Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355

by liscovich • 9 years ago

222 129 9 years ago

artificial• 9 years ago

Fascinating, the subject orientation is what you see elsewhere with machine vision - it was a big part of F8 this last year. I don't really see a way out of surveillance besides legislation since processing power and storage increasingly becomes cheaper.

liscovich• 9 years ago

Original WSJ article: "Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi...

If you don't have WSJ subscription, paste the title into FB's search bar, and open the link via search results to bypass the paywall.

dang• 9 years ago

Thanks, we've changed the url to that from http://www.wsj.com/video/life-inside-chinas-total-surveillan.... It's generally better to post a link to the host article. WSJ is an edge case, but paywalls with workarounds are ok (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and users almost always usually post workarounds in the thread.

mnw21cam2• 9 years ago

Assuming "FB" means Facebook, what if one doesn't have a Facebook account?

Deathmax• 9 years ago

Or manually use FB's redirect:

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/...

thg2• 9 years ago

If you're browsing with Firefox, the "Bypass Paywalls" Add-on is really neat. No further workarounds necessary.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywall...

AnonymousPlanet• 9 years ago

What is even the point of posting a paywalled article to a forum like this? Anyone who puts content behind a login does not wish it to be linked in an open forum. Period. If the WSJ wants their articles shared and discussed, they should build and maintain their own HN behind that paywall and keep it there.

Your suggestion of going via FB makes things even worse. Now there are two walls involved in keeping others out.

Or am supposed to keep a plethora of logins at hand just to participate in an open community?

jackyinger• 9 years ago

The same thing is happening in the US. The difference is that the authorities here use much more subtle methods so it doesn’t appear pervasive.

It is known that use and abuse of stingrays is rife in our cities and gag orders allow even wider silent collection of data we give up willingly to tech companies because we can’t see what’s done with it.

rqs• 9 years ago

Well, at least you can protest about it.

In China, collecting your bio data is more like a procedure than a choose.

For example, I renewed my citizen ID card few weeks ago, and got my facial and fingerprint collected.

Also, some companies like Alibaba are helping the data collection: https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/03/alipay-facial-recognitio... and http://www.solidot.org/story?sid=47235 (In Chinese)

I believe all those data will be used to help tracking people.

yadongwen3• 9 years ago

it's bad for humanity but seems like most countries capable of doing this are following this trend now. any possible way to avoid this path? i doubt.

btw, your example is pretty weak. my facial features were collected many times in the last two weeks in US in airports and companies i visited

Animats• 9 years ago

In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement a Big Brother system competently. Every little police department has their own system, and private sector systems aren't integrated with government systems. Look at the mess in DC - their camera system was taken over by a botnet. Not even to use the camera data, just to mooch network resources.

There's an business opportunity here. There's an outsourced surveillance industry, but it's small.[1] One of the big players has only 9,000 cameras. Nobody has scaled this yet.

Amazon might. They've already convinced millions of people to put a microphone in every room, reporting to Amazon HQ. Now they're getting into cameras and door locks.

Google, probably not. Their Nest unit makes stuff that looks good, but doesn't work well.

[1] http://stealthmonitoring.com/

hi-im-mi-ih• 9 years ago

I recommend against purchasing surveillance services from a company that does not have HTTPS on their landing page.

kbart• 9 years ago

"In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement a Big Brother system competently."

NSA begs your pardon..

nyolfen2• 9 years ago

In the US, law enforcement is split among too many organizations to implement a Big Brother system competently. Every little police department has their own system, and private sector systems aren't integrated with government systems.

look up so-called 'fusion centers'

fortythirteen• 9 years ago

The same thing is happening in the US.

Apologist nonsense. Have any of your neighbors been sent to reeducation camps?

Statements like this minimize the plight of these people.

Are authorities overstepping the bounds of the fourth amendment? Yes, and we should continue to fight them every step of the way. But we are still the country with the highest level of individual liberty in the whole world.

OisinMoran• 9 years ago

Do you have a good source for levels of individual liberty by country? Would be pretty cool to see how some places stack up

floatboth• 9 years ago

Wasn't New Zealand the country with the highest level of liberty?

Also, yeah, no reeducation camps, but cops getting away with murder all the time…

jimmies2• 9 years ago

I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing.

I was in Singapore, a rich, orderly state for an internship a couple of years ago. There were cameras everywhere: Cameras on the sidewalks, cameras on the staircases, cameras in residential apartments, cameras in the subway, cameras at the workplace. There were very few places I feel not watched. I have to hunt for them. This is very contrasted with the US, where mostly I feel that I have my privacy and trusted to do the right thing. That's a very powerful feeling.

But that is going away with smartphone cameras and surveillance cameras. They are getting cheaper, and no one is here to be fighting against them. Maybe that's a one-way road, there is not much we can do about it. Maybe that's for the better, but somehow I feel life is much more boring that way.

fellellor• 9 years ago

Isn't it the same in UK? I read somewhere there 1 cctv camera for every 10 citizens in that country.

Steve44• 9 years ago

I read recently that figure was done by extrapolating the cameras visible in one section of a street in London to the UK as a whole. I've had a look and can't find that particular link.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveilla...
Britain has a CCTV camera for every 11 people, a security industry report disclosed, as privacy campaigners criticised the growth of the “surveillance state”.
The survey’s maximum estimate works out at one for every 11 people in the UK, although the BSIA said the most likely figure was 4.9 million cameras in total, or one for every 14 people.
“Because there is no single reliable source of data no number can ever be held as truly accurate however the middle of our range suggests that there are around five million cameras.”

and also from 2008 :-

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+...
The Claim : > "A CCTV camera for every 14 citizens." David Davis, resignation statement, 12 June 2008
The basis comes from a survey of the number of CCTV cameras in two busy south London streets, Putney High Street and Upper Richmond Road.
The researchers sampled 211 "premises" - banks, estate agents, pubs, shops and office blocks - and found that 41 per cent had CCTV systems, with an average of 4.1 cameras per system.
By assuming this is "broadly representative" of CCTV coverage across the whole of London, the authors estimate that 41 per cent, or 102,910, of the 251,000 VAT-registered businesses registered in London would have a CCTV system. Multiply this by 4.1 and there would be 421,931 cameras.
Bingo - there's the claim, but we've got to it based on two London streets, multiplied out to reflect the whole of London, and then multiplied again to reflect the whole country.
When counting cameras, he reckons it's also important to look at what exactly they are monitoring. "Some may be in a private business such as a corner shop, some may be one camera outside a pub that isn't actually monitored, something like a building society may have more cameras 'back of house' which are not actually on the public," he said.

kurtisc• 9 years ago

Usually pointing at private land or with signs if they can move. There's also number plate recognition on major roads and services. I don't really get the fuss, it's more private than having a security guard watch you. And they work at preventing crime and tracking people who commit them.

I'm surprised people from other countries aren't more turned off by our speeding cameras. I don't like them.

yadongwen3• 9 years ago

Didn't know Singapore has so many cams as well. But then it's one of the safest countries and in the US i dare not walking alone in many places not worrying about being robbed..

agorabinary• 9 years ago

Whether your wallet or your privacy, you are being robbed regardless.

darklajid• 9 years ago

Singapore just looks/looked at Malaysia the last couple days because a man was killed in a rather spectacular fashion - and everything's on camera..

(I live in Singapore. I'm not a fan of CCTVs, not at all. Locals all seem to be fine with them so far, even happily quoting that they make life saver as a consequence and therefor are a Good Thing)

profalseidol• 9 years ago

lol, haven't you heard of Snowden?

crdb3• 9 years ago

Funny how these things work... I've lived in Singapore for close to 7 years, have permanent residence, and it is when I travel to the US that I feel slightly uncomfortable.

It starts with the immigration agent who sometimes feels the need to ask me questions for 20 minutes as if I were a criminal, there's the part where they get to look through all your social media accounts and hold you indefinitely, and then there's the thought of a traffic stop by a bored cop "degenerating"... it's tough to travel to countries like these when you're used to a polite government whose agents treat you, the foreigner, with consideration and like a customer.

For example, when I went to my PR interview, my medical checks had expired (and it was transparent I had hoped to get away with it); the lady very helpfully opened up a slot for me a few hours later and recommended me a range of clinics nearby to do the missing medical checks. A breath of fresh air after dealing with the French and other "first world" governments...

No CCTV in my street except for the hedge that borders the Istana 100m away. We do get the odd police car patrolling the perimeter, but since the President lives there and the Prime Minister works there, I can understand. As for the US, I've never been in a building with more than a couple storeys that did not have CCTV, so I'm curious about your frame of reference there (most of Singapore consists of 20+ storey buildings). I've never been in a US mall or office building without CCTV. The only reason my residential building in NYC did not have CCTV was because it was pre-war; it also didn't have working heating, and I'd rather have had both.

I do agree that Singapore is probably not the place to move if you enjoy a suburban lifestyle in a big house with a garden.

edit - here's something you can't do in the US: my friend and I bought a couple craft beers from a Japanese supermarket, then sat down on public benches in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum (opposite CBD and the Fullerton Hotel), cracked them open and sipped them slowly in front of the view.

gvurrdon• 9 years ago

Agreed about the customs officials - travel to the US is no longer pleasant.

Concerning government officials, for a few years I lived in the same town as the prime minister of the UK. I used to see them walking about town or in shops, sometimes alone, sometimes with family, but never with any security escort. The CCTV cameras there are mostly private ones in shops, as far as I can tell.

refurb• 9 years ago

There are states where you can drink in public places. CT comes to mind. Not all public places, but most.

kbos87• 9 years ago

I guess it’s all relative. I too feel like the US is a surveillance state on some level, but nothing compares to the UK - arriving at Heathrow feels downright dystopian. I guess it’s just what you are used to.

jimmies2• 9 years ago

All you said is true.

Forget to mention, aside from that, I love Singapore in general and I have no illusion that the US is getting more hostile by the day. I have been in the US as a foreigner for 10 years. Last time I came back, I was hassled and treated like a piece of shit by a customs official, too (and I love how they ask for social accounts now, I hope they don't ask for HN?). Recently I was extremely upset having so much difficulties getting my driver's license renewed. I think the new Trump thing made it so much worse too, but I'd rather not dig into the Trump thing. In Singapore? Government officials did treat me like a human, I absolutely loved that.

However, once you're in in the US, you have NYC, Chicago, SF and you also have Smallville or Lancesterville in the middle of nowhere. In those supposedly backward, homophobic X-villes, you can see part of why some people love the US so much. It's still the life we love in the 80s-90s movies like Back in the future or Groundhog day. They have no cameras, people greet you on the street, and you can go for miles and miles by car, bike, or on foot and you wouldn't see any other person.

Yeah, I get it, it's not legal drinking a beer in the public. I used to live in a rented house downtown with other graduate students in a relatively big town that houses the state's biggest college. During the summertime weekends, we often just drank and smoked and played the guitar (and flute, and banged on broken guitar) all night long on the front porch and watched the cops patrolled by. The other day in X-ville, we smoked our asses out one night. The next morning, I jumped on my friend's 70s truck and saw a 6-pack of beers, some new, some empty. I asked whether we should move it back, and I quote his answer, "Have some man, it's X-ville, no one actually gives a fuck." We blasted an FM channel full of country songs, cranked the window down, and I rode shotgun in a glorious sunrise.

Diederich• 9 years ago

there's the part where they get to look through all your social media accounts and hold you indefinitely

Wow, so I've been hearing chatter about that for a while now, but I had no idea of how common it was.

I would like to ask you for some clarifications if you don't mind.

Do you think that such social media snooping as you described is fairly common? Do you think you might be in some classification of people that make it more likely? What do you think would happen if you refused? What do you think would happen if you legitimately deleted all of your social media accounts, thus making it impossible to comply?

Thank you kindly.

nova220332• 9 years ago

ask me questions for 20 minutes as if I were a criminal,

Immigration agents aren't the most polite people in the world but how does the immigration agent know you are not a criminal? It's his job to figure that out without holding up the line.

the thought of a traffic stop by a bored cop "degenerating"

Did that happen to you or is that something you'd imagine happening to you? Most encounters with the police for traffic violations are professional and dare I say courteous.

cr0sh• 9 years ago

Something to note about cameras in the US:

The vast majority of them are private, not government. Those that are private, many are misconfigured, aren't recording, are broken (either the camera or the backend), or are just plain fake cameras.

The government ones are usually not much better: I've had incidents where I've asked about CCTV footage at a post office, and I was told the camera wasn't hooked up (granted, maybe that's a standard line unless you are a cop with a warrant or something).

In a similar fashion, I've had something like that told to me by security at an office parking lot (I think my car was run into or something). Of course, maybe that was just a CYA response standard to keep the management company from being liable in some manner...

I have cameras at my house. They monitor my yard and doors, and store events on my ZoneMinder server (which also emails me the events). I try to keep it in working order.

Finally, those that are government and monitored, etc - just like everywhere else - none of that footage is looked at until long after the fact of something happening. The real fear is with various facial recognition, gate recognition, and "threat recognition" software being used - identifying people as false-positives for innocent things (while missing the identification of actual threats).

olalonde• 9 years ago

I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing.

The cameras aren't there for you...

hux_• 9 years ago

American beliefs about their freedom are just that - BELIEFS.

The underlying implication ALWAYS is the Chinese and Singaporeans or whoever can't think for themselves about what is good for their societies and therefore need American moral guidance and leadership.

This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization. They needed a reason cause by the 18th century, most of the local population had begun to wonder why their kids needed to get shipped off to get killed all over the planet.

Read the views of an Indian or and African or a Brazilian visiting Singapore from more unstable homelands and see what their views are on surveillance is.

Or better still pick up last month's natgeo on global happiness and ask yourself why Singapore tops the happiness index in Asia despite the surveillance. There is no one size fits all cultures solution to social problems.

nyolfen2• 9 years ago

This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization.

this is a little tired. you can say this to literally any criticism of a developing nation.

nate_meurer4• 9 years ago

Oh really, just beliefs?

Is it merely my "belief" that I can publicly criticize our government in whatever way I want (short of threats) without fear of government reprisal?

Is it merely my belief that no transaction with any bureaucracy, government or otherwise, has ever required me to pay a bribe, and that being asked for one would be offensive and probably just inconceivable to any American?

Your defense of authoritarian regimes is a simple-minded rehash of "at least the trains ran on time". There's nothing clever or new about it; for all of history depots have used safety and convenience to justify stripping people of basic human rights.

zipwitch2• 9 years ago

I also live in the US. I think your feeling is just that.

Two of my neighbors have internet-connected surveillance cameras around their homes. There are cameras at most street lights. The police have cameras in their cars, including ones that scan license plates automatically.

I live near a school, which is festooned with cameras (and has a constant police presence, too, with their car and body cameras). The stores I shop at have cameras mounted everywhere, mostly behind shaded plastic globes so they're not obvious. (Small businesses tend to have fewer cameras, but still have them.) ATMs have cameras, as do gas stations. My workplace has cameras at entrances, elevators, stairwells and hallways.

And that's before we get into cellphones, Facebook and government surveillance, or the advertising- and data-mining-driven stalkerware that haunts you on the internet.

It is not that you are trusted to do the right thing. It's just that until you somehow gain the attention of some persons or powers with access to all that surveillance, they don't care what you do.

JoeAltmaier• 9 years ago

Hm. I live in the US. Our police have no cameras. None on the streets, none around the vast majority of homes. None in the schools. Shops have fake ones behind plastic globes (that's why the globes are there; so you don't know that all but 1 or two by the door are fake). Businesses have none.

nova220332• 9 years ago

From the article

The faces and ID cards of Xinjiang residents are scanned. Near the Xinjiang University campus in Urumqi, police sat at a wooden table recently, ordering some people walking by to hand over their phones.

Yeah...life in the US is exactly like that..

chrischen2• 9 years ago

Tell that to a black guy.

oh_sigh• 9 years ago

Think of it this way: The cameras are there to prevent people who aren't doing the right thing from hurting you or other innocents.

autokill• 9 years ago

http://archive.is/pMV4U

sigsergv• 9 years ago

link without paywall https://t.co/EOOtSYkBRf

kccqzy2• 9 years ago

I have a friend who’s born in Xinjiang and she told me this kind of control goes far beyond just surveillance, physical control, ID checks and whatnot. In a very Orwellian way, it also extends to control of the mind. Schools, government agencies, and local companies have to have their students and employees routinely recite propaganda about “ethnic unity” and relevant official policies and conduct routine tests to make sure these things are memorized.

Big Brother isn’t just watching you, it’s also trying to sneak its way into your mind.

zipwitch2• 9 years ago

America is much better about this sort of thing. Aside from a few obvious holdover examples like the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem, the US doesn't bother with such ham-handed, last century techniques.

It's much easier to just coerce the media and get the public to consume the propaganda as entertainment.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/21/entertainment/la-ca-...

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-...

xster2• 9 years ago

And the native culture is thriving. All tribal languages are taught at school. No child is being sent to resident schools and getting sexually abused. The native population is has lower rates of suicide, substance abuse, obesity, poverty etc.

Sorry, I had to.

mr_data• 9 years ago

Typical. "I have a friend" comment. So many propagandist comments on HN lately with "I have a friend" or "I have a coworker".

kccqzy2• 9 years ago

Well yeah I get it that the HN crowd tends to have a love for hard data, but still I think HN is still a human community that welcomes anecdotes and personal communications. HN is not trying to be a strange comment-based Wikipedia where everything must be verifiable and objective. Telling stories is one of the oldest ways human communities thrive. But you don't have to believe my story; you could probably satisfy your curiosity by closing this tab and go read featured articles on Wikipedia.

l33tbro• 9 years ago

The idea of Bubba the local beat cop packet-sniffing my smartphone and arbitrarily detaining me "because encryption" is a mortifying thought. Hopefully it remains nothing more than a far-fetched concern here in the West, but I wouldn't count on it.

pajop• 9 years ago

if you're behind a paywall: http://archive.is/pMV4U

softwarelimits• 9 years ago

The video is available here: https://youtu.be/OQ5LnY21Hgc

thinkhard3• 9 years ago

I'd rather be watched by surveillance camera than killed by extremists.

How about you?

It is inevitable; before 911 there was almost no security check in airports. Boarding was not too much difference than shopping in Walmart.

This is one kind of insurance: most time accident is not happening, but when it happens it can be deadly.

Life consists of compromises. Some are unavoidable.

SCHiM• 9 years ago

Hah!

There's less people getting killed by extremists than people dying from tangling in their bed sheets (or something similar).

Not only is it a a bad trade. Camera's and surveillance don't stop well planned terrorists attacks. At a certain 'level' of terrorism, or any combative action in enemy territory, you operate under the assumption that you'll get caught and/or killed.

If you truly cared about the loss of life you'd be campaigning against the current speedlimit for cars, and the fact that there's no mandatory alcohol locks for starting your car.

jeromegv• 9 years ago

How many people killed by extremists in the US last year? Are you suggesting that US should increase their security to the same level as China (and implement a police state) to avoid more extremists death?

taobility2• 9 years ago

You should talk to the relatives who killed by those terrorist. You wouldn't feel the pain as you still alive

thinkhard3• 9 years ago

Have you ever been to China?

You can walk 24/7 in any city in China without worrying your safety.

Tell me you dare to walk midnight in downtown New York or LA or Chicago.

nicoolai• 9 years ago

I went to Urumqi about 10 years ago. It was nothing like this. It was actually an amazing place, full of diverse culture and awesome people.

In 2009, when these riots happened, I remember we lost complete contact with the factory there. The Chinese government simple cut all communication in and out of the region, till they had the situation under control.

dghughes• 9 years ago

I couldn't read the linked story but I did see a video of this on a different news site.

What I found chilling was the level of technology. Each camera has AI built into it, your gait is tracked, your gender is tracked, your relationships are tracked going back one week.

The person being interviewed I don't know if he was proud of it or trying to calm fears by what he said. The point of the system he said is to gather as much data as possible on everyone so they can predict crime, very Minority Report-like stuff. So to calm everyone his point was we will know everything you do all the time in such detail we'll know your daily patterns. Lord help you if you are a spontaneous mood one day.

justicezyx• 9 years ago

Did you know how many people are killed each year in Xinjiang? Because of what western media called "understandable opposition from oppressed descendants of the CCP", where the killed are all just innocent people?

OK tell me, what the hell the local government should do to stop the terrorism attack?!

neaden• 9 years ago

Allow more autonomy in traditionally autonomous regions. Allow the free practice of religion including fasting during ramadan: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/china-bans-ramadan-fas... Take more input from citizens who live there and allow them to have a stake in the governing proccess that includes future changes.

jruthers• 9 years ago

I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of article.

Although the content of the article scares me personally, it would be interesting to have more of a discourse about more plausible reasons why this kind of surveillance is "good" from a genuine different perspective. One mistake the Chinese govt makes is never explaining themselves in a plausible way so it always comes across as Orwellian. Further, because no Chinese national is supposed to acknowledge the govt power, most nationals can't comment on it without getting themselves or their family in serious trouble.

I have a (non-Chinese-from-China) friend who works most of the year in China and he explained the surveillance state as "well, if you've got a nation of more than a billion people and a huge range of wealth levels and, culturally, you value stability of the nation more than individual liberty, yeah, you're going to go to extremes on security and surveillance. It's all about ensuring stability and adherence to 'normal' behavior. Yeah it's creepy but it's _safe_ if you stay in line."

I'm not saying I agree with the exchange of individual liberty vs surveillance but it would be refreshing to read more plausible takes on the "China has it right" viewpoint.

jhedwards• 9 years ago

I am a non-Chinese who lived in China and I would talk about this subject with a retired businessman from Beijing who lived next door to me in Sunnyvale. His view was basically what you described: there are a ton of people in China and the vast majority of them were only recently raised out of abject poverty, and on top of that the cultural revolution had a dramatic impact on public education. So the feeling is that there is a massive potential for chaos and that the iron grip of the government prevents that chaos from emerging. I don't know how true that is, but it did feel pretty safe when I lived there, and there _is_ a history of massive riots in China which seems to validate the theory of potential chaos. At any rate, he thought that as China develops and education improves the need for the government to have an iron grip will be lessened and the country will gradually become more free. Time will tell I guess.

avmich• 9 years ago

the feeling is that there is a massive potential for chaos and that the iron grip of the government prevents that chaos from emerging

This is similar to how Russian government presents the situation in Russia, and lots of people getting the information from government channels tend to agree with that.

The difference is that China is moving ahead economically much faster than Russia today. As soon as advancement stops, subsequent talks about maintaining stability are met with slowly growing scepticism. Stability is only good when it a stable advancement or if the state of affairs is perceived as good (i.e., after recent raising out of abject poverty). As soon as stability is preserving the undeserving status quo, it's not as good.

This change of view may not necessarily happen soon after slowdown though.

gumby2• 9 years ago

I'd really like to read more Chinese-from-China views on this kind of article.

Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest of China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who are Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists. The Chinese language is the official one but is not spoken at home by most people there. The central government promotes Han migration/colonization of Xinjiang as they do with Tibet.

So I suspect you'd find most Chinese people outside Xinjiang very supportive of this: the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of China with a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example, how the government of Spain used to describe ETA, or, without the violence, the Catalonian independence movement).

In addition, every time a western politician claims that "all muslims are evil terrorists" it gets printed in China as support for the narrative that these "security" measures are justified (Uyghur separatists have bombed Beijing and other han cities).

I expect this to be routine in OECD countries within the next 20 years. Hell, I remember dystopian movies always had bizarre, pointless "security" announcements as a way of showing how creepy the future had become and how the future didn't believe in people having time to think...and now that happens in every airport and train station in the world! ===

My second paragraph is simply the situation on the ground. The territory around Xinjiang has been under Chinese control for over 250 years; in the preceding millennia it sometimes has; at other times, as part of various Khanates it's been part of empires that controlled China (just as Tibet has at various times been independent; been under the control of China; and been in control of the emperor of China) So depending on what time point you pick you can justify an argument that Beijing's control of the area is "legitimate" or "illegitimate". I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic, not muslim, buddhist, whatever).

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

Hell, I remember dystopian movies always had bizarre, pointless "security" announcements as a way of showing how creepy the future had become

"Hello, this is MBTA Police Cheif Kenneth Green reminding you if you see something, say something"

HowardMei• 9 years ago

|> I have zero connection to any side (not Chinese, not turkic, not muslim, buddhist, whatever).<|

But your information source is limited to English world, which favors separatists over the other side.

|> Note that this level of surveillance is not pervasive throughout the rest of China; this is about a region populated by non-Han Chinese (Uyghurs, a who are Muslim and speak a Turkic language); most han residents are colonists.<|

Hah? Xinjiang was founded after the extinction of Dzungar people who were mongolians. Most han and manchu residents in Xinjiang are desendants of military migrants of Qing dynasty. The Nothern half of Xinjiang had never been populated by Uyghurs and although the Uyghur population has been expanding much more rapidly than other ethinics in Xinjiang, they are NOT the owner of the entire Xinjiang. Please stop repeating these disgusting FAKE claims.

|> the government and newspapers describe it as an integral part of China with a terrorist separatist movement no different from, for example ...<|

They're terrorists. You're a terrorist defender. Pure and simple. Attacking innocent people to attain certain political influnce is the essense of terrorism. I've been fed up by your kind of takiyah and abuse of political correctness.

|> all muslims are evil terrorists <|

It's not true given the Hui muslim in China get many many privileges over Han and other ethnic minorities. One of the most important PRC founding fathers, Zhou Enlai, is a desendant of muslim as his niece recently disclosed. The PRC ethnic and religion policy framework was set up by Zhou Enlai. The Xinjiang problem was sparked by Zhou's wife Deng Yinchao in 1980s. The CCP censoring departments are established and controlled by Hui muslim CCP leaders according to the Criminal Law Act 250/251 (which was set up by a Hui imam in 1997).

In fact, many atheist and agnostic people are fearing the rapid islamization of China society, especially the legal/eductional sectors and the hatred the Hui CCP leaders showing towards Han and other secular ethinic groups.

In conclution, you know NOTHING about the REAL China. Han people don't have the proprotional ruling power and influence over the CCP elites with respect to the population scale. Keeping China as an integral nation is the responsibility of the PRC government, not the duty of common Han people. It's Hui wumaos who have been yelling to nuke Taiwan.

REPEAT AGAIN: Zhou Enlai was a Hui deceived as Han and set up a lot of laws against so called "Han chauvinism". This month alone there are two legal cases sentenced 2 Han people into jail for humiliating respectful historical ethnic figures.

Downvote me as you wish. Given the twisted information the English media keep spreading, I won't be surprised there'll be a civilization collision between West and East, beneficial to all muslims, if one day the Han people fight back the islamization led by those Hui CCP elites.

Great civilizations never fail to rising challengers but always fail to their own arrogance and ignorance.

stuffedBelly2• 9 years ago

I am a non-Han (the Yi tribe to be exact) Chinese from China and grew up in a province next to Tibet called Yunnan. One of the reasons surveillance is heavier in Xinjiang is because of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. They are basically the ISIS equivalent in China and have had carried out quite a few terrorist attacks.

One of the attacks happened in a train station in Kunming where my parents' home is close to and caused mass casaulty in 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack). Surveillance in the Uyghur area has got a lot tighter since. Just like the Middle East issues to US and other western countries, Ugyhur issues to China are quite complicated. However, if the bottom line on stability/security of an area is crossed by a particular ethnic group (Uyghur Muslim in this case), maximum surveillance/crackdown would be imposed.

Areas such as Tibet, Xinjiang and Yunnan tend to get heavier surveillance treatment given their track record of independent movements. Yunnan once had its own independent military force called Dian Jun (滇军) but it soon got acquired by the Chengdu military force after the Sino-Vietnamese war due to trust issues between the Yunnan local government and the central Chinese government.

xster2• 9 years ago

The CIA's overt branch NED doesn't exactly hide that they fund separatist movements in Xinjiang either.

ChampTruffles2• 9 years ago

Chinese from China here. I live nowhere near these places (Xinjiang and Tibet), I can say I agree with you mostly, but I highly suspect my opinion is popular here. The level of surveillance is scary but as discussed above, it is probably not uncommon. What scared me more is that any of these is not up to discuss and to be acknowledged in China, like even though I am shocked by this article I would not share it on any of my social media for obvious reasons. And for people like most of my family and friends who live far away from there, if you personally don't know anyone from Xinjiang then big chance you don't know what's happening there as it never broadcast in any sort. News like this can only be read by passing the GFW and by people who know English, real journalism in China is dead. So when 99% of this massive population only fed on what the authority gave them, the authority has virtually no control and everyone just live at their mercy. So basically if someone agrees on the safety > liberty, then I say lucky you. For anyone who disagrees with the authority action, can only suck it up and accept the reality.

songco• 9 years ago

I was born in Xinjiang and lived there for more than 20 years. My parents still live there.

It's a complex thing and in my hometown, no one complain the surveillance generally.

Twelve Days in Xinjiang: How China’s Surveillance State Overwhelms Daily Life

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