tracksterman

I was recently so horrified by my last (in both senses) visit to Dunhuang that I thought I’d elaborate on the experience now I’m outside Xinjiang, and posted this to the Oriental List.

I generally try and avoid China’s recognised tourism destinations, but Dunhuang is the nearest and cheapest place to access the internet or call overseas when you’re stranded behind the Xinjiang Curtain. It’s also the site of the Mogao caves, a collection of grottoes stuffed full of Buddhist art and records. At least, they were, before Western adventurers chopped the frescoes out of the walls, crated up the statues and sent them back to Europe (thus probably preserving them from the worst excesses of the Red Guards). Last time I looked, tourist guide books were still touting Dunhuang as a remote, peaceful oasis where you can dip your toes into China’s ‘5000 years of history’.

Oh aye? A month ago I made a two day visit (with girlfriend and kid) while making necessary phone calls and sending emails…

The wealthy, educated Middle Class, who should be dictating China’s political, social and cultural agenda, were instead here in their thousands, perched on mangy camels in front of faux antique buildings, posing for photos in the local equivalent of a ‘Kiss Me Quick’ cowboy hat. The logical endpoint of 5000 years of cultural development: a bunch of nouveau riche proles, throwing their litter into the sand 
before heading back to town for a hard night’s whoring, courtesy of the hookers thoughtfully laid on by their hotels.

Dunhuang’s rapacious taxi drivers vigorously oppose switching on their meters, preferring to fleece their prey for whatever they think they can get. The gentrified (i.e. overpriced) night market is staffed by hard faced waitresses who get downright surly when you balk at boosting their table commissions by lashing out on baijui and overpriced snack foods (a marked contrast to the friendly, hard 
working stall owners one finds in Xinjiang, for example).

Western prices are being charged for admission to distinctly sub-western attractions; 120Y to walk onto some sand dunes, 80Y to ride on a camel, 15-25Y to slide down litter strewn sand on a bamboo tray, 10Y to bang a gong in a temple (not a real temple with a genuine history, of course, but one constructed in the last couple of years to form the backdrop for posed pictures). Tarted up tourist streets contrast with the crumbling outskirts where the town’s residents actually live. Rampant hotel construction has outstripped the development of the underlying infrastructure, such that you keep catching the faint but pervasive whiff of sewage wherever you go. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, I think.

Despite appearances to the contrary, this is not a rant on my part about the evils of tourism (although I am prone to doing that). Neither is it an attempt to make out that I’m a harder ‘traveller’ than others (which I’m also prone to doing). It’s a genuine query about the expectations of foreign tourists coming to China, versus the reality they find once they get here. One assumes that the ‘Dunhuang 
phenomenon’ is happening all over China, at sites that used to have some interest and cultural integrity (and good taste). Yet the guide books, last time I looked, were still trotting out the same old tired cliches, advice and travel itineraries.

I am genuinely interested in hearing the views of people subscribing to the Oriental List who have come to China, perhaps for the first time, and how their experiences measured up to their anticipations. This interest has been sparked by some European tourists I saw in Dunhuang, obviously looking for their own private little ‘Heart of Darkness’, but who had instead found a crowded, expensive (and crass) 
theme park. They had faces like thunder and were obviously very unhappy, no doubt in contemplation of the huge amount of money they’d thrown away on some boutique package holiday that included the ‘mysterious Silk Road oasis of Dunhuang’.

Expectation vs reality, smoke and mirrors. I’m already sceptical about the notion of ecotourism. It’s essentially a mechanism for liberal western hand wringers to ease their consciences, paying a company to tell them it’s planted a few trees to offset their holiday flight’s carbon. However, when one is told that 2009 is the ‘Year of Chinese Ecotourism’ whilst in Dunhuang, one has to suspect high satire - or is 
it just a sick joke?

Urumqi '7-5'

I had this blog up and running two years ago, before the entire domain was blocked by the Chinese net censors. I’ve resurrected it to host my personal view of the ethnic violence that erupted in Urumqi on July 5th, 2009, and continued for several days before the authorities regained control of the city. The text and pictures were originally posted elsewhere, but I’ve moved it all here, following requests from readers worried that the ‘other website’ would also be barred by the Chinese.

Back to Urumqi

7-5: a personal chronology
My decision to break the journey in Korla meant I missed the violence that erupted on the evening of Sunday, 5th July 2009 (‘7-5’). I don’t intend speculating on the causes of the violence, there’s plenty online already (such as this). I’d also rather not repeat the gossip and rumours that spread around Urumqi as, first, young Uighur men attacked and killed innocent Han citizens, then angry Han mobs retaliated with misplaced vigilante justice. The following is only what I experienced myself from the sidelines, plus a little background from people close to me.

Sunday 5th July (in Korla)
Jess, my Han girlfriend, calls c.22:30 as I return to my hotel. She’s able to tell me something’s kicking off before the phone lines go dead. She’s a doctor and has pulled the Sunday night shift, but now all doctors have been ordered in on ICU duty. No calls or messages possible for the rest of the night. Jess examined a number of people sent to her hospital, mainly Han taxi drivers who’d been badly beaten and sustained internal injuries.

A western friend was walking near ErDaoQiao on the Sunday night. He saw men being beaten and attacked in the streets, taxis reversing out of the area at high speed, burning vehicles. He came under missile fire himself, sustaining very bad bruising to one arm. The mob consisted entirely of young Uighur men. Other Uighur (of all ages) were appalled, shutting up businesses and sometimes helping Han to take shelter inside with them. One middle aged Uighur woman on a motorbike motioned him to get out of the area as quickly as possible. He and his Han wife took in six people at their flat who were trying to escape the mob.

Monday 6th July
There’s an intermittent phone service in Korla in the morning. I manage to contact my girlfriend. The local situation seems normal and I catch the bus with no problems. We arrive at a bus station near Wuyi Lu, rather than the usual one to the south of the Uighur ErDaoQiao district. I slip in the wheels, pop on the panniers, then cycle back to our flat. The streets and roads seem quieter than normal, but not overly so. I live a few kilometres north of the centre of disturbances, in an ethnically diverse, broadly middle class area. We go out for an evening meal, seeing that many shops have already closed. At 19:00, the manager comes round telling us a 20:00 curfew has been implemented, shutting everything down. Walking home through side streets, there’s a strange sense of calm. Still no internet access, and only an intermittent telephone service.

Tuesday 7th July
Things are much more tense today. I assume this is due to the Han now realising, via radio, family, contacts etc, just how bad Sunday night was. The TV coverage hasn’t been too graphic, but one local website is accessible, with horrific photos of the dead and injured. All shops closed and shuttered by midday. This is not an official decree, it’s an individual response. Han mobs are on the streets armed with sticks, pipes, iron bars, spades, pick axes. Some guys ask me why I’m not armed when I go to find an open shop. Most groups are hanging round on corners, or in front of the gated community entrances (the only normality is inside these compounds, kids playing and old timers chatting as per usual). Individuals are also often armed, even women and old ladies. It’s important to emphasize how unusual a sight this is, in what is normally a very peaceful community. You certainly never see the kind of Friday/Saturday night violence here that you get in the UK, for example.

I wanted a radio, for more up-to-date info than the TV (coverage has been better than I expected, but lagging behind events). I walk with Jess to a nearby supermarket. It’s closed, the doors barricaded with shopping trolleys and manned by nervous looking staff. A mob chases one young Uighur through the car park, cornering him near me and starting to beat him. I intervene physically when a guy starts using the flat of a pickaxe, pushing men away from him and protesting in basic Hanyu. This gives them enough pause that two Han also start placating them, long enough for three Uighur/Kazakh in an adjacent housing block to come out and drag him inside. More mob arrive and start banging on the community gates; nothing I can do, so we leave. Jess tries calling the police, but the phone service is out of action (we hear later that two people were killed at this location, but can’t confirm that). There’s a marked lack of police/army presence in our area. Contrary to popular western preconceptions, you rarely see an overt police or military presence on the streets during normal times - but these aren’t normal times.

By now, Jess is worried people will mistake me for a Uighur and wants to return home. That’s not as unlikely as it sounds. In Kuqa, the bus station staff had asked me if I was Pakistani. The only foreigners that the locals (occasionally) see here are either fat, pasty Russians or nerdy US evangelical missionaries. I’ve been asked if I’m Pakistani, Uighur, Kazakh - even Japanese! We try another store but everything’s closed. There’s a palpable sense of menace on the street. Angry and worked up young men make for a dangerous state of affairs. Jess’ sister calls from Keramayi, an oil town near the Kazakh border, saying that things there are also tense.

Text messaging services are shut down later in the evening. The lack of ability to communicate is very frustrating. I speculate that the authorities want to shut down the mobs’ comm. lines, reducing their ability to coordinate attacks. A 21:00 curfew is in action. The Party and City leaders appeal for calm on TV. People are told they must not carry weapons in the street, and are not to take vigilante action. However, the young men of each gated residential area are told to tool up and guard the entrances of the compounds where they live. Mob members are told to hand themselves in at police stations to receive fair and lenient treatment.

Wednesday, 8th July
Helicopters buzz overhead all night. Jess hears a loud disturbance outside c.02:00, but doesn’t wake me. This morning I go out on a bike ride. The rubbish hasn’t been collected from the communal middens, and is now building up in huge rotting piles. Baseball bat wielding guards stand outside the hospital, but are gone when I return later in the morning. Local Uighur restaurants have been smashed up by vigilantes; broken windows, slashed awnings and overturned plant pots and tables. People are queuing for food and veg at the small private stalls opening up, but many larger shops are still shut and barricaded.

The police/military presence increases as I cycle in towards the city centre. Convoys of trucks, full of soldiers, are stashed down cordoned-off side streets and in public parks (obviously rapid response squads that can be deployed in the event of unrest).

The foreign journalists all seem to be corralled outside the Hoi Tak Hotel, the big expensive place on People’s Square. The Square itself is ringed with riot police, standing facing outwards every few yards. I cheekily cycle past with my little camera, shooting a hand held vid (the helmet mount seems a trifle conspicuous). Lots of military and police vehicles are parked on the square itself. The streets leading through to Renmin Lu have a huge military presence, soldiers armed with long staves and riot shields blocking roads and most of the pavement. People are not being prevented from passing, but rapid movement of large numbers of people is impossible. At one point, a small group of Han chasing a couple of Uighur are not prevented from doing so by soldiers. In fact, the latter seem unsure of what to do, parting to let them pass until an officer restores discipline.

There are large squads of marching and chanting soldiers, and also slow moving convoys with sirens blaring. A public presence is being established. I don’t attempt to go to ErDaoQiao as the roads are completely blocked off. Nobody objects to my taking short videos, though, and in truth many Han are using their cellphones to do the same (Youtube footage now uploaded). There are lots of people standing around but, unlike yesterday, the atmosphere seems one of uncertainty rather than menace. There’s a sense that the city has stepped back from an abyss, and people are waiting to see what happens next.

Aftermath

Thursday, 9th July
Things appear to be settling down. Still no internet access or SMS, but the telephone service is now consistently operational. The curfew has been abolished in my area. The rubbish is being collected, drinking water’s being delivered again, and many (not all) shops are opening. The authorities took over yesterday and started trucking in fresh produce from the farms that surround the city. There’s a low key police presence in the area where I live (I saw an old woman this morning fussing over an alsation dog while its handler looked on indulgently). Road traffic is again up to its usual insanity.

I said a few pages and days ago that I didn’t intend pontificating about this. Well, old habits are hard to break, especially when you’re sitting around incommunicado with your thumb up your arse. I’ve saved the photos of the dead and injured from tianshannet.com onto my hard drive. It’s easy to be cynical, even paranoid, but someone must have given approval for such disturbing and inflammatory pictures to be posted online. One can only speculate as to why. The operation now seems to be moving into a new phase, and I think the pictures may soon be removed from the net. They’ve served their purpose and, compared to the west, the Chinese take a ‘creative’ approach to internet archival.

Huge emphasis is now being placed on how most Uighur are loyal Chinese citizens. There are testimonials on TV about the ones who saved Han from the mob, usually backed by syrupy muzak. These are interspersed with shots of weeping relatives being reunited with injured loved ones, and stirring music videos featuring recent triumphs over adversity (the Beijing Olympics, the winter storms and Sichuan quake of 2008). Grateful, smiling citizens are shown feeding the troops. On one level it’s actually quite impressive how relentlessly positive the coverage is, compared to the corrosive cynicism that plagues the UK media. However, it’s also been admitted that an undisclosed number of Uighur were killed by Han vigilantes on Tuesday. This has been condemned by the city fathers, but no details are forthcoming, and no pictures have been posted online. Rumours of refrigerated trucks taking the dead away from the city can’t be confirmed.

It’s easy to see which way this is going. The authorities will round up the usual suspects and deal with them quietly, maintaining that most Uighur are good Chinese subjects. The riots will be deemed to have been caused by a minority of trouble makers, instigated by an evil exterior clique bent on ‘splitting’ Xinjiang away from the motherland. In this case, it’s possibly even true. However, it doesn’t address the real grievances that allowed this to occur, meaning it could happen again. Not in the short term, probably, but there’s now a lot of anger here. Uighur sentiments are well documented by a western press that generally exhibits a marked anti-Chinese bias (witness last year’s Tibetan debacle). Some of this is perfectly justified, but that’s not much comfort to the dead Han who were just trying to get home to have dinner with their families on Sunday night. There’s a feeling that the authorities have dropped the ball on this one. Where were the police and military on Sunday night? More disturbingly, where were they on Tuesday, when Han mobs were rampaging with sticks and iron bars? I have it from one credible (Han) source that at least some of the latter were police, sans uniform, exacting revenge with the tacit approval of the authorities. Uighur who witnessed these attacks were also targeted.

In the mid-late 1990s, anti-Han riots in the Yining district were crushed with brutal efficiency by the military. Even moderate, liberal Chinese are now saying that the current regime has been too soft on the Uighur, and are harking back to the glory days of the bingtuan strongman Wang Zhen. They think that the newfound Han unity this has stirred up might actually be a good thing. That has disturbing implications for the future. So far, the official approach has been conciliatory and low key - but what happens when the foreign journalists move on to another story? One Uighur who gave shelter to Han on 7-5 (and was subsequently interviewed on TV) has been murdered, shot dead. There are rumours of Han and Uighur being picked off the streets and quietly murdered by opposing factions, fuelling a growing atmosphere of distrust. Tension has spread to other places in Xinjiang. The police in Korla had to seal off the Uighur part of the city on Friday 10th, in order to keep both communities apart. Yining was completely locked down on the Saturday. It’s hard to see how this can be all tied up in the neat fashion that the authorities claim they want.

One week on: Monday, 13th July
Superficially, everything seems normal, bar the odd knot of police and the occasional convoy of military vehicles. The city fathers are shitting themselves about more lost tourist revenue following the 2008 slump, so the media coverage is full of articles about happy tourists seeing the sights without a care in the world. Everything’s OK, come and join the party. I even saw some hapless French package tourists being roped in to give their valuable and informed opinions.

All that being so, one wonders why there’s still no internet or SMS service available. I guess it all depends on whether one buys into the idea that this was an organised conspiracy, masterminded from overseas by the evil Rebiya clique, or a bunch of disenfranchised young punks who got carried away in the heat of the moment. It’s hard to see how this can be construed to have been an attack on the machinery of state when the only people beaten and killed were taxi drivers, street stall owners, cleaners and corner shop workers. These people are often lower down the food chain than the Uighur, economic migrants scrabbling just to make a living.

The authorities are pushing the conspiracy hypothesis strongly. A consensus is building (being constructed?) that young Uighur activists travelled to Urumqi from all over Xinjiang prior to 7-5. Instructions are said to have been sent from outside China by QQ (the instant messaging service favoured here), then disseminated locally by SMS texts. It is claimed individuals were paid a 200Y fee for attending the People’s Square protest that preceded the 7-5 massacre. After the Sunday, these activists, up to 5000 in number, are said to have gone to ground within the local Uighur community. The authorities claim they need to restrict the internet/SMS in order to prevent these desperados from arranging their escapes, giving police the time to sweep neighbourhoods on a house-by-house basis. Of course, the fact that people can’t upload pictures of this happening, either via the internet or SMS, is merely a fortunate coincidence…

There is also speculation about an imminent bombing campaign. There is a history of sporadic bombings in Urumqi, usually small devices left on buses. Guards going through your bags whenever you enter a shop or restaurant. All indoor businesses are now open, although closing much earlier than usual, but the outdoor beer gardens and pavement food stalls that make Urumqi so pleasant during the summer months have fared less well. Many of these are owned and run by Uighur, who are now keeping a low public profile until they see which way the wind’s blowing.

Tuesday, 14th July
One of the reasons now being cited for the initially tardy police response is….humanitarian concerns! It’s being reported that women in burkas, hijabs and veils, with kids in tow, were dispensing bottles of petrol and bags of stones to the mob. The cops were thus apparently reluctant to wade in. Bless ‘em. Despite this, the ongoing media emphasis is that this is NOT a religious/Uighur issue, but the result of the evil Rebiya’s dastardly machinations. There have been photos on TV of her embracing that other well known international terrorist, the Dalai Lama. Loudspeaker vans were driving round the city centre today, extolling the virtues of stability and exhorting everyone to trust the authorities (and shop the miscreants).

The military presence has diminished somewhat. Special police forces, brought in from 30+ cities across China, now represent the public face of the authorities. I know for certain that some have come from Lioaning Province, which borders North Korea and is about as far away as you can get and still be in China. The cops are being housed in various locations, such as the large Kunlun Hotel on Youhao Lu, which they appear to have completely taken over. Many city centre pedestrian underpasses have been sealed off by the military. They’re being used as staging posts, soldiers stationed underground where they can quickly emerge and respond to a ‘situation’.

The reaction of the Han population at large continues to be one of solidarity, with lots of conspicuous cash and blood donation going on. It’s difficult not to admire that sense of common purpose. I don’t consider the Chinese to be the ultimate team players that many in the West do. You only have to see the every-man-for-himself driving to realise this is actually a nation of mercenary, opportunistic individualists. However, they way they pull together in a crisis, exemplified by the events following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, make for an interesting contrast to, say, the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina. It’s when that sense of patriotic duty tips over into unthinking bigotry that the problems start, e.g. the boycotts of Uighur goods and services that are now starting up.

The residential committee was today working its way round the area where I live, checking IDs in all the flats. We pretended we weren’t in…

Three Uighur were shot yesterday, two fatally, after they failed to obey police orders to desist chasing & beating a fourth Uighur near the bazaar. News reports say they had been trying to incite people to violence in a mosque, but the Imam had told them to stop. They are reported to have had accents suggesting an origin outside of Urumqi.

Unfortunately, my time here is coming to an end. Although foreigners still aren’t being summarily kicked out of Xinjiang, the student visa is not going to happen. I was told today that it’s inconceivable a visa would be issued to a westerner in order to study Kazakh, a language that implies possible sympathies towards the indigenous Muslim population. With only two weeks left on my tourist visa, changing the date of my BA flight from Beijing to the UK was tricky. The telephone firewall surrounding Xinjiang meant that the various toll free numbers were blocked, and I had to resort to persuading BA’s front desk receptionist into doing the deed for me. It’s worth noting that when I subsequently bought a ticket from Urumqi to Beijing, I had to use a credit card. I’ve always paid in cash before, but I assume they now want a paper trail they can follow, to see who’s buying tickets for whom and to where.

It’ll be interesting to see how my experiences and observations compare to what’s being reported in the UK press….and what the Chinese reaction to any perceived criticism is.

Wednesday, 15th July
Chinese news outlets are now claiming that Rebiya is using faked photos to misrepresent what’s happening in Xinjiang - not entirely without justification, it seems (link), although it’s hard to judge what the hell is really going on when you’re limited to one source of information. The media here is also saying that foreign newspaper reporters have been encouraging Uighurs to act up for the cameras. Again, entirely possible, but without peer review and alternative viewpoints - who knows?

The Chinese appear to be very annoyed with the way this is being covered in the western press. Representatives of all the schools employing foreigners in a TEFL capacity were today summoned to a meeting with the authorities at the Sheraton Hotel (a friend was one of those present). There were a lot of Chinese media present, but the foreign press were conspicuous by their absence. The various expat Quislings….sorry, representatives, were all encouraged to stand up in turn and bang on about how impressed they were by the way the Han and Uighur have pulled together through this difficult time. The EF school has pulled off a coup by having its expat teachers donate blood (one hopes it was passed through alcohol and hashish filters before being pumped into the veins of any hapless Chinese patients). Following the tearful group hugs and back slapping, the Urumqi Foreign Languages officer (who speaks good English) then made a speech stating that it could be some time before the internet and telephone services are resumed. It was stated in clear terms that foreigners couldn’t be trusted to report events here in a fair and unbiased manner, so wouldn’t be given the opportunity to report at all. These clowns seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of what could’ve been a PR victory.

The lack of internet and SMS is beginning to cause real problems, e.g. for students applying to universities. The younger generation lives in an online world via the ubiquitous wang ba (net bars, presumably now also having a fairly lean time), and there is growing discontent at the way everything’s been locked down. There is a suspicion that with a) the international economic conference here in September, and b) the 60th anniversary of ‘liberation’ in October, normal service may not be resumed for some time.

The Beijing Canadian Embassy’s Under Secretary arrived in town today, to find out why Canadian citizens who have done nothing wrong are being actively denied basic communication with their families and Government.

Thursday, 16th July
The ID inspection squads got me this morning, pouncing as the water delivery man dropped off a bottle. I think they were a bit nonplussed to find me here. I’m glad I got my juliuzheng (residence permit) in order, it’s a 500Y/day fine for every day you’re not authorised to have been here. When you register, you have to produce your plane ticket stub, or at least hotel receipts, to prove you arrived when you say you did. This has always been a rule here, but it only began to be strictly enforced following the 2008 Tibetan riots.

Out for an afternoon bike ride. Things seem normal enough now, apart from the fact that most public areas are deserted. The People still aren’t being allowed into People’s Square. I got back home in time to see a programme on TV about how it’s all ‘business as usual’, some fatuous talking heads on the back of a open pick-up truck wanking on about how tourists can still enjoy the scintillating nightlife here. Only thing is, they were driving up Youhao Lu, the main road near our flat, and where we tried to get a meal last night. Normally this place is humming until after midnight but now everything’s closed by 20:30, the pavements empty of people - and this is in a part of the city least affected by the troubles. At least they had the decency to pan the camera away from the smashed-up Uighur restaurant that I filmed last week, that would’ve been too ironic even for the Chinese.

There’s a fundamental dishonesty to the way this is being presented in the media here. The events of Sunday 5th were shocking and reprehensible, but there’s an impressive display of collective amnesia taking place about the events of Tuesday 7th, when Han mobs went on the rampage and murdered innocent Uighur in retaliation. Nobody’s talking about it, and it never gets mentioned in the Chinese media. Predictably, though, the ‘Foreign Experts and Student Representatives Symposium’ that I commented on yesterday has been getting a fair bit of attention.

NOTE, 21st July: The xjnews webpages were working fine two days ago in Urumqi. Either they’ve been taken down, or Xinjiang is getting a different news to the rest of the PRC.

Friday, 17th July
We got a telephone call just before midnight last night from a police contact. Press coverage was given yesterday to a bus where the passengers had bailed out, fearing a bomb was on board. The news said it was just an odd noise caused by an electrical fault, nothing to worry about. However, the police line is that in fact two small devices were planted on city buses. Our contact was ringing to warn us about this. Truth? Chinese whispers? Bluff and counter bluff, a tactic to undermine the Uighur? Who knows?

Friday continues to be a sensitive day in Korla, despite the fact it’s a rich oil town with only a small Uighur population. Shops surrounding the Muslim area of town have been ordered not to open today until 16:00.

Business as usual?

Friday, 17th July
I’m testing the assertion that it’s tourist business as usual by going to Heavenly Lake tomorrow with Jess and Yue. The little stand by People’s Park where you buy the bus tickets was empty of customers, the attendant nearly snapping my hand off when I said I wanted to go on a trip. In normal times, Heavenly Lake is an illustration of everything that’s wrong with domestic tourism in China: a once lovely place subjected to massive and unsustainable development. It’s an efficient operation designed to cart in thousands of people each day, so they can stand next to the lake, throw litter in it, and razz around in noisy speedboats. Fortunately, you can walk away from these wankers within about fifteen minutes, and have a surprisingly enjoyable experience staying in one of the admittedly cheesy Kazakh gers (yurts) halfway round the lake.

Sunday, 19th July
The Han are a timid bunch at the best of times, and if their holiday experience has the added potential of turning into a bloodbath, there’s only one way it’s going to go. The Han prefer their ‘minorities’ dancing happily and preparing interesting ethnic foods, rather than smashing iron bars over taxi drivers’ heads. Two weeks after 7-5, the domestic tourism market in Xinjiang has collapsed. Last time we bussed it from People’s Park to Tian Chi (Heavenly Lake), two years ago, there was a fleet of large coaches waiting to take the happy tourists (who were treated like cattle). Yesterday, there was one minibus, about a third full, and the tour rep was so desperate to get us she offered to either pay our taxi fare to the Park gate, or swing by the flat en route and pick us up. Only someone who has experienced the full horror that is a Chinese guided tour can appreciate how unlikely this is.

It was the same story at the Lake. The car/coach park almost empty, the cable car devoid of passengers, the tacky Kazakh themed restaurants and shops deserted. The Kazakhs we spoke to were pretty disparaging about the Uighur, who’ve deprived them of their nice little earner for the second year running (last year it was the events surrounding Beijing 2008). Some animosity is hardly surprising, given it’s been reported that the Uighur on 7-5 were chanting words to the effect of ‘Eliminate the Han and Hui, but keep the Kazakh to look after our sheep and cattle.’ As a political manifesto, it doesn’t rank up there with ‘No taxation without representation,’ but if true it kind of puts the dampeners on the post 7-5 ethnic love-in currently being promoted by the media.

Another angle to the tourist crash is the effect it could have on a subset of the Uighur themselves. I’ve met many young, educated Uighur (always women) who have been training as tourist guides, both for the domestic and overseas market. If they subsequently find themselves unable to get a job, that’s just another group of disenchanted youth to add to the rural poor and disenfranchised urban teenagers.

One tactic the local Government has now come up with to offset the collapse in domestic tourism revenue is….tell Xinjiang people to get out en masse and visit the tourist sites in their own province! How that’s going happen when Xinjiang people are too scared to even go to their local restaurant after 20:30 has yet to be explained to me. Of course, having no internet and limited telephone capability can’t be helping the tourist industry either.

Monday, 20th July
There is evidence that the authorities are still shutting down lines of communication, rather than loosening things up. When making a long distance or international telephone call here, the usual method is to use an IP telephone card. They’re issued by a number of companies large and small. The large companies’ cards were inoperative almost immediately, producing a message along the lines of ‘the person you have called is busy, please try again later’. However, some of the smaller companies appeared to have slipped through the net.

A friend got his hand on some such cards over the weekend while I was at Tian Chi, and managed to tunnel through the telephone firewall to the world outside (like the telephone equivalent of a proxy website). He gave me one of the cards last night, but it didn’t work for me. When I told him today, he tried the remaining cards and, sure enough, they all came back with error messages. One can only assume that, as a given type of card is used and attracts the attention of the people monitoring the phone networks, it is then shut down. The fact that ‘they’ are still actively watching and closing down the comms networks doesn’t bode well for anyone hoping to see a resumption in services anytime soon.

As of this term, all Xinjiang schoolkids from Grade 3 (age 8) will be taking what can only be described as indoctrination classes - the Province’s history (or one version of it, anyway), plus lessons on ethnic harmony…

We went to the Wuyi Lu last night, Urumqi’s main night market (Youtube video I shot last year). There used to be many more here, but they’ve been shut down over the last few years and the pavement converted into….car parking. Not one of the city fathers’ better urban planning decisions. Despite the media claims that it’s all ‘business as usual’, the market wasn’t happening. I asked a woman who was closing her shop (at the unheard-of time of 20:30) if she knew when the market would be opening again. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Who can think of going to a night market at a time like this?” she asked.

Tuesday, 21st July
Sandbagged gun emplacements on the way to the airport, and all bags are being manually checked. The airport was like a ghost town, a startling illustration of the fact no people are coming here.

I’m now in Beijing, awaiting a Friday flight back to the UK. This is something I do reluctantly. There was always a chance that I wouldn’t get a student visa even before 7-5. In the event of that happening, my main option had been a Kyrgyz/Kazakh bike trip, acquiring a new Chinese visa en route so I could pop back into Xinjiang at a later date. However, it’s inconceivable that the Central Asian PRC Consulates are now handing out tourist visas, and I have no desire to get trapped in the notorious visa maze that bedevils the ‘Stans.’

I’ve been based in Urumqi, on and off, since 2005. In that time I’ve seen big changes in the city. There’s been a marked improvement in the roads, a huge reduction in the levels of winter pollution, and a general trend towards modernity and something resembling efficiency. However, it’s also true that Urumqi’s become a much more ‘Han’ city, and it’s doubtful how far the wealth is getting into Xinjiang’s rural hinterland. I have no idea when I’ll be returning to Urumqi, and I’m not sure what this means for my girlfriend, her daughter, and of course Chairman Cat. I also don’t know what I’m going to do in the longer term. Laughable interest rates and the plunging value of the pound have upset my careful financial calculations, and I might even have to get a job. It’s a fuckin’ nightmare, man!

UK to Istanbul

As part of my strategy to avoid the ‘Beijing Effect’ this summer, I cycled from the UK to Istanbul. You can read the report here.

Wahay!

Found a proxy that lets me edit my old blog within China! Watch this space…

Last post...

So, one year on. I’m back in the UK (briefly). It’s been an interesting year. I thought I’d close this blog down - and start up a new one elsewhere because, although the BBC was recently opened up in advance of the Olympics, many blog domains are still shut off behind the Great Firewall of China.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be going back to Urumqi in the future. This is partly due to personal reasons, but also because of my disquiet at the Chinese reaction to criticism over Tibet and the Olympics. The events of the last few months have highlighted the yawning cultural chasm between me and my Han girlfriend on issues like personal freedom. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing.

Let’s get one thing straight: Western media coverage of China and the Tibetan situation has not been objective. China is portrayed as a nation where people cower in fear of a centralized dictatorship, crushed beneath the jackboot of the CCP. I’ve lived in Xinjiang on and off for three years now, a province which has similar issues to Tibet (although, of course, Muslims aren’t as sexy as Buddhists, so they get less media coverage). There are many problems in China, some of which I’ve mentioned in this blog, but I’m not sure I recognize the picture painted by Western media. That isn’t the country I’ve been living in.

Too much commentary on China is being framed through a lens looking 20+ years into the past, and the past is a different country. My overwhelming impression of the Chinese has been quite positive. On a personal level, one to one, I’ve encountered great friendliness and humanity. In many ways China could teach the UK a few things. Little fear of getting glassed on a Saturday night, or being mugged when walking around city streets in the dark. Families leave their toddlers alone to play on the grass in communal areas, unthinkable in the UK. People generally rub along with good humour, despite conditions being more cramped and basic than the UK. This wasn’t some Potemkin Village constructed for my benefit, it’s just how day-to-day life is there.

However, the whole Olympic/Tibet controversy revealed a collective mindset, as a culture/nation, that worries me. Check out the comments left on Chinadaily to see what I mean plus, increasingly, the postings on western newspapers (often purporting to be the views of foreigners rather than Chinese - people are actually employed to disseminate the CCP viewpoint this way).

What concerns me is that there’s no debate. It’s ALL coming from exactly the same viewpoint – five thousand years of culture, you don’t know Chinese history, western media is anti-China, what about X/Y/Z that the West did in the past, you’re just jealous now China is getting strong, soon we’ll repay you yang gui zi for the Eight Nations’ humiliation, yadda yadda yadda. It’s infantile, playground politics, like official attempts to control access to Western media. They have real points to score (genuine development in Tibet and Xinjiang, Western bias), but it’s drowned out by a tide of uninformed, triumphalist jingoism. Unfortunately, it’s not just a bunch of redtop reading, BNP-style knuckleheads making these statements. By definition of the fact they speak English, they’re the educated elite, the people who will be shaping and influencing public opinion in years to come.

It’s also worrying that a national media resource’s moderation policy permits blatantly racist and xenophobic commentary by Chinese citizens, but deletes temperate & reasonable posts expressing a different view. I know, because I’ve tried it (from cybercafés). Latterly, things have loosened up a bit on that score, presumably part of the same Olympics strategy that finally allowed access to the BBC. However, it remains to be seen whether such concessions will remain in place once the Games are finished. Google ‘One Hundred Flowers Campaign’ and see what you get…

There’s a fundamental lack of understanding about the way debate and the political system works in the West. The best example I can think of is Iraq. When I talked about, for instance, Chinese policy in Tibet (good and bad), I just got Iraq thrown in my face – and what could I say? All I could fire back is that over a million people demonstrated in London against the UK Government on the issue (without being shot in the streets), and it sparked discontent among the public that resulted in Blair losing his job and, possibly, will ultimately contribute to Labour being kicked out. The Chinese aren’t told about the huge popular opposition to the war (or other Government initiatives), for fairly obvious reasons. They only get the anti-China stuff. Is ignorance a defence?

This kind of freedom to express your views simply isn’t understood by many Chinese and, as a result, they’ve reacted badly to foreign criticism of China (see the BBC audio clip posted below). Although they may not be the brainwashed threat that many (especially Americans) seem to think they are, there is now an ongoing shift in economic and financial power, west to east. In the longer term this will be far more significant than blips like the Credit Crunch. How will Western governments, economies and social systems react to that transfer of power – and how will the Chinese wield it? You may think that’s not your problem….but you’d be wrong.