When I was in China in August 2006, I made the wise decision to visit the Shanghai Art Museum, which was holding an exquisite photography exhibition on Xinjiang. “Look at how beautiful and untamed our West is” the exhibit seemed to be saying, with its verdant forests, rocky deserts and crystalline lakes. These days, no one would question the untamedness of China’s two western, and large autonomous regions – apparently not autonomous enough for some people.
Evan Osnos had a an interesting blog post arguing that the more attention the official Chinese media has been giving the riots in Xinjiang is less about openness and more about control; the Chinese, more tech savvy than their Burmese and Iranian counterparts, realize that the story will get out no matter how much it is supressed and that it is more effective to try to control the narrative than to snuff it out. Likewise, by highlighting the violence perpetrated by the Uighur population on the Han Chinese living in Xinjiang, the government can play the law or order role, protecting the victims of this unruly mob violence.
The question is, how long will this last.
David Bandurski of the China Media Project wrote last month, before the violence in Urumqi, about this new Chinese “Control 2.0″
Control 2.0 is control that makes a shrewdly realistic assessment of China’s new information environment — the result of the Internet, predominantly — and recognizes there are some events that cannot be entirely controlled. So the core of Control 2.0 is reporting at the first possible moment those news events that cannot be concealed, getting the government’s official explanation and version of the facts out first. This pre-empts other media, including international media.
Osnos, also links to a story from South China Morning Post saying
“In China, many assume that the higher the living standard, the happier the people will be…But at the same time, when the living standard improves, people will receive better education, and this will raise their ethnic awareness.”
Prosperity will trickle down to the Uighur and the Tibetans and as it does, it will lead to greater awareness to the disparity and stilted progress affecting the denizens of Tibet and Xinjiang at expense of the Han Chinese on the coast. As these realities churn on their inevitable trajectories, the story will become harder and harder to sanitize and square with a government narrative. At that point, the Han Chinese may view the actions against the Uighur the same way that we viewed segregation or the maltreatment of Native Americans. If they don’t, then I don’t know who I will feel more sorry for.
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