Xinjiang and Twitter
I've long been skeptical about the role of Twitter in fomenting political change. Skeptical until this Xinjiang uprising, that is.
Before the Chinese government blocked the service midday Monday, I read two eyewitness reports, saw several photographs, and read several articles about what had happened. Keep in mind that I follow only about 100 people. The amount of information that I received gave me a more comprehensive picture of what is happening in Xinjiang than any one newspaper article possibly could.
Will anything change in Xinjiang? My guess is no. The Chinese government is masterful in blaming all minority uprising on evil elements from abroad, maintaining with cynical consistency that the vast majority of Uighurs are truly happy with Chinese dominance and only a few 'rotten apples' ruin it for everyone else.
Yet access to so much information, at the very least, improves everyone's bullshit detector.
July 7th, 2009 - 19:09
YOU ARE TALKING NONSENSE,BELIEVE IT OR NOT.
July 7th, 2009 - 19:36
i don’t think the minority uprisings are instigated from the outside…and i truly believe minority peoples within China have their genuine greivances, however, i just don’t think they’re justified. There’s always talk of ‘cultural genocide’ of minorities in China, be it in Tibet or in Xinjiang, which is simply absurd in my opinion. People are simply ignorant of the fact that China has one of the most liberal and humane policies towards minorities which shocked me when i initially realised this as i’d been fed the one-sided view by the English media…its high time people take a look around South East Asia as well as look into the history of neighbouring countries such as Korea and Japan to know what really constitutes oppression and cultural genocide of minority populations. However i doubt people will as it doesn’t interest them cos there’s no ‘shock value’ in looking at nations like Malaysia or Japan, which are not ‘rogue regimes’ in the Western mindset.
July 8th, 2009 - 15:27
hcpen,
Yours is a point of view often heard from Han Chinese who wonder why these uprisings occur. Let’s take a closer look.
Let’s take your assertion that the Chinese indeed have a ‘humane and liberal’ policy toward its minorities at face value. What does it have to do with cultural genocide?
The US now has a more humane and liberal policy toward Native Americans than do the Chinese towards its minorities, but that doesn’t exculpate the US from its responsibility in earlier cultural and actual genocide. One doesn’t excuse the other.
Uighur grievances are not justified? Consider that Xinjiang has become increasingly Hanified since the 1940s, when China’s Han population represented a mere 6% of the population. This number has now risen to near 50% and is far higher than that in Urumqi.
In addition to Han re-settlement in Xinjiang and Tibet (which the Communist Party has explicitly encouraged), there’s the issue that the Han are granted governorship over these minority areas through the CCP political apparatus.
Uighur-language education, once a staple in the region, has essentially dwindled to nothing. This is basically a systematic effort to reduce Uighur identity to a subset of Chinese, something which can quite fairly be called cultural genocide.
The Uighur people are culturally, linguistically, ethnically, and religiously distinct from the Han Chinese. The region is part of China due to Chinese colonialism, not due to any other accident of geography.
You argue about the Southeast Asian countries, Japan, and Korea, but so what? The Chinese like to imagine themselves as a nation that has always respected the sovereignty of others, while the big bad Western powers- and neighboring Japan- are the true imperialists.
Well, sorry, but China’s a colonizer too- and the Uighurs are the colonized. This is why some of them are a little less than pleased with their situation in China.
You can argue that China has done good things for Xinjiang, which is undoubtedly true. But to dismiss Uighur grievances as absurd reflects a similar degree of ignorance which you accuse others of having.
July 13th, 2009 - 13:28
Matt,
First of all, Xinjiang was and is part of China. It was not colonized by Chinese, it became a province of China since around 60 BC. If more than 2000 years of history is not enough for you, do you want to go back to when human was made?
Since the very beginning of Xinjiang History, it has been a residence of a lot of nationalities, including Sai, Han, wusun, Qiang and a lot of others. Because of its special location, Xinjiang has been influenced and mixed by a lot of foreign nationalities “culturally, linguistically, ethnically, and religiously”. But it does not change the fact that Xinjiang is part of China. Its like in Houston TX, they have more hispanics than any other races. Do you think hispanics should take over Houston and announce independence now???
It is free to live in China if you are a citizen. Yes, Xinjiang may have higher percentage of Han than 100 years ago even though the Uighur still dominates the population by 45.73%. People travel and settle…as simple as that!!!! Han happens to be the nationality in china that is more mobile than any minor nationalities. Of course, Uighur people travel too. There are a lot of Uighur people in Shanghai and Beijing. I remember there is a street called Zhejiang Road, it was almost occupied by Uighurs. Uighur is just like anyone of the 56 nationalities, they are all part of China. Please remember HAN DOES NOT Equal to CHINA. 56 nationalities = China. We are not trying to exclude any minor nationalities.
The funny thing is Im mixed with Han and another minor nationality. I was registered as a Han on my dad’s side when i was born. But we have a special policy in China that when you graduate from high school and enter the college entrance exam (the most competitive exam ever by the way). If you are a minor nationality, you will have 20 points extra plus your score. I was trying to
change my nationality to my mom’s side in high school, but i was told that i couldn’t because i was just over 16 years old. In China, we have this one-child policy since 1979, but if you are a minor nationality, you can have two. The government is trying to do a lot of things to make the minor nationalities to grow. I grew up in China and lived there for 25 years before I came to states for further education a few years ago. I have been to many many cities…my parents’ hometown, where 28 nationalities reside, my second hometown, the city i was born and shanghai, where i went to college…etc. I did not see any discrimination against minor nationality. Often times, when i told my friends or some people i just met that i was mixed, they thought it was very cool. Chinese are much much more open-minded than what the western media describe. Chinese is living much more a happier life than westerners imagine. Of course China still has a lot of problems. Please give her some time.
I just feel so angry about some reports from western media that portraied Chinese police as in killing innocent Uighur people, using some old pictures that were not even taken in Xinjiang or described the injured Han people as Uighur victims…….. The media neglected or skipped the information about Uighur thugs killing Hans but were trying their hardest to make Chinese government look bad because thats what most westerners are believing and would most likely agree on. The media truely understand who their audiences are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wIQRZyNbAg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbDilz6RUuo
You dont have to agree on what the chinese government media said about the riots. Look at the images, clips, or do a little research by yourself, then make a judgement call……
At the end, id like to say that, for any human being on Earth, it is definitely a crime to kill and injure soooo many innocent people….even towards children, women and elderly. THEY are terrorists without humanity. They deserve merciless punishment.
July 13th, 2009 - 13:43
Lets look at the other perspective of the Houston example, do you think hispanics are trying to take over Houston? Big cities are always attractions of immigrants!
Look, China has more than 90% Hans in its population. I won’t say there is anything wrong to have over 50% Hans in ANY city in China!!! Uighur is not a kingdom, it is part of China. Any Chinese citizen can go and settle down. Apparently the number is still going to increase.
If you are looking at something negatively, you will explain it negatively!!!
July 14th, 2009 - 09:21
Sean,
It’s nice that you’ve never personally witnessed acts of racial discrimination in your lifetime, and that you believe that the 56 nationalities currently recognized by the People’s Republic live together in harmony.
And I’ll even concede that Western media often has an unfair slant towards China, and that Chinese people are more open-minded than Westerners realize.
Xinjiang was intermittently independent of Han rule until shorty after the founding of the PRC- to say that the region lied happily within some previously defined Chinese borders defies historical evidence.
Secondly, please spare me the ‘there’s no racial discrimination in China’ canard. I’m aware of policies that grant preferences to minorities within the PRC. I’m reminded of conservative white Americans who say that somehow, due to affirmative action and hate crime laws, the disadvantaged in American society have actually become the favored class.
I don’t support Uighur independence, it’s too late for that right now. But what I would like to see is some acknowledgment from Han Chinese that Uighur grievances are real, rather than dismissing them as the result of foreign meddling and a conspiratorial bias of the Western media.