time. The wholesale prices of grains, cooking oil, meat, vegetables, eggs, sugar, and other assorted daily use good will be monitored. Should any alarming abnormalities appear, the Urumqi Commercial Affairs Bureau will be alerted within one hour, and in turn will inform the relevant emergency response teams who will then carry out the necessary measures to rectify the situation.
• 28 November 2007: Urumqi’s City Council met recently and decided to invest 3.6 billion yuan in 86 construction projects over the next year, as a part of the “Charge South, Expand North, Extend East, Advance West” campaign. A large portion of these funds will be used to renovate and expand the transportation infrastructure; funds will also be allocated to Urumqi’s railway system, airport, and sewage system.
• 28 November 2007: An intensive training program has begun for Xinjiang athletes as the final winter before the 2008 Olympics approaches. The program will focus on 6 sports which apparently are the strongest candidates in Xinjiang’s athletic community; these sports are boxing, women’s volleyball, men’s archery, men’s middle/long distance running, equestrian, and taekwondo. Training is escalating, and more trainers (including 4 foreigners) are being hired to increase the intensity of the training regimens.
• 28 November 2007: Starting from the 27th of November, the number 4 will no longer appear on the license plates of newly registered vehicles with less than 9 seats. Private car ownership in Xinjiang has followed the national trend and has increased rapidly in the past several years; many owners of these private family cars desire auspicious plate numbers and try to avoid unlucky numbers, especially the number 4, which in Mandarin is pronounced similarly to the word for death, and the combination 47, which sounds similar to the phrase “die from anger (road rage, perhaps?)” and “go and die.” The removal of 4 from possible license plate combinations began in June of this year at the Qaramay Prefecture and quickly spread throughout the region, only now reaching the capital. Authorities made it a point to tell Xinhua that this was not wasting resources to indulge superstition but rather a wise measure to handle a cultural issue (I really can’t tell the difference). Personally, the 9 seats and under distinction puzzles me given the recent spate of large vehicle accidents on Xinjiang highways.
• 28 November 2007: Experts warn that lead poisoning leading to irreversible neurological and developmental damage is a high risk among children in Xinjiang. The article notably framed the effects of lead poisoning in terms of education, warning that children with high blood-lead levels will become inattentive and have eroded long-term memory and reasoning skills, leading to difficulties in the education system. An expert at the Xinjiang Chinese Medicine Institute identified highly-leaded living environments as the culprit, saying that children who like to bite things, such as pencils, toys, crayons, and household objects decorated with leaded paint, are likely to get lead poisoning due to the high lead content of these items. Interestingly, the recommended course of action contained nothing about parental or corporate responsibility, and instead recommended that children be fed lead-detox diets to counter what may be perceived as the inevitable influence of lead in Chinese households.
• 29 November 2007: The Regional Construction Department has teamed up with Disabled and Elderly Committee of the Civil Affairs Department to begin discussing the implementation of the National “100 Disability-Friendly Cities” notice, which in Xinjiang will include the cities of Urumqi, Shihezi, and Qaramay. Newly roads, apartments, tenements, and dormitories must comply with disability standards; at least 50% of public places such as theaters, schools, libraries, and museums are to be renovated to fulfill disability standards; and at least 30% of the commercial centers in these cities, like shopping malls, will also be required to meet disability standards. Construction for the disabled-friendly project will begin in 2008; a “midterm checkup” to check the project’s progress will be held on 2010.
• 29 November 2007: Three consecutive days of high levels of pollution in Urumqi, from the 26th to the 28th, have prompted the city’s Environmental Protection Department to issue a “blue” air pollution warning for the first time. The blue warning is issued after a “level-three” pollution index is maintained for three consecutive days, while the yellow warning is issued for three consecutive days of “level-four” pollution and the red warning is saved for two consecutive days of level-five pollution. The main cause of the high pollution currently plaguing Urumqi is the arrival of cold weather which has triggered an expected spike in heat-supplying measures which naturally brings about a corresponding rise in air pollution.
• 29 November 2007: The 47th meeting of the 10th Regional People’s Government standing committee began on the afternoon of the 28th. The four topics of discussion were “Regional Emergency Management Work Regulations,” the draft of “Regional Implementation of Botanical Epidemic Ordinances,” the draft proposal of “Regional Cotton Fire Safety and Management Methods,” and the draft of “Regional Atmospheric Damage Early-Warning Signal Distribution and Desemination Methods.”
• 29 November 2007: XUAR Chairman Ismail Tiliwaldi underscored the role the oil and natural gas industry plays in Xinjiang’s economic landscape while inspecting the Northwest Oil Fields branch of Sinopec. Tiliwaldi acknowledged the contribution oil and gas has given to the development of Xinjiang, dubbing them the “mainstay” and the “army” of Xinjiang’s continuing economic growth (perhaps the XPCC was slighted at such an analogy? Who knows.). Tiliwaldi also claimed that in order to broaden this socioeconomic contribution, the oil companies must quicken the pace of oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
• 29 November 2007: The Drug Prohibition Task Force of the Xinjiang PSB and the Guangzhou PSB busted a heroin-smuggling ring in Guangzhou on the 21st, arresting 5 individuals, including one Pakistani citizen, and confiscating 4380 pounds of heroin. This drug smuggling operation had trafficked and sold “Gold Crescent Moon” drugs in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan, Xinjiang, and other locations under the guise of a legitimate business. Xinjiang’s continuing development of international trade with neighboring countries played a pivotal role in providing the supply lines that maintained the drug trafficking ring.
• 30 November 2007: The Regional AIDS Prevention Committee Office announced that this year 1043 AIDS patients have received free medical treatment as a part of growing regional efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic in Xinjiang. Also as a part of this effort, 29 national-level and 38 regional-level “monitoring stations” have been constructed, offering free AIDS diagnostic tests. The free AIDS treatment program began two years ago and not only increased availability of screening and treatment but also trained 1500 doctors and 1800 nurses to supply manpower to the effort.
• 30 November 2007: In what can only be called “a crippling blow to the progress of science worldwide,” the Regional Education Office has decided to cancel next year’s science competitions at the elementary school level. The official reasoning was that between schoolwork responsibilities and the cram classes （补习班）that most elementary school students must shoulder, the science competition represents an undue source of stress for the already busy students. Most parents and teachers expressed approval of the decision, but manufacturers of 3-panel cardboard displays have yet to chime in with their view on the decision.
• 30 November 2007: Starting from next semester, all rural students attending compulsory education will receive free textbooks and will not be required to pay school-related incidentals. The “two-free” policy began and autumn 2003 and, according to statistics, has resulted in a notable, positive impact on middle and elementary school student retention rates in agricultural and pastoral regions across Xinjiang.
• 1 December 2007: On November 30 Urumqi Environmental Protection Bureau announced that the National Environmental Protection Bureau has been selected as a pilot city for the National Motor Vehicle Pollution Management project. Because of Urumqi’s unique geographical position and growing car ownership, vehicle emissions have become a large enough problem for intervention on the national level. Around 20 million yuan of capital, along with the support of the central government, will be used to construct a high-level emissions testing center in Urumqi that will tag vehicles with unacceptably high emissions with yellow license plates, carrying out the first step of the pilot program, which is to identify the vehicles that should fall under closer scrutiny and management.
• 1 December 2007: The fishing industries of the most landlocked region of the world is expected to produce 880 thousand tons of products by the end of the year, and increase of 6% since last year. Xinjiang has a thriving “famous brands” industry that consists of selling products for their uniqueness to the region; Korla’s famous pears, Turpan’s famous grapes, and Hami’s famous melons are but three examples. The article states that the growth of the fishing industry can be partially attributed to successful campaigns to market fishing products as a regional specialty (特色). Along side pears, grapes, and melons, we may also expect to see “Sayram Lake White Salmon,” “Bayingholin Perch,” “Yili Sturgeon,” and other fine “famous brands” in stores throughout China.
• 1 December 2007: The Flying Tigers continue their rise to the top, defeating the Zhejiang Lions (103-88) on the 25th, the Zhejiang Wind Stallions (85-71) on the 28th, and the Yunnan Bulls (121-11) on the 30th. The Flying Tigers have risen to second place in the league after the Guangdong Tigers, previously a first place contender, suffered two losses. Now the Flying Tigers are competing only with the Jiangsu Dragons for the top position, both teams having a record of 13 victories to 2 losses.

Other News

• 29 November 2007: An article published by China.org.cn celebrates apparently successful efforts by the Tarim Oilfield Company, the Institute of Ecology and Geology, and the XPCC to combat and even reverse desertification in Xinjiang by planting new forests. Allegedly, a “green belt” in the Taklamakan has been expanding since 1994 when the Tarim Oilfield Company started planting trees adapted to the desert climate, while on the other side of the Tianshan , the XPCC has expanded sacsaoul forest coverage in the Gurbantunggut Desert to 15 million mu, starting an ecological chain reaction that results in fewer sandstorms, more precipitation, and greater plant growth.
• 30 November 2007: The Los Angeles Times ran a bare-bones-basics guide to traveling through Xinjiang on a motorcycle. The guide essentially summarizes conditions in Xinjiang categorized by topics relevant to motorcyclists: road conditions, gasoline, laws, etc. If your interested is piqued, be sure to check out the more personalized and detailed account of Michael Manning’s trans-Taklamakan adventure here.

Blogs

• 26 November 2007 and 30 November 2007: Michael Manning discusses teaching English in Xinjiang in a 26 November post, then shares some Xinjiang-related clips of a National Geographic Silk Road Documentary in a 30 November post.