Here is my translation, doubtless below par, of a recent interview with Rabiyä Qadir (Rebiya Kadeer, رابىيە قادىر) published on 6 May 2009 in the Italian Communist daily Il Manifesto.  Commentary follows.

Independence is impossible, we will struggle for autonomy

Rebiya Kadeer has lived her sixty years as though on a rollercoaster. The leader-in-exile of the Uyghurs of Xinjiang (a region of northwestern China, with a Muslim majority) has experienced long years of poverty and a brief, enormous wealth as a result of her trade throughout China; the honor of a seat in the National People’s Congress and the suffering of five years in police detention. These and other chapters of Kadeer’s life – three times a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize – are recounted in her biography, The Gentle Warrior [Die Himmelsstürmerin], just published by Corbaccio. A member of the Transnational Radical Party, on Monday and Tuesday, the “Mother of the Uyghurs,” as she likes to call herself, was in Rome, where she yesterday took part in a meeting of the Committee for Human Rights of the Chamber of Deputies. Over the next few days, she will address the assembly of the World Uyghur Congress, where her reconfirmation as President appears decided. We have discussed with Kadeer the strategies of the movement and the situation in Xinjiang, where the Uyghurs (about 8 million) complain of an attempt to assimilate them on the part of Beijing.

In the most recent stage of your life, you lead the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). What mark have you left while at the top of the umbrella of this Uyghur diaspora organization?

At the end of 2006, my objective had been to unite all of the Uyghurs dispersed across the four corners of the world, creating various associations that would be recognized in the World Uyghur Congress. These groups are making the world aware of the problems of our people and are busy promoting our language, history, and culture among the new generation forced to live far from East Turkestan (the name by which the Uyghurs call Xinjiang –ed.). And in the last three years, for the first time, our petitions were brought to the attention of the Parliament of the European Union, United States, and Germany, where I had the opportunity to speak.

Have you managed to maintain contacts with Xinjiang, despite the strict security measures enacted by the authorities in Beijing?

Since we have been branded a “terrorist organization” by China, it has been particularly difficult. Nevertheless, we have our ways. This is despite the fact that anyone who tries to access an internet page that talks about me or our organization will be treated as a “terrorist.”

Do you not believe that China’s economic development – which has brought construction and infrastructure to Xinjiang – is also to the benefit of the Uyghurs?

The only advantage in the development of East Turkestan is Beijing’s. While our natural resources – natural gas, petroleum, uranium, and others – are transferred to the Interior, we Uyghurs are excluded from the labor market and, through the prohibition of instruction in the Uyghur language, our culture will be wiped out. The economic marginalization of the Uyghurs has been achieved through the bingtuan [Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps – trans.], an enormous organization for military production – distributed mainly along the border with Central Asia – is intended to provide homes and work for millions of Han immigrants.

In your book, you recount the spontaneous protests staged during the 80s and 90s by the Uyghur population against the presence of Han colonizers. What about today?

Now, the only expressions of dissent that are allowed are those abroad. Since the opening up of the 80s and 90s, we have returned to a situation similar to that of the Cultural Revolution.

How are their relations with the Han, the ethnic majority in China?

They can have excellent relations with the Han, of understanding and of mutual respect. But the situation changed with the immigration to East Turkestan. Here we have made life impossible: The very fact of discussing politics, the problems of our people, brings the Uyghurs to be labeled as “separatists,” “Islamic fundamentalists,” “terrorists.”

Before the Olympics in August 2008, Beijing had distributed news of attacks in Xinjiang. What information do you have about these events?

They were staged. What we must stress is that[?], before the Games, 15 000 Uyghurs were arrested and locked up under accusations of “terrorism.” Thanks to the platform offered by the more important sports events, the Beijing authorities had manufactured a belief around the world that there were thousands of terrorists in East Turkestan, thus legitimizing further oppressive constraints on our people.

Last February, the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while visiting Beijing, said: We will pressure for human rights, but, in these economic times, other things come first. Have you lost your chief ally?

Unfortunately, at this time, the economic crisis is at the top of the agenda for the great powers. But our pressure on the State Department has continued, and I trust that we can continue to receive the support that we need from Washington.

You protested because Islamabad has recently extradited to Beijing nine Uyghurs who trained in Pakistan to attack China. Doesn’t Beijing have the right to defend itself?

In recent years, Pakistan extradited 21 Uyghurs captured in Afghanistan to the United States. These people were then declared innocent by Washington: Some of them found asylum in Albania, and the others still await freedom.

Let us leave the alleged terrorists aside. Are you not afraid that, in the condition of isolation in which Xinjiang has been constrained, there may have prevailed among its people a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam?

Traditionally, the Uyghurs have had nothing to do with fundamentalism. Every day, however, in East Turkestan, some Uyghurs are arrested because they have been accused of being Islamic fundamentalists. For Beijing, a “terrorist” and an “integralist” [one who adheres to an extreme or traditionalist interpretation of Islam, rather pejorative; some prefer "active Islam" or "political Islam" – trans.] are the same thing. These are labels that are applied to hide their policies towards us: prohibition on the distribution of Uyghur literature, the forced transportation of Uyghur girls into the Chinese interior, birth control, limitations on Islamic practice, immigration of millions of Han and the lack of work for us, execution of political prisoners. Xinjiang is the only region of China where they still condone death sentence for political prisoners.

If China grants real autonomy, will you renounce the dream of an independent East Turkestan?

We demand freedom. Today, only a minority of our people hope for independence. We fight for a true autonomy, such as that demanded by the Dalai Lama for Tibet. And this autonomy can only be obtained within a more general process: that of the democratization of China, one that benefits the whole population, not only the Uyghurs. If they give us liberty, we would be prepared to live with the millions of Han settlers who have been sent to our homeland.

Some thoughts:

Rabiyä Qadir is a politician. Just as the Dalai Lama, Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao, Tarja Halonen, Abdullah Öcalan or anyone else in a position of leadership must satisfy the demands and play to the sentiments of a diverse community, so must she. Previously, it has been easier to dismiss her as a figurehead, an actor in political theater, prone to yelling and ranting and riling up her base of angry Uyghurs, pan-Turkists, sympathetic Westerners, etc. In this interview, Rabiyä Qadir comes across as a much savvier player. The talking points are broadly the same, but she makes some key concessions.

The most surprising is when she declares that the goal of her movement is not independence, but human rights and autonomy, not only for Uyghurs, but for all of China. This is not just an imitation of the policies of the Dalai Lama, who is an obvious point of comparison; that, I think, is a useful conceit for helping a European audience understand her movement and the situation in her homeland. Rather, this broader humanitarian goal has been a theme of Rabiyä Qadir’s for some time, albeit one not usually shared or emphasized by the broader Uyghur or East Turkestan movement. Early on, she framed herself not only as the “Mother of the Uyghurs,” taking a page from the early modern nationalist playbook digested fully by her cohorts abroad, but also as someone fighting for the rights of everyone in Xinjiang, even Han Chinese. The Uyghur independence movement, as I know it, is a fractious organization staffed by elites whose navel-gazing obsessions with self-definition prevent it from being taken seriously or achieving much internationally. If Rabiyä Qadir can successfully get them to become a much more broadly inclusive organization, then she may prove to be the leader the movement needs to gain real political traction. This pragmatic and less overtly hostile or racist stance gives the Uyghur rights/independence movement a much more mature face.

Rabiyä Qadir also dodges a sensitive question about the PRC’s right to defend itself. What would happen if she conceded that point? It would be of no help to Beijing, which has no interest in presenting her as an authority figure. It would certainly upset a certain section of her base, particularly actual supporters of Islamic fundamentalist and/or terrorist groups operating in or on behalf of East Turkestan. These are people who, I think, are not yet in the company of the broader, more ethno-nationalistic movement, but who could be drawn into it and away from violent action. This may account for her admonishment of the PRC for conflating terrorists and Islamic activists. I think, rather, that she did not want to say “No.” If Rabiyä Qadir claimed that the PRC has no right to defend itself, she would lose credibility as a mature leader and certainly provide fodder for PRC propagandists who, as she frequently reminds us, label her a “terrorist.”

Overall, I think we are seeing Rabiyä Qadir come into her own as a leader. At the very least, she is getting better advice on statesmanship. It is somewhat sad, I think, to see the Uyghur/East Turkestani movement give up on its central hope of a free and independent state, one that has always been imagined with lofty ideals in mind. This new vision, however, demonstrates that the movement is not entirely mired in the pre-1949 past, but that certain influential segments of it are willing to engage with present-day political realities.

When news of the act hit the press it triggered a frenzy of speculation as to who the protesters were and why they did it. The National People’s Congress is set to open next week and is often the target of protesters who come to Beijing to air their grievances. Prominently, the date of the protest was the Tibetan New Year, opening the possibility that the protesters were Tibetans expressing discontent with the situation in Tibet. The China Digital Times posted a summary of the various commentaries triggered by the event, along with some pictures, and clearly one can see that despite how sensational the protest itself was, actual information concerning the cause or the participants remained scarce.

The latest by Reuters says that the occupants of the vehicle were a family of Uyghurs, according to information disclosed by an unnamed source at the capital. The father and mother, aged 59 and 58 respectively, are being treated at a local hospital for burn injuries while the son, 28, is in police custody, uninjured. 

The same source claims that the protest was directed at lawmakers and was over a housing dispute. What remains to be disclosed, then, is whether or not there is something uniquely “Uyghur” about the nature of the protest. Was the issue being protested a personal or non-ethnic issue that could’ve happened anywhere else in China, and the Uyghur identity of the protesters was just a coincidental and non-related fact? Or was ethnicity bound up into it all, as if, for example, the “housing issue” being protested was regarding an old Uyghur neighborhood being torn down to make way for a housing development? This distinction is vital, considering factors such as the annual report on human rights issued by the State Department which right off the bat slams the Chinese government for its treatment of minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet.

It’s interesting to keep in mind that this information came from a leak and that government organs have yet to put in a word on the ethnicity or motivations of the protesters. So far, Xinhua and the like have been pretty sparse with the details. That governmental organizations have refused to release any information about the identity or intent of the protesters seems to strongly imply that there is something worth hiding in the eyes of the authorities. In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait for Xinhua to make the next move, or for another helpful “source” to step up and offer a little more info.

What is unusual, however, is a Uyghur being among the petitioners bearing complaints. Not that the Uyghurs have no complaints; rather, my guess is that many rural Uyghurs who have such complaints are intimidated by the long trip, deterred by the language barrier, and most importantly are far more alienated from the central government then say, Han farmers who still retain some sense that the authorities in Beijing are “for” them. I have no statistics regarding the number of Uyghurs among the complainants in the capital but at least when Hakim Siyit went to Beijing, the number was around one in seven hundred:

“There were eleven people from Xinjiang out of nearly 700 people in total. I was the only Uyghur there. I did not know what to do. I only speak a little Chinese. I was worried that they might take me somewhere and no one would know about it,” Siyit, a member of the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, said.

It hardly need be said that two officials from the Kashgar Public Affairs Office came and coerced Siyit into returning home before he could accomplish anything – and this happened, of course, after Siyit was apprehended and interrogated by Beijing authorities who inevitably complained they couldn’t understand his Mandarin. Despite these little idiosyncrasies caused by Siyit’s Uyghur-ness, however, this petitioner’s saga to Beijing regrettably ends in a pretty textbook manner.

What is significant, however, is that as a part of his petitioning journey, Siyit created media content, specifically a documentary-style video and a recorded poem, as a more poignant way to make his point. And so, despite the failure of his petition when using official channels, Siyit’s fairly unprecedented decision to film Uyghurs about a pressing social problem created a powerful alternative to the petitioning process, allowing Uyghurs to speak directly to any willing audiences about the problems they were facing. And so rather than going into detail at this blog about what grievance Siyit was putting forward, I must, in deference to Siyit’s courage and insightfulness in making this documentary, point you straight to the video and allow Siyit and his farmer compatriots speak to you directly. Here’s the video I’ve embedded from its source at Radio Free Asia. Based on a picture of Siyit included in the RFA article I’m pretty certain Siyit himself is the guy that starts talking at 2:09.

The story told here can be rounded out by reading the RFA article itself, where Siyit goes into more detail about the local party’s extremely unintelligent decisions regarding which crops the Uyghur farmers in the region were to plant. And I must encourage Uyghur language learners to listen to the poem Siyit has recordered regarding the situation, “Just a Plain Farmer.” RFA has already translated it into English which can be read alongside the recording here.

I have to admit, I’m pretty stoked about what Siyit has done.

Learning about “what’s happening” in Xinjiang is, a majority of the time, an exercise inweeding out overt and covert biases in secondhand reports from a variety of sources, usually media organizations, from Xinhua to the New York Times to, yes, Radio Free Asia (and snarky blogs too, heh heh). Readers who bother to trudge through my posts are I’m sure, by this point, tired of me consistently putting forward the theme of studies of modern Xinjiang as a “meta”-scholarship which discusses discussions rather than facts, that we are dealing with filtered, censored, and re-filtered information that indeed has its own inherent value but nonetheless clouds the “facts on the ground” which remain vital in piecing together a coherent and actionable image of the state of affairs in Xinjiang.

What excites me about Siyit’s work is that I perceive it as an extraordinarily rare ray of sunlight that pierces through the thick fog and connects the information consumers–including us, of course–almost directly to the scene of the action. Incompetent local officials are forcing Uyghur farmers to plant long beans, against the logic of the farmers themselves, and as a consequence are grounding them into poverty. Siyit’s telling me, and so are his buddies. There they are, standing right there in the fields of totally worthless long beans in question and telling it to me, almost straight from their mouth to my ear. No, they didn’t tell Edward Wong of the New York Times who took his interview notes, sculpted it to fit the editors’ and readers’ standards and expectations, and then produce an article. No, they didn’t tell it to the local Xinhua reporters who then posted an article about how Uyghur farmers are prospering like never before under the wisdom of the local party leadership. They told it to us.

Now I know there are a dozen of potential objections to this interpretation I’m putting forward. I know, for example, that Siyit himself is a mediator of the information, he’s the one holding the camcorder and asking the questions. I know, for example, that Siyit and his fellow villagers have a specific agenda to accomplish by making this video, just like the New York Times and the Xinhua New Network have their agendas. I know, also, that I got this video through Radio Free Asia which is media organization whose content, I freely admit, I also try to hold to close scrutiny in light of its agenda and its sources of funding.

Nonetheless, I feel the value, significance, and uniqueness of what Siyit has done can be acknowledged if we admit that Siyit’s video is far closer to the topic of scrutiny than an RFA broadcast or a Xinhua Article or a New York Times piece. Would I, for example, completely trust Siyit to give me totally accurate data about long bean crop yields and market prices? Perhaps not, because he has an agenda to fix his situation just like Xinhua has to defend the status quo and NYT has to sell papers. However, if you’re like me and this “topic of scrutiny” is not the price of long beans in Yengisar but, rather, how Uyghurs live in Xinjiang, then the buck stops with Siyit. He’s a Uyghur. In Xinjiang. Which can’t be said of a Han Xinhua reporter, an NYT writer based in China, or even a Uyghur correspondent working for RFA in DC.

Anyways, Siyit, I salute you. You took advantage of a unique combination of factors – your camcorder, your fellow villagers, a sympathetic audience, and the Internet – and you did what few Uyghurs are able to do: reach out past the figurative fog that lounges over Xinjiang and told people directly – from the Uyghur teenager in Urumqi with a proxy server to the Dutch human rights activist who reads RFA – whats’ going on in your neck of the woods. I can only hope that by posting your video on TND we can spread your message a little further – if only to another two or three people – and that you and your friends won’t bear the wrath of the local authorities for getting your word out. Hopefully many other Uyghurs down the road will follow suit.

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.

From the Xinhua article, it seems that Kucha is under lockdown, with businesses shut and security checks everywhere. This sounds a great deal similar to what was said to have happened in Qitai, north of Urumchi, on 25 June: according to rumor, ten soldiers had been killed in a raid on a munitions depot at the headquarters of the 102 Regiment of the People’s Liberation Army, 6 km from Qitai proper. Following this incident, the city’s businesses and institutions were closed or open on a limited basis for several days after, while armed police patrolled the streets at regular intervals, frequently performing identification checks. Although the veracity of this rumor cannot be verified, the circumstances and reaction seem very similar.

The IHT’s report also quotes IntelCenter, which conducted some analysis of the first video released by the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), as saying that that organization is, in fact, the same as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), the terrorist group blamed by the PRC for most dissident activity in Xinjiang, the existence of which has not been independently verified. The evidence from IntelCenter as put forth in the article, based primarily on the organizations’ names, seems sketchy. We had a look at the relationship between Xinjiang separatism and radical Islam in Xinjiang at the TIP back in April, when a video of an execution of Chinese workers in Peshawar, Pakistan, distributed in the name of the TIP, was released.

Recently, the following post, once found at this address, was passed on to me by a friend. It seems to have circulated on the Web since perhaps early November. It is a lengthy and impassioned plea for, at the very least, some respect and hope for the people of Xinjiang of all stripes, who, the author argues, have endured countless hardships for the benefit of their fellow citizens in the East. The author expresses despair at the dashed hopes of the Opening Up of the West and anger at the cancer left by atomic bomb tests in Lop Nor.

The whole document has a feeling of the old Yip Harburg song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” “Once I built a railroad…”

My English translation is a little hurried. Comments are welcome.

Also, does anyone else think that the author must be from Korla?

今天的十大头条： 新疆人，对不起，谢谢你

Today’s Top Ten Leading Stories: Xinjiang People, I’m Sorry, Thank You

对不起，谢谢你
新疆的石油运走了，
新疆的天然气运走了，
新疆的棉花运走了，
新疆的钾盐运走了，
新疆的黄金运走了，
新疆的和田玉运走了
……

I’m sorry, thank you

Xinjiang’s oil was transported away,

Xinjiang’s natural gas was transported away,

Xinjiang’s cotton was transported away,

Xinjiang’s leopoldite was transported away,

Xinjiang’s gold was transported away,

Xinjiang’s Khotan jade was transported away

…

原子弹却降临在新疆了
……

The atomic bomb was indeed tested in Xinjiang

…

新疆，一百六十万平方公里的土地，一千九百万各族人民.我们世世代代生活在那片土地
上.我们骄傲，我们自豪.没有理由，就因为那片土地叫新疆.

Xinjiang, an area of 1 600 000 square kilometers, 19 000 000 people of every ethnic group. We have lived on that patch of earth for generations. We are proud, we feel proud. There is no reason, just that that patch of earth is called Xinjiang.

这片占祖国六分之一版图的土地，承载着什么，又蕴藏着什么.这里有四十七个民族的儿
女，或耕耘，或牧羊，或买卖，或采矿.千年的腥风血雨，早已被坎儿井的清清流水洗得
干干净净；千年的历史沧桑，早已被天山上的雪莲花薰陶得浓郁幽香.新疆人，无论什么
民族什么宗教信仰，都渴望自己的家乡能够拥有平等的发展机会与空间.

This patch of earth that occupies one-sixth of the area of our ancestral country, what does it contain, and what does it hide. Here there are the sons and daughters of forty-seven minzu, working the fields, or shepherding sheep, or buying and selling, or mining. One thousand years of bloody history have long since been washed clean by the clear flowing waters of the karez; one thousand years of great historical changed have long since been purged by the snow lotuses and Coumarouna odorata of the Tianshan until they are sweetly fragrant. Xinjiang people, no matter what their minzu or religious beliefs, all hope that their home can have the opportunity and time to develop fairly.

西部大开发，一个曾经让我们振奋不已的口号.一时间，就连塔克拉玛干边缘的万年荒山
上，也用白色的石头拼出了大字：西部大开发，新疆是重点，巴州要大干！

The Great Opening Up of the West, a slogan that once endlessly inspired us. At one time, even upon the mountains around the edge of the Täklimakan, uncultivated for untold ages, we used white stones to spell out big characters: The Great Opening Up of the West, Xinjiang is the focus, Bazhou will make a big effort!

曾经告诉过我们，创世未有的发展机遇降临在了我们的头上；曾经告诉过我们，克服与忍
受暂时的损失与困难，因为长远的幸福是属于我们的；曾经告诉过我们，资源埋在地下永
远变不了金钱；曾经告诉过我们，大型基础设施建设会带动新疆人的就业；曾经告诉过我
们，长长的管子把石油天然气送到了内地，长长的管子还会将大把大把的税收送到新疆人
的手中……

Once they told us, an opportunity for development the likes of which the world had never seen had fallen on our heads; once they told us, endure and withstand temporary loss and hardship, because long-term fortune belonged to us; once they told us, resources buried underground would never become money; once they told us, the construction of large-scale basic-level facilities would spur the employment of Xinjiang people; once they told us, long pipes would take oil and natural gas to the Interior, long pipes might still bring piles of tax revenues to Xinjiang people’s hands…

曾经……

Once…

新疆是一个什么样的地方？涓涓细流会将天山与昆仑山的雪水送到牧区农场，一眼望不到
边的大草原，遍布着牛羊……新疆，就是这样一个地方，绿洲农业，咱不靠天吃饭，旱涝
保收；高山草甸牧业，咱不愁一个月不下雨草场就会旱死.新疆没有发生过饥荒，三年自
然灾害时期，内地人就是扒在火车车厢底下也要来新疆，就算是在星星峡被当作盲流拦住
遣返回原籍，也要在半道上跳下火车徒步进新疆.新疆，就是这样，那里有土地，那里有
雪水，那里，有希望.

What kind of place is Xinjiang? Brooks and streams may carry the meltwaters of the Tianshan and Kunlun Mountains to pastures and fields, a grassland the edge of which the naked eye cannot see, covered in cows and sheep… Xinjiang, it’s just this kind of place. Oasis agriculture, we don’t depend on Heaven to eat, the harvest is protected through draught and flood. Animal husbandry in the mountain grasslands, we don’t worry if the ranges dry out after a month without rain. Xinjiang has never had a famine, a three-year period of natural disasters. People from the Interior even want to cling to the bottoms of train cars to come to Xinjiang. Even treated in the Starry Gorge [a gorge in the Hexi Corridor] as aimless migrants, barred, and made to return to their place of origin, they want to jump out of the train on the way and walk into Xinjiang. Xinjiang, it’s like this. There is land there, there is meltwater, there is hope.

我们觉得自己生活得很幸福.

We felt that we lived happily.

可是，突然有一天，人家告诉我们，人家来帮咱们了，咱们的生活会更好更好了！这个时
候，我们心存感激，我们同样被从那种平静的生活中唤起而后振奋，因为我们被告知
，会有更大的希望！

But, suddenly one day, someone told us, there’s someone coming to help us, our life is going to be better, better! At this time, we felt appreciative. We, too, were stirred up and excited out of that peaceful and tranquil kind of life of ours, because we were signaled, we may have even more hope!

……

…

一晃八年了.

All of a sudden, eight years passed.

当初为我们憧憬过美好蓝图的人啊，你们在哪儿呢？

Those of you who looked forward to a beautiful blueprint for us, where are you?

请来看看我们的新疆.

Please come and look at our Xinjiang.

西部大开发，究竟是什么？

The Great Opening Up of the West, what is it really?

资源，包括那些具有战略意义的能源，被那条长长的管子送到了沿海地区.这，我们不计
较.可是我们又得到了什么？就业机会吗？看看那些从事新疆能源开发的企业，不都是内
地的大型企业吗？咱们新疆人的孩子，又何曾享受过这样的就业机会.西安石油学院毕业
的新疆孩子，想要进新疆的石油单位工作那是难上加难.因为这些待遇优厚的工作岗位，
全部都被这些内地企业自身的员工所占据.你可以随便去一家石油石化单位听听，遍地北
京口音、东北口音、山东口音，就是没有新疆口音.那咱们新疆的孩子能在石油单位找到
工作吗？不是不可以，而且还基本专业对口：加油站给汽车加油.带动相关产业的发展吗
？要知道，西气东输的管道，是在宝鸡生产的.高水准的生活吗？你知道在上海一方天然
气是多少钱吗？一块二；你知道在新疆一方天然气是多少钱吗？一块二毛五.而你知道新
疆人的工资水准是多少吗？一个教龄三十年的中教高级教师，月薪不过两千五，这还是
06年加薪后的工资；一个五十岁的正厅级干部，月薪加补贴不过三千块.那么普通老百姓
呢？工人、农民、一般公务员呢？我们在消化着巨大的剪刀差，我们在默默无闻得为东部
的大发展埋单.

Resources, including those power sources which hold a military significance, have been taken away by those long, long tubes to the coastal regions. This, we don’t bicker about. But what have we then received? Employment opportunities? Look at those enterprises that handle the exploitation of Xinjiang’s resources, aren’t they all big companies from the Interior? The children of we Xinjiang people, how then have they enjoyed these kinds of employment opportunities[?] Xinjiang kids who graduate from Xi’an Oil Institute, if they want to enter a Xinjiang oil work unit, that’s harder than hard. Because these generously-paying work positions, all of them have been taken by those big companies from the Interior’s own employees. You can go to any oil work unit and have a listen, it’s all Beijing accents, North-Eastern accents, Shandong accents, but there are no Xinjiang accents. So can kids from our Xinjiang find work in an oil work unit? It’s not that they may not, and what’s more they are proficient in the most basic profession: putting gas in cars at gas stations. Does this spur the growth of related industries? You have to know, the pipe that take Western gas to the East, this was built in Baoji [a city in Shaanxi with an amusing name]. And a high standard of living? Do you know how much a cubic meter of natural gas costs in Shanghai? 1.2 RMB. Do you know how much a cubic meter of natural gas costs in Xinjiang? 1.25 RMB. And do you know how much the standard salary of a Xinjiang person is? A high-level middle-school teacher with thirty years’ experience, his or her monthly salary is not above 2500, and this is after the pay raise in ’06. A fifty-year-old main-office-level [正厅级?] cadre, his or her monthly salary is not above 3000 RMB. So what about regular everyday people? Workers, peasants, normal service personnel? We are digesting an enormous disparity. Unknown to the public, we are paying the bill for the great development of the East.

乌鲁木齐与库尔勒，一北一南，南北疆的领头城市.让我们来听听这两个城市老百姓的故
事.

Ürümchi and Korla, one in the South, one in the North, the leading cities of North and South Xinjiang. Let us listen to the stories of the everyday people of these two cities.

乌鲁木齐，一个人口二百万的大城市，却拥有着一个长期困扰老百姓生活的难题：打车难
.上下班的高峰期，老百姓往往站在零下二十多度的严寒里，半个小时打不上一辆车.你要
问出租车都到哪儿去了？问一百位司机九十九个都会告诉你：加气站排队加气呢！乌鲁木
齐的出租车烧液化气，新疆是产油的地方，怎么会缺液化气呢？独山子石化的同志们会耐
心的告诉你：新疆同胞们，咱们忍忍吧，新疆的石油和天然气得保证西气东输和内地大城
市用油的需要……当北京的出租车换上了大排量的伊兰特时，当上海居民的厨房里冒出了
纯蓝的灶火时，请想想，生产石油与天然气的新疆人民，还在寒风里站着；新疆的司机，
还排在一眼望不到头的长队里焦急的等待，而这些司机，也得吃饭也得买房也得供孩子上
学，他们本来可以拉活的时间，白白的耗在了等待上……

Ürümchi, a city with a population of 2 000 000 [actually around 3 500 000, now], indeed has a difficult long-term problem for the lives of everyday people: it’s hard to get a cab. At rush hour when people get on and off work, everyday people often stand in the more-than-negative-twenty-degrees bitter cold. Even after half an hour, they cannot get a cab. Want to ask where the cabs have gone? Ask one hundred drivers and ninety-nine will tell you: they’re in line at the gas station to get gas! The cabs of Ürümchi have been converted to run on natural gas, but Xinjiang is a place that produces oil, so why convert them to run on natural gas? The comrades at Dushanzi Petroleum will patiently tell you: Xinjiang siblings, let’s sit tight, eh? Xinjiang’s oil and natural gas have to guarantee the transportation of Western gas to the East and the oil-use needs of the big cities in the Interior… When the taxis of Beijing are traded for great lines of Elantras, when in the kitchens of Shanghai a pure blue stove-flame is lit, please think, the people of Xinjiang who manufacture oil and natural gas are still standing in the bitter wind. Xinjiang’s drivers are still waiting impatiently in a line, the end of which cannot be seen, and these drivers, they also have to eat and give their children schooling. When they could be making a living, they are wasting their time pointlessly waiting…

库尔勒，一个新兴的石油城市，南疆经济的桥头堡，塔里木油田指挥部所在地.石油人来
了，我们端着哈达欢迎您！指挥部建设需要用地，可以！您知道现在塔里木油田指挥部的
所在地过去是什么吗？是上千亩的良田，是库尔勒的各族人民世世代代耕作的良田.祖国
需要，石油人需要，我们无怨无悔，献出了这片沃土.可是，时至今日，塔指的一栋栋高
楼大厦建起来了，五星级公寓建起来了，塔里木油田的一口口油井喷油了，塔里木大气田
的天然气送到东方了，有谁想过那些失去土地的农民现在在干什么？那么请到库尔勒的街
头看看吧.扫大街的环卫工人，清一色的少数民族职工，问问他们原来是干什么的？他们
会遥望一片繁华的塔里木油田指挥部，告诉你，那里曾是我的家.这还是解决了就业的，
那些数以千计的失去土地的农民呢？他们没有技术没有知识，库尔勒的环卫战线也不可能
安排那么多的人.请到库尔勒河的葵花桥头看看吧.每天早晨，都有黑压压一片的壮劳
力，集中在这里，被需要临时工的老板们挑来挑去，幸运的，被挑中，干一天临时工，挣
些前，第二天早晨继续到这里来撞运气；不幸的，过了中午还没有被挑走，就只好回家饿
肚子，祈祷真主明天能赐给他一个临时工的机会……

Korla, an up-and-coming oil city, the bridgehead of the Southern Xinjiang economy, the place of the headquarters of Tarim Oilfields. The oil men came, we welcomed you with qadaqs! [a blue scarf given by Mongols to guests] The Headquarters needed land to be constructed, sure! Do you know what the current location of the Headquarters used to be? It was thousands of mu of good farmland, the good farmland worked by generations of the people of Korla of all kinds. The ancestral countries needs, the oil men need. We didn’t complain or regret. We gave up this patch of fertile land. But, up until the present day, the big buildings and towers of the Tarim Oilfields Headquarters were built, five-star apartments were built, the oil wells of the Tarim oilfields spurted oil, and the natural gas of the Tarim natural gas fields was sent to the East. Has anyone thought of what those people who lost their land are doing now? Then please go to the streets of Korla and have a look. The sanitation workers who sweep the streets, all of them minority workers, ask them, what did they used to do? They may look at the glorious Tarim Oilfields Headquarters in the distance and tell you, that was once my home. Is this solving the employment problem, those thousands of workers who lost their land? They have neither craft nor knowledge, nor can Korla’s Sanitation Front arrange so many people. Please go to the head of the Kuihua Bridge over the Korla River and have a look. Every day in the early morning, there are endless and dense mobs of strong laborers. They concentrate there, picked out by bosses in need of temporary labor. The lucky ones, picked out, do a day of temporary work, earn some money, and, on the next day, return here to try their luck. The unlucky ones, who have not been picked out by after noon, have to go home hungry and pray that, tomorrow, they will be granted a temporary work opportunity.

这还只是能源.其他资源呢？黄金呢？钾盐呢？玉石呢？

This is all still just energy. What about other resources? Gold? Leopoldite? Jade?

大规模的开发，富起来的到底是谁？

Large-scale exploitation, who’s really getting rich?

西部大开发，过了八年了，我们为什么只看到一个个资源项目上马，却很少看到科教文化
卫生人才方面的扶持与投资？要开发一个地区，资源是一条路；可是资源开采完了呢？我
们还能拥有什么？没有科教与人才的积累，到底还有多大的发展空间？

The Great Opening Up of the West, it’s been eight years. Why have we only seen a few resource projects get going, but not seen any assistance or investment in terms of popular science, culture, sanitation, or training? In order to open up a region, resources are one road, but what about when the resources are all exploited up? What can we have? Without an accumulation of popular science and talented people, how much room is there then for development?

你可曾知道，堂堂新疆大学历史系的学生们在校图书馆里竟然找不到《万历十五年》这样
非常普遍的书籍？你可曾知道，堂堂华夏第一州–巴音郭楞蒙古自治州，竟然没有一所
正规的图书馆、博物馆？大城市如此，小城市与农村又是怎样？西部大开发，为什么我们
很少见到这样的项目与投资？

Are you aware that the students of the great Xinjiang University’s History Department cannot find extremely common books like Wanli Shiwu Nian in their library? Are you aware that the great First Prefecture in China, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, still has not a single regular library or museum? Big cities are like this, so what can small cities and villages be like? The Great Opening Up of the West, why do we so rarely see projects and investment like this?

新疆人，老实巴交的新疆人，被内地人动不动就称作野蛮人的新疆人……就这样默默无闻
的承受着一切……换个角度思考，如果北京的出租车司机成天排队加不上油，会是怎么样
？如果山东的农民成批成批的失去土地，就像库尔勒的农民那样，还会不会如此沉默的承
受一切？

Xinjiang people, honest Xinjiang people, Xinjiang people who cannot move for the Interior people are who are called barbarous… Unbeknownst, they have borne all of this… Thinking about it from another perspective, if Beijing’s taxi drivers were in line all day and could not get gas, what would it be like? If the peasants of Shandong lost their land bit by bit, just like the peasants of Korla, would they still quietly bear all of this?

前两天，把原子弹空投到日本领土的美军飞行员去世了.又一次引发出关于核武器的大规
模讨论.在一次次的讨论中，你们可曾想过，在遥远的罗布泊，曾经露天爆炸过原子弹？
在美丽的孔雀河－塔里木河流域，曾经无数次的进行过地下核试验？当看到新疆刮起沙尘
暴的新闻后，你们第一个想到的肯定是：新疆那个荒凉的地方……有谁想过，从罗布泊刮
来的沙尘暴，会给世世代代居住在那里的老百姓吹来什么？

Two days ago, the American pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb on Japanese soil passed away. [The pilot, Paul Tibbets, died on 1 November 2007, dating this document to perhaps 3 November.] This once again attracted a large-scale discussion of atomic weapons. In the course of one such discussion, did you perhaps think how, in distant Lop Nor, an atomic bomb was once tested in the open? How, in the beautiful Kongque River – Tarim River Basin, there were once conducted countless underground nuclear tests? After seeing the news of the sand storms in Xinjiang, what you first thought was certainly: Xinjiang, that desolate place… Who thought, the sands that storm from Lop Nor, what will they blow to generations of people who live in that place?

一个个身边的亲友倒下了……问问原因，不是肺癌就是食道癌.新疆是著名的长寿之乡，
祖祖辈辈生活在辽阔农村的百姓，呼吸着新鲜空气，吃着五谷杂粮，周围没有任何现代工
业的痕迹，怎么会一个又一个的患上癌症呢？你们可曾知道，就在罗布泊地区的巴音郭楞
蒙古自治州，进入八九十年代以来，已经成为癌症重灾区.胡总去探望艾滋病人了，温总
去河南艾滋病村了，这是时代的进步，这是party和go-vern-ment的关怀.可是，一个因为
长期受到核辐射而成为癌症重灾区的地区，却为何从来没有被报道过，从来没有人正面回
答这个问题？

Some close friend or relative has fallen… You ask the reason, and, if it’s not lung cancer, it’s esophageal cancer. Xinjiang is a place of famed longevity, and the generations of everyday people that live in the expansive villages, breathing fresh air, eating fresh grain, with no traces of modern industry around them, how does one after another get cancer? As you may know, in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in the area of Lop Nor, since the beginning of the eighties or nineties, it has already become a cancer disaster area. President Hu always goes to visit AIDS patients, Premier Wen goes to AIDS Village in Henan. This is a generational improvement, this is the party and go-vern-ment showing they care. But, a place that has long received nuclear radiation and become a cancer disaster area, but why has it never been reported, why can no one ever answer this question directly?

一次核试验，中国人民从此站起来了，不用受纸老虎的威胁了；可是千千万万个无辜又无
知的新疆人却倒下了，可悲的是，就连他们自己，也并不知道这究竟是为了什么，更何况
他人？

One atomic test. The people of China from this point on stood up. They no longer had to accept the menace of the paper tiger. But countless poor and ignorant Xinjiang people fell. What is lamentable is that, even they themselves did not know why this was, much less anyone else?

新疆的石油运走了，
新疆的天然气运走了，
新疆的棉花运走了，
新疆的钾盐运走了，
新疆的黄金运走了，
新疆的和田玉运走了
……

Xinjiang’s oil was transported away,

Xinjiang’s natural gas was transported away,

Xinjiang’s cotton was transported away,

Xinjiang’s leopoldite was transported away,

Xinjiang’s gold was transported away,

Xinjiang’s Khotan jade was transported away

…

原子弹却降临在新疆了
……

The atomic bomb was indeed dropped in Xinjiang

…

新疆，是祖国版图不可分割的一部分；新疆人，是十三亿中国人的一部分.我们渴望祖国
的富强，我们祝福兄弟省市人民的富足，但，我们也是人，我们也有不高的要求：新疆与
新疆人，能够得到公正与公平的发展机遇，能够从这片土地所赐予我们的宝藏中得到实惠
的利益，能够有一个更为美好的明天，和祖国人民一样，在资源枯竭之后，仍然留有希望
.

Xinjiang, it is an inseparable part of the map of the ancestral country; Xinjiang people, they are part of the 1.3 billion Chinese people. We hope for the fortune and strength of the ancestral country. We congratulate the people of our brother provinces and cities on their wealth. However, we are also people. We also have requirements that are not high: Xinjiang and Xinjiang people, if they are able to receive an equitable and fair opportunity for development, if they can receive some practical benefit from the treasures of ours that are taken from this patch of land, if they can have a better tomorrow, as the people of the ancestral country, and after the resources are exhausted, yet leave behind a little hope.

朋友们，无论你在祖国的何处，当你享受这阳光下的和平的时候，请你想想那些为祖国的
和平而无知的承受着原子辐射的新疆人，对他们说一声：对不起……

Friends, no matter where you are in the ancestral country, when you share in this peace in the sunlight, please think of those Xinjiang people who, unbeknownst, for the peace of the ancestral country received radiation from the atomic bomb, and say to them, I’m sorry…

朋友们，无论你在祖国的何处，当你享受充足的能源供应与高速经济发展带来的实惠的时
候，请想想那些为另一部分人先富起来而默默承受着所有阵痛的新疆人，收起曾经对新疆
人的种种歧视与不屑，收起那些”援助新疆，支援边疆”得了便宜还卖乖的”豪言壮语”，对
他们说一句：谢谢你！

Friends, no matter where you are in the ancestral country, when you share in the practical benefit that comes from the sufficient provision of resources and the high speed of economic development, please think of those Xinjiang people who, unbeknownst, endure pains for another group of people to become wealthy first. To those who have received all kinds of discrimination and disdain against Xinjiang, who have been cheated and bamboozled by the “grandiloquence” of phrases like “assist Xinjiang, support Xinjiang”, say to them, thank you!

我们的要求并不高，一千九百万新疆人民，在无力改变现状与全局时，在仍然需要长时间
为东部的发展做出牺牲时，只需要得到别人真诚的尊重，只想听到一句诚心的：

Our requirements are not very high. 19 000 000 people, at a time when they are powerless to change the present and overall situation, at a time when they still need to sacrifice for a long time for the development of the East, only need to receive others’ sincere respect. They only need to hear one sincere:

新疆人，对不起，谢谢你.

Xinjiang people, I’m sorry, thank you.

(All GoogleDitu maps now automatically focus at the all-China level. Please scroll west.)

According to sparse reports from the international press, a police station was assaulted last week in Sangong Hui Village by a group of Uyghurs. The Uyghurs are said to have used rocks and gasoline bombs in their attack. Several dozen people may have been arrested in connection with the attack. The attackers may have been protesting crackdowns on civil liberties in the run-up to the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing in August. No more details are known at this time. Although the incident has not been reported upon in the Chinese press, the Epoch Times, which I cannot for the life of me access from China, appears to have picked up the story. Michael Manning’s The Opposite End of China has some commentary.

Sangong Hui Village (三公回族乡) is a small village, encompassing nearby Upper and Lower Sangong Villages in Huocheng (霍城) County, 53 kilometers from Ghulja (Yining) and near the border with Kazakhstan. It is situated between the 218 and 312 highways, the latter of which leads west to Qorghos and Kazakhstan.

Thus far, the only source of this information has been Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress. If the story receives further press, we will comment on it here.

The idea that Uyghurs lashed out in protest over an increasingly harsh pre-Olympic crackdown makes some sense. Indeed, the restrictions imposed on life in Xinjiang, especially since the Khotan (Xotän) protests in March, have been sudden and without a satisfactory explanation: curfews of 11/9:00 PM have been imposed in many towns, especially in the South. It is now illegal to remove a knife from Khotan (and only Khotan) by post, bus, or plane, a law in effect since March but only under active enforcement in the last few weeks. Identification checkpoints and roadblocks are ubiquitous. For the last three weeks, the passports of non-Han citizens in Xinjiang (with, of course, certain exceptions for well-placed individuals) have been collected by government officials, to be returned after the Olympics are over. Supposedly, these are being held so that their possessors “will not lose them”. In some areas of Urumchi, including very “safe” neighborhoods, I have myself witnessed groups of “community volunteer police” (社区义务治安联防): ten to thirteen middle-aged, mostly Han, men walking in a bored single file, waving nightsticks. Besides their volunteer arm bands, they wear a uniform of a red Olympic hat and a t-shirt emblazoned with the Beijing Olympics logo on the front and the words “Welcome the Olympics, protect safety” (迎奥运，保平安) on the back. Given that Xinjiang hasn’t seen an ethnic riot on the scale of those seen in most of the rest of the world for many years – except, perhaps, for the skirmish between Han and Uyghur police academy students some time back – the sudden switch to a bunker mentality has left many law-abiding private citizens more than a little upset, and the explanation “It’s because of the Olympics” does not seem satisfactory. The implication, it seems, is that this is just what you do when there’s a hint of political jitters on the air: make things feel a little tenser in Xinjiang.

If I may editorialize further, it seems to me that, first of all, there is no large and active threat to public security and safety in Xinjiang. Ethnic and religious tensions are rampant and tangible in the everyday, but they are not, for the majority of people, violent, organized hatreds equipped with hair triggers. To lump, to take a hypothetical example, a law-abiding, China-loving ethnic Kazakh businessperson planning a business trip to Almaty in with a suspected sympathizer of the Islamic Party of Turkestan and revoke both their passports (how did the latter individual get a passport to begin with?) is to undo some of the work that economic development in Xinjiang has done to create a class of wealthy non-Han loyal to China. In the case of my Kazakh example, the better life to be had on the Chinese side of the border is what keeps such a person from asking for – and certainly receiving – a Kazakhstani passport. The sullen men with their big, black sticks just put the people around them on edge. The net result of all of this is an increasingly cynical attitude, as I see it, towards the Olympics out in Xinjiang, largely among non-Han who previously either did not care about the event or who held some hope that its light might shine out West. Suddenly, “One World, One Dream” sounds less inspiring when accompanied by jeeploads of angry young men in forest camouflage, a peculiar and jarring sight in the quieter corners of a grey city. It seems that China is having a dinner party, and non-Han are to be made to sit in their rooms upstairs and listen, the unwanted and twisted children. It is unwise to nurture resentment. Does the Chinese government want to make its own people angry?

There are a lot of interesting tidbits in Beijing’s latest weapon in its information war with the specter of Uyghur terrorism, which lead me to believe that Beijing’s information warriors are trying to hone the way they speak about the East Turkestani terrorist threat, so as to produce a narrative that is simultaneously more convincing and more threatening. Thoughts under the break.

As newsmakers in Beijing engage in a constantly escalating duel of words and facts with cynics outside of China (mostly at this point with Tibet activists), they are faced with the task of balancing persuasiveness with the need to portray a threat that grows more dangerous and more lethal by the day. Frankly speaking, a few weeks ago the Tibetans accomplished the latter requirement quite well on their own, but things in Xinjiang have remained relatively quiet sort of creating a need in Beijing to “compensate” by divulging information, real or otherwise, on terror plots that would’ve happened were it not for the impeccable abilities of the Public Security Bureaus throughout Xinjiang. The latest news conference on Xinjiang terrorism also upped the ante in terms of what Uyghur plotters are capable of: now Olympian athletes are facing suicide bombers (sound familiar?), poisoned meat (sound familiar?), and kidnapping (sound familiar?).

What I’m seeing here are “threat details” flowing in between different news threads sort of like the way ink spreads slowly but inevitably when dropped in a test tube of water. Fanatics willing to commit suicide – that’s lethal and dangerous, and we see the possibility coming from both the Tibetans and the Uyghurs now. The Reuters article adds that the captives were ordered to commit suicide in the case they were captured. Food concerns – peoples of China are paranoid about the quality and the edibility of their food, and rightly so, but we’ve also seen those fears merge with not-to-subtle racism against Uyghurs in the “AIDS via kebabs” hoax that was publicly put down by the Xinjiang Health Department a few weeks ago. The fears still linger though, and its likely that Uyghurs poisoning meat for the Olympics will resonate with the residue left over by the AIDS rumors. Olympic hostages are also a lingering wound on the Olympic spirit that will get some people, particularly Germans, pretty worried.

To be fair, let me put a sentence out there to give both sides a look: either the propagandists in Beijing are putting their feelers out, sensing what the people are concerned about, and conveniently crafting a terrorist movement that fits right into that mold, or East Turkestan plotters of the Uyghur persuasion are doing the same thing and trying to hit the nerves of the Chinese populace that are most exposed. Or maybe both.

One interesting deviation from the usual news conference course of events is the lack of a spectacular, one day People’s Armed Police extravaganza where grenades are exchanged between police forces and militants, where x militants are killed and y militants are arrested right next door, where martyrs for socialism are made. It seems that amid a wave of skepticism over the thought of military-grade explosions in the Happiness Garden apartment complex in Urumqi, Beijing to be more subtle about the arrest details and more pressing about the potential results were the arrests not made, thus, we simply see “35 militants arrested over the past few weeks” instead “crash, bang, boom, kapow, and a victory for the people in your local apartment complex.”

Of course, just because the tone of justice is changing doesn’t mean ministry spokesperson Wu Heping is going to skip over some juicy new details about the last crackdown we saw in January. At the same press conference, we got the name of the first plots’ ringleader, Aji Muhammat, scary details about how close these guys were getting to do something (13 test explosions… were they at the Happiness Gardens, I wonder?), and, of course, more emphasis on the international nature of the plotting. Wu alleges that group was ordered to enter the country at the end of last year (begging the quite important question: from where? Pakistan? Uzbekistan, maybe?), and that they were ordered (from somewhere else) to have their attacks ready by April, i.e. now. We can all breath a sigh of relief knowing that we won’t be offed on an Urumqi bus during a terrorist test run.

So basically, tone down the terrorist-police confrontation to decrease the burden of evidence, play up the thwarted outcomes to get the right amount of quaking-in-yer-boots, and finally, plug it into an international network to tap into existing ideas about international terrorism and add a little more legitimacy to what you have to say.

As to what really happened? I’m surprised to see in an article on at The State that names have been released for the newest bust – Abdulrahman Tuersun and Kuerban Mutalifu – something that usually doesn’t happen until a few months later, as was the case with the previous bust. A year later, the sentencing of these fellas usually is quietly published on Chinese newswires with some additional details on “what happened” and “who was involved.” By then, the main media outlets usually don’t care anymore and the government is actually more willing to say more about what happened (though as usual, whether or not those statements are true will never be known…). I’ll actually talk about that in a future post, but we’ll keep our eyes open. Also, check out The State’s article for some commentary by Nicholas Bequelin, a Xinjiang scholr who was consulted for the writing of the article (something we’d like to see more of).

For Mandarin readers out there, here is news about the press conference in Mandarin. We’ll also look it over and publish any details left hidden by the AP translators here.