Some of you may have noticed about a week ago an article in the New York Times by correspondent Edward Wong titled, “The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To,” about the famous preserved corpse uncovered in the Tarim Basin and dubbed the “Loulan Beauty.” So the Loulan Beauty looks European and this doesn’t jive well with the continual and enthusiastic insistence on behalf of the Chinese government that Xinjiang has always been a part of Chinese territory. Like almost all the articles written about Xinjiang in mainstream media outlets there was nothing strikingly new about the content and the article itself relied mostly on the “wow” factor one usually can get from telling your average Joe how weird Xinjiang is. Michael over at The Opposite End of China made a great post recently on the eye-rolling factor of the article and we just let the article slip by all together here at The New Dominion.

However, while those of us who have gone a little beyond the surface here in Xinjiang may just roll our eyes and sigh at Wong’s cliche observations, it of course is inevitable that legions of Chinese who lay their eyes on the article would get their feelings hurt and begin the nationalistic backlash. Spearheading the effort is the Global Times, a simmering, sensationalist tabloid that has a reputation for being sentimental and patriotic. Their article titled “American Media Dares to Use Loulan Beauty to Cast Doubt on Chinese Sovereignty” was too much to not write about.

The American newspaper “The New York Times” recently had the gall to publish an article absurdly using the “Loulan Beauty” to speculate that Xinjiang is not a part of the territory of China. That article states that since the “Loulan Beauty’s” appearance is evidence of her not being Chinese and also since her arrival to modern-day Xinjiang vastly predated emissary Zhang Qian’s arrival to the Western Regions, this constitutes proof that Xinjiang is not part of the territory of China.

The article is a short one. It gets right to the point by incredulously stating the NYT article’s goal of proving via the Loulan Beauty that Xinjiang is not a part of the territory of China, then picks a few choice quotes from the original article to display to the disgust of the Chinese readers. Finally, the author brings in two experts, a historian and the head of the Central Asia Research Institute in Xinjiang, to deal the killing blows to Wong’s thesis. The head of the institute, Pan Zhipang, observes that solid control over Xinjiang by a Chinese government was established in Xinjiang as early as 60 B.C. and Zhang Qian was only a part of that effort – a thousands year old mummy is irrelevant to that historical establishment. Historian Zhang Wei invokes international law, remarking that China’s continuous and effective rule over Xinjiang today fits in with the agreed upon definition of sovereignty and renders the origins of a 3800 year old mummy irrelevant. If thousands year old claims rather than effective governance defines sovereignty, the Global Times writer snarkily quips, then Americans should give America back to the Indians. And thus the article ends.

After supping on  this delightful buffet of sarcasm and righteous indignation for a little bit I found myself choking and gagging on one little chicken bone – namely,  nowhere in the article does Edward Wong argue that Xinjiang is not a part of the territory of China.

Sure, Wong’s article undeniably is soaked in a skeptical tone aimed at the current Chinese government, but while Wong makes a number of arguments, Xinjiang not being a part of China is clearly not one of them. For example, the title of the Times article – “a story that China doesn’t want to hear.” China obviously means the Chinese government, but is the story “Xinjiang is not a part of China?” Not quite.

An exhibit on the first floor of the museum here gives the government’s unambiguous take on the history of this border region: “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China,” says one prominent sign.

But walk upstairs to the second floor, and the ancient corpses on display seem to tell a different story.

So as we begin reading Wong’s article, he’s trying to get us to cast doubt on the statement, “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China.” Here’s where things get a little messy – when we’re looking at the predicate “has been” the tense implies a kind of permanence and uninterruptedness, whereas the Global Times author starts of by quoting this quote of a translation of a quote (yeesh), writing in Chinese, 新疆是中国领土不可分割的一部分, in which the subtlety of the tense “has been” gets sucked into Chinese grammar as the verb 是 which will inevitably be interpreted by native language readers as “China is an inalienable part of the territory of China.”

For a moment let’s ignore the stupidity of a sentence that was conceived in Mandarin, turned into a standardized policy statement, translated into English to be placed on a museum sign, was seen by a Chinese-American reporter, was quoted in an American newspaper, and then was seen by a Chinese reporter who took the phrase and translated it back into Chinese. Ha ha.

The difference between calling doubt upon “has been an inalienable part” and calling doubt upon “is an inalienable part” is pretty huge. The first one questions a long, unbroken claim of authority that snakes deep into the past without a clear end. The second one questions a sovereign nation’s right to rule its own territory today. When we acknowledge this difference we actually can find some common ground between Wong and the indignant expert interviewed in the Global Times article.

“As early as 60 B.C., China’s Western Han government had already established a protectorate in Xinjiang, the highest level administrative structure established by the Han dynasty in the Western Regions.” says Pan, “That China had established a local government there is proof that Xinjiang has since ancient times been a part of China’s territory.” Basically Pan is blasting what he is told Wong is claiming about the Loulan beauty by astutely pointing out that indeed there is a beginning boundary to Chinese rule over Xinjiang -the establishment of a protectorate there during the Han dynasty – and what happened before then is irrelevant to Chinese rule today. In this sense, Pan and Wong can both agree – imagining Chinese sovereignty into the 2nd millennium BC would be kind of absurd.

However, it’s not Chinese sovereignty that Wong is questioning, and that makes the Global Times’ impassioned criticism a big, smelly red herring, completely irrelevant. Instead what Wong is questioning is the more subtle idea that a “Chinese identity” could be projected beyond the first Han protectorate, far beyond 1st century BC; that regardless of the presence or absence of Han Chinese control in the region, the individuals were Chinese at heart – not “China” the ethnic Han cultural body, but “China” the multiethnic nation-state. This idea is insidious in its own way, because it depicts a people predating Chinese rule who nonetheless were clamoring in their hearts to be members of the great minzu family, an desire which was fulfilled when the Han dynasty came in the 1st century BC – an Eastern twist to the “heathens need Jesus” rationale that provided the spiritual and social impetus for colonization by European nations.

Does this idea exist in the Chinese leadership? I think it does. We can look back to Pan’s own words. While on one hand he quite correctly, in my opinion, stresses the difference between the concepts of “ethnicity” and “country,” right afterwards he strangely goes on to say, “Westerners often conceive China only to be composed of Han Chinese, but in reality China is an integrated, multiethnic country, and even though the “Loulan Beauty” is not Han, she still may be Chinese” [Emphasis mine]. Furthermore, one of the central writing points of Wong’s article is the befuddling insecurity on behalf of Chinese scientists preventing them from allowing genetic analysis by international scholars of the Loulan Beauty and other Xinjiang mummies. Beyond that, anyone who has visited the Autonomous Regional Museum and Urumqi can tell you much of it is a grand exercise in insecurity, with constant reminders in multiple languages to museum-goers that Xinjiang, no matter from what angle you’re looking at it, is a part of China and don’t even bother to question that axiom in front of all this overwhelming historical evidence.

If there’s no disputing that territorial integrity and sovereignty is all about who is effectively administering a region at a given time, why is there this shroud of paranoia and insecurity around the Loulan Beauty? Why are scientists so protective about her genetic makeup, and why do Chinese social scholars have to qualify their statements about her with “She still may be Chinese?” It’s because the issue runs deeper than sovereignty. As an unelected government, the CCP and even the autonomous regional government are obsessed with rationales, and justifiably so. Without the stamp of popular approval bestowed by elections, the CCP instead has to convince its modern-day subjects that it knows what’s good for them anyways and is providing that – for example, the unending stream of rhetoric about stability and economic prosperity, which, to be fair, in many cases, is not untrue. Ethnic regions that are historically less “Han” but are part of the PRC play a special role in this self-justification. If the titular minorities of these autonomous regions not only desire benevolent Han rule, but also are entitled to it with their long history as “proto-Chinese” peoples, then the non-elected government of, say, Xinjiang, is legitimate, even if real power lies mostly with the party organs consisting primarily of appointed Han Chinese.

As a private individual with a strong interest in Xinjiang, I do not have any objections to the PRC’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Xinjiang. It’s a fact, just as historian Zhang Wei observes. What I do object to, however, is the sustained educational drive (including things like the Regional Museum in Urumqi) to to depict pre-Han dynasty peoples of Xinjiang as somehow belonging to the multiethnic “Chinese” identity. In addition to displaying the traditional insecurity of the Communist Party and being pretty unnecessary in light of international conventions regarding sovereignty, I consider this stubborn belief contributing to the “you were made for this and you asked for this” narrative that places the “big brother Han” on far higher ground than the other, ostensibly equal minorities of China. Wong is a journalist. His interest in the novelty of Xinjiang, Uyghurs, and the Loulan Beauty is strictly business and he’s writing for a broad audience, and so his article doesn’t delve deeply into the challenges the Loulan Beauty present to the idea of a pan-ethnic primordial Chinese identity. That, however, is still what he’s doing – not suggesting Xinjiang is entitled to become its own nation because a 3800 year old mummy looks European.

What really needs to be acknowledged by all sides is that when something is almost four millenia distant from the present, modern day concepts such as ethnic identity or national identity are completely irrelevant. Professor Pan, as far as the article went, gets close to this understanding – but not close enough. To turn the Global Times reporter’s misguided sarcasm on its head, claiming that the Loulan Beauty could retroactively be considered a member of the multiethnic Chinese nation state is as illogical as claiming the pueblo Indians of the 10th century were dyed in the wool red white and blue members of the United States of America melting pot eight centuries before the USA even existed. The Loulan Beauty beauty isn’t “Chinese” because “Chinese” didn’t exist back then, nor, it must be said, is she Uyghur. She should be nothing more than a representative of prehistoric life in Xinjiang that can be appreciated by the young, the old, Han, Uyghur, and foreigner – without any devaluing political baggage.

***

If you can read Chinese, I also recommend you peruse the comments section to the Global Times article for a nice sampling of typical angry youth (愤青) rage. Lots of amusing yet red herring remarks on giving Alaska back to Russia and America back to the Indians. If there are any intelligent comments that do more than just illustrate angry youth contempt it may merit a future post.

***

Full translation of the Global Times Article below:

Global Times Special Correspondent Shang Bin

The American newspaper “The New York Times” recently had the gall to publish an article absurdly using the “Loulan Beauty” to speculate that Xinjiang is not a part of the territory of China. That article states that since the “Loulan Beauty’s” appearance is evidence of her not being Chinese and also since her arrival to modern-day Xinjiang vastly predated emissary Zhang Qian’s arrival to the Western Regions, this constitutes proof that Xinjiang is not part of the territory of China.
The “Loulan Beauty” the article mentions refers to a preserved body unearthed in the Lop Nur region of Xinjiang, China, discovered by Chinese archaeologist Mu Shunying in 1980. At approximately 3800 years old, it is the oldest body uncovered in Xinjiang to date.

The article, published on November 18 in the New York Times, is titled “The Dead Tell a Tale China Doesn’t Care to Listen To.” The author notes the Chinese government’s assertion that “Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of the territory of China.” “However, the corpses seem to tell a different story.” He writes that from the appearance of the “Loulan Beauty” one can determine that “she does not look like what one thinks of is Chinese,” and that “the very first people to settle the area came from the west — down from the steppes of Central Asia and even farther afield — and not from the fertile plains and river valleys of the Chinese interior.”

The author also mentions that Chinese officials, when offering proof that Xinjiang is a part of Chinese territory, often mention Zhang Qian’s mission to the Western Regions, “but the mummies show, though, that humans entered the region thousands of years earlier, and almost certainly from the west.” The author says that the “Loulan Beauty” is 3800 years old, and that the time of Zhang Qian’s mission to the Wesern Reigions was during the Western Han dynasty, in the second century B.C.

The head of the Central Asia Research Institute at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, Pan Zhiping accepted an interview with a Global Times correspondent and said regarding this fallacy that the article has made a “conceptual error.” The concepts of “ethnicity” and “country”, he argues, are two completely different concepts. Westerners often conceive China only to be composed of Han Chinese, but in reality China is an integrated, multiethnic country, and even though the “Loulan Beauty” is not Han, she still may be Chinese. Furthermore, as early as 60 B.C., China’s Western Han government had already established a protectorate in Xinjiang, the highest level administrative structure established by the Han dynasty in the Western Regions. That China had established a local government there is proof that Xinjiang has since ancient times been a part of China’s territory; Zhang Qian served only as an emissary to the Western Regions, and his activities there are not considered the conclusive evidence that Xinjiang belongs to Chinese territory.

Historian Zhang Wei told a Global Times correspondent that what is determined by the history of territorial claims and what is determined by the present reality are also completely different concepts. According to international legal conventions, what determines a place’s status as “territory” is a  nation carrying out continuous and effective management of that place. The Western Han central government established a protectorate in the Western Regions in 60 BC, and for over 2000 years since that time the Chinese central government has basically maintained continuous and effective control over the Xinjiang reason. Zhang Wei states that the article’s comparison of the 3800 year old corpse of the Loulan Beauty with the Chinese government’s over 2000 years of continuous effective rule over Xinjiang is completely lacking in logic. Should the argument of the article be implemented, then American should be returned to the Native Americans.

Incidentally, the Ürümchi Kechlik Géziti, or Urumqi Evening Newspaper, is a good source for this. Being a Uyghur language publication this newspaper isn’t as elaborate or extensive as the Mandarin language publications of Xinjiang, but for us that’s a good thing because the “international news” section has extremely brief coverage that fits the purpose of this new little TND feature – to give readers an infrequent taste of Uyghur readings from Xinjiang.

Before we begin, I just want to let readers know that for converting Arab characters to Latin ones, I go with the Latin-Script Uyghur Alphabet, or Uyghur Latin Yéziqi, drawn up by Xinjiang Unversity in 2001 to be the official, unified Latin alphabet for the Uyghur language.

Today’s story: The Future Possibility of Theft and Usage of Nuclear Weapons will Increase. I’d like to emphasize here that my level of Uyghur is definitely around beginner so I encourage any readers to make this feature a wiki-sort of process by pointing out any errors or better translations.

Kelgüside Yadro Qorali Oghrilash we Ishlitish Mumkinchiliki Zoriyidu

Shinxua Agéntliqi, Washington, 21-Noyabir Télégrammisi

Amérikining axbarat apparati tünügün élan qilghan doklatta mundaq déyildi: 2025-yiligha barghanda yer sharida yadro qorali ishlitish mumkinchiliki zor derijide éship, dunya téximu köp muqimsizliq amillirining tesirige uchraydu. Kelgüside yadro qorali ishlitish téxnikisimu tereqqiy qilip, kölimi kichik téximu köp urushlarning yüz bérishige sewebchi bolidu. Eger yadro qorali bar döletler köpeyse, bashqa döletlerge yaki térrorchilargha iqtisadiy jehettin yardem bérish mumkinchilikimu éship kétidu. Yadro qorali oghrilash we yötkesh qilmishlirimu köpiyidu.

The Future Possibility of Theft and Usage of Nuclear Weapons will Increase

November 21, from the Xinhua Correspondent in Washington:

Yesterday an American information agency issued a report stating as the year 2025 approaches the global possibility of the use of nuclear weapons will increase to a significant level and the world will come under the influence of even more destabilizing factors. In the future nuclear weapons technology will develop further and small scale nuclear weapons will become responsible for the occurrence of more conflicts. An increase in countries with nuclear weapons will heighten the possibility of providing nuclear assistance to other countries or terrorist organizations and increase the theft and smuggling of nuclear weapons.

Recently, The New Dominion commented on a report regarding a video of an attack on three Chinese men, one apparently produced or packaged with the intent to rally Xinjiang Uyghur Muslims against Chinese rule. Venkatesan Vambu at India’s Daily News & Analysis (DNA) has published an article on the video. His article tracks the discovery of the video by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and intelligently discusses its possible significance.

We at The New Dominion have also been privileged to view the short video. This is a description of what it shows:

About ten seconds in, the video opens with the Uyghur passage pakistanning pishawur shähiridä xitay jallatlirigha berilgän zärbä, meaning “A blow to the Chinese(pejorative) butchers in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan.” This is the only Uyghur in the entire video; the rest, what little is spoken, appears to be in Urdu, with music in Arabic. There are also a few short words of Arabic displayed at the beginning and end of the video.

Next, we see some clips of three men, apparently Chinese, in their underwear, standing in a doorway in a bare apartment at night. A man holding a gun, his face off-screen, forces them to line up in the doorway. They seem confused and unaware of what is about to happen. One of them is shown yelling at his assailant, though not in Chinese, and possibly in Urdu.

Then, the man holding the gun, wearing what appears to be Pakistani dress (shalwar kameez), is seen more fully. He shoots one of the Chinese men, who falls. One crouches down and turns to his companion. The other jumps off to the left. The one kneeling is shot next. The one who ran is shot less than a moment afterward. Where he falls, a dog runs out of the way. The man with the gun keeps shooting the fallen men. All through this section, the handheld camera zips around, and the individual holding it runs up behind the gunman to record the executions in more detail. What we see next is a montage of newspapers, apparently in Urdu, concerning the shooting of three men in Peshawar. These newspapers show photographs of the dead men and one other injured man who is not seen in the video.

The video appears to be connected with – though how is unclear – the shooting of three Chinese citizens in Peshawar, Pakistan in July 2007, following the massacre at the Lal Mosque in Islamabad. The exact connection is uncertain. If this is the video of the shooting of these men, why has it not been released until now? The newspaper clippings in the video also show an injured fourth man, reported by some media accounts of the Peshawar incident. Where was this man – possibly the father and uncle of the murdered men – and how was he injured and not killed, as were his companions?

Were three men shot to death just for the sake of stirring up dissent? I cannot think of another reason why someone would videotape a murder. Vambu’s article states that the video has since spread to several Uyghur-language websites. How is this being received, with disgust or with triumph? I feel that this is a gross manipulation, a somewhat unskilled and thuggish attempt at manipulating dissatisfied Uyghurs. I wonder how much on-the-ground impact it can really have and which audience, exactly, it is reaching. If angry young Uyghur men are seeing this, are they stirred to violence in the name of Islam, or might they at most enjoy it out of a guilty and immature racism? Could this even be part of an attempt to worsen Sino-Pakistani relations, which have been slightly uneasy since the election of the new government? All in all, it seems that Vambu’s conclusions are correct: this is not a Uyghur-made video. It is, at least, not a video of a Uyghur killing Chinese people. It is a video packaged to affect the politics of Xinjiang, China, and Pakistan. I sincerely hope that anyone who happens to view it will recognize the attempt at manipulation for what it is.

Xinhua Network News Xinjiang Channel 新华网新疆频道

• 11 November 2007: Jimusaer County (see in Google Earth) adds to the recent national park frenzy (see Sayram Lake National Wetlands Park and Kanas Geological Park) by carrying out an extensive refurbishment and improvement of the Sandbank Ecological Park, Xinjiang’s largest desert park. In the first stage of construction, 15.8 million yuan will go into a shelterbelt, an Ethnic Garden (民族特色风情园), and sand-faring and amphibious tour vehicles. In the second stage, 600 million yuan will go into making desert pastures, a botanical research center, and a wildlife viewing area.
• 12 November 2007: In order to the continue the development of bilingual education throughout Xinjiang, the regional Financial Department has allocated 70.39 million yuan to be used primarily in Kashgar, Khotan, and 7 “pastoral regions.” The money will mostly serve as subsidies to offset costs for tuition and school items and to assist in paying the incomes of participating teachers.
• 12 November 2007: As a part of this year’s effort to prevent severe air pollution over the winter, the city of Urumqi has created a “Redlist-Blacklist” system of incentives to encourage heating companies to abide by environmental regulations. Companies that violate these regulations (for example, by improperly disposing of sulfur-contaminated water, or due to a boiler accident that damages the factory’s environmental protection equipment) are placed on the publicly viewable black list, while companies that consistently uphold environmental protection are honored on the red list. Other than losing or gaining face, the article does not mention any other repercussions or rewards for being on either list.
• 12 November 2007: After a November 7 loss (104-87) to the Jiangsu Dragons in Nanjing and a home victory (115-104) against the Shanghai Sharks on November 9, the Flying Tigers rallied at home on November 11 and toppled the number 1 ranked juggernaut, the Ba Yi Rockets (116-106).
• 13 November 2007: The former director of the Regional Health Department’s Office of Financial Planning, Chen Jianguo, was sentences to 10 years imprisonment and stripped of his political rights for one year for corruption. On 16 separate occasions from 2002 to 2005, Chen accepted bribes totaling over 330 thousand yuan.
• 13 November 2007: Kanas Geological Park has closed for the winter season and the park management has completed its statistical snapshot of the this year’s tourist season. This year the park saw 929 thousand tourists, 50 million yuan from ticket sales, and 730 million yuan from general tourist revenue.
• 13 November 2007: Mother nature reminds us that Xinjiang is a geological hotspot by sending a magnitude 4.6 earthquake to Luopu County (earthquake epicenter in Google Earth) on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. There were no casualties.
• 14 November 2007: A new international passenger route between Xinjiang and Mongolia was officially opened on October 28. The route is between Qinghe County in Xinijang and Burgan, which is located in Mongolia’s Khovd Province (see route in Google Earth). The international route between these two locations was original established in 1992, but was closed due to insufficient passenger numbers and unacceptable road conditions. A renewed interest in the route and road repairs have helped bring about this year’s reopening. (Hat tip to Michael at The Opposite End of China for alerting me of this exciting new find).
  
• 14 November 2007: The Management of Safety Production Goals Meeting convened on the morning of the 13th and commissioned 6 Inspection Teams that will travel throughout Xinjiang investigating safety standards in spheres ranging from coal mining to traffic to fire prevention.
• 14 November 2007: The dates of the 34th meeting of the XUAR 10th Standing Committee has been set from the 20th to the 23rd of November.
• 14 November 2007: The success of the “Deliver Warmth and Compassion with One Day’s Wages” program has prompted Xinjiang’s party organs to declare November “Donation Month,” with the hope that donation efforts in subsequent Novembers will continue to aid low-income residents of Xinjiang battle the imminent cold weather.
• 14 November 2007: Surgeons of the Aksu’s Number 1 People’s Hospital’s Gynecological Department have successfully removed a 30 kg (66 lbs) ovarian tumor from a 55 year old woman. The patient, who hails from Wushi County, discovered that she had a 6.7 inch diameter tumor two years ago, but was unable to treat it for economic reasons. This year, within a period of two months, the tumor experienced abnormally rapid growth, giving the patient a waist circumference of 149 cm (58.6 inches). The new growth affected her daily living so much that she decided to visit Aksu, and on arrival doctors sent her immediately to the operating table, which implies that the patient had the ironic fortune of having an ailment so bad the doctors would treat it for its own sake, in spite of the costs involved.
• 14 November 2007: A six member international team for the Xinjiang Przewalski’s Horses Propagation Research Center has hired 3 Kazakhs to track wild horses in the Qaramay Mountains Ungulate Natural Reserve during the winter season on the Center’s behalf. Kazakh nomadic herders migrate with their flocks to the mountain pastures of the reserve during the winter, making them the most likely candidates for monitoring wild horses. The three choices chosen from 128 candidates, and all are around 30 years old and have enough education as to be able to submit written progress reports to the Center.
• 15 November 2007: The preliminary stages of a project to build a protective structure over the ruins of an ancient Buddhist temple in Jimusaer county have been completed. Beiting’s “West Temple” was constructed sometime between the 11th and 13th century and at that time served as a prominent center for Buddhist art. Preserved at the ruins are a number of Buddhist figures and frescoes.
• 15 November 2007: A punitive element has been added to efforts to help protect and conserve Przewalski’s horses in Northern Xinjiang. Drivers involved in collisions with wild horses face up to 810 thousand yuan in fines. Przewalski’s horses are classified as level one protected wildlife, and according to wildlife protection laws, their “value” is to be calculated as 12.5 times whatever administrative costs are spent to protect them – which under current calculations is 65 thousand renminbi. There have been 5 collisions in the past 8 months, and in response the Forestry Police posted a 20 thousand yuan reward for any information leading to the arrest of the hit-and-run drivers. After the reward was posted, three drivers have been arrested.
• 15 November 2007: The Flying Tigers defeated the Fujian SBS team in Urumqi on the 15th, 110 – 91.
• 16 November 2007: According to statistical data from the Regional Foreign Trade Department, the total value of foreign trade for the past 10 months has surpassed 1 billion American dollars in 5 regions: Urumqi ($2.96 billion, an increase of 61.2% compared with last year), Yili Prefecture ($1.92 billion, 3.3% increase), Changji Prefecture ($1.74 billion, 100.4% increase), Bortala Prefecture ($1.52 billion, 13.4% increase), and, for the first time, Kashgar Prefecture ($1.05 billion, 300% increase).
• 16 November 2007: Xinhua Xinjiang issues a “special report” on XUAR’s Chairman, Ismail Tiliwaldi, which includes some biographical details and information on Tiliwaldi’s philosophy when it comes to governing Xinjiang. The main points of the report can be summarized in its title: Development, stability, and harmony have all along been the primary pursuits of Xinjiang.
• 16 November 2007: This year, the total value of foreign trade imports and exports surpassed 10 billion US dollars, a milestone which Xinhua attributes to Xinjiang’s superior geographic location and abundant natural resources. Xinjiang by far is a net exporter: exports amounted to $8.57 billion, whereas imports totaled almost $2 billion.
• 17 November 2007: As a part of its National “Building the Future: CCB’s Maturation Plan for Providing Financial Aid to Low-Income High School Students” project, the China Construction Bank has 4 high schools in Urumqi 360 thousand yuan each. The program will continue on for 6 years, eventually providing 3300 low-income students at 15 Xinjiang High Schools and 840 low-income students at 4 Bingtuan High Schools financial aid totaling 6.21 million yuan.

Other News

• 9 November 2007: The UCLA Asia Institute’s AsiaMedia site runs a fascinating piece by Tim Hathaway describing his year and a half stint as a journalist and writer for the state-run Xinjiang Economic Daily in Urumqi. Hathaway’s unique position as a foreigner hired by a state run publication in China’s most sensitive region gave him a unique vantage point through which to explore Xinjiang’s social issues and current events.
• 12 November 2007: The English Edition of Xinhua Net runs an English language version of the article linked above discussing the selection of 3 Kazakh herdsmen to track Przewalski’s horses in northern Xinjiang.

Blogs

• 15 November 2007: Davesgonechina at Mutant Palm writes about the 13th century legendary Sufi mystic Nasreddin Appendi and the different ways he has been reinvented in China. He also shares a vintage claymation “Afanti” episode posted at Tudou and the news that producers in Chongqing are working on a newer cartoon incarnation of the ancient master.