China's Crackdown Trade-offs: Communications vs Entertainment

Aug 28, 2009

A young Urumqi girl checks out a poster of rioters caught after the riot between the Uighur and Han Chinese population where 146+ people died (above) and market goers in Kashi and Tashkurgan do likewise (below). In such a highly charged environment they'll likely be receiving a death sentence.

Given the recent tragic events what was the atmosphere like? The troop presence on the streets of Urumqi were relatively low compared to both Lhasa and Kashi - the latter having a constant stream of 3 trucks convoys bristling with soldiers, rifles facing onto the streets circling the city. If you want a sense of post-net-apocalypse life Xinjiang province is a good place to start - the government has cut off all internet access, including phone data services. As much as I'd like to argue that the biggest disruption the shutdown is to challenge/re-enforce people's political/economic/ethnic assumptions, one could argue that the people most put out on a day to day level by a lack of connectivity are those who use the internet cafes for online FPS gaming and downloading/streaming free content. The corner of the grid that is Xinjiang Province is currently a deep shade of dark.

What happens when a government wants to suppress the use of communication tools to formulate dissent, when those same tools are for (many, younger, relatively-likely-to-dissent males) a primary form of entertainment? How do these young males then fill their time?

Spent ten days between field studies in China and Malaysia/Indonesia on the road in Xinjiang Province with the partially unfulfilled aim of taking the China-Pakistan highway all the way up to the Pakistan border - was eventually turned back around 75km from the border - the road shut for foreigners due to the troubles. A road less travelled.

Location:
 China »  Kashi
 China »  Tashkurgan
 China »  Urumqi Keywords:
 border | poster | prisoners | riot