The Opposite End of China || Xinjiang & Northwest China Blog (中国的另一端 ||...
News, information, and hearsay about northwest China from a blogger based deep inside the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.



My Own Personal Visa Hell (Jul 2)
Ah, the pleasures of obtaining a new China visa just a month before the Olympics! I went into New York yesterday to drop off my application and paperwork for a Z (working) visa and was completely and utterly rejected. Seems that my working permit indicates that I'll be living in China for purposes of employment, while my invitation letter says I'll be participating in a vague-sounding "exchange program". My employer ensures me that this is the same phrasing they've used to obtain Z visas for other foreign experts in the past... but as you all know, what used to be good enough isn't cutting the mustard these days. A new invitation letter is on the way, but since it's issued by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs there's no telling how long it'll take. My flight back to Beijing on July 17 is in serious jeopardy. Not that I'm the only one complaining, by any means. Having it out with a visa officer in the line next to mine was what I think — using my super-powers of...


The Other Ethnic Tension (Jun 25)
Not much time to write, as I'm off to the U.S. tomorrow for a visa run. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll finally be getting a working (Z) visa after three years of scrounging around for business (F) visas. I might have been able to get the new visa in Hong Kong rather than heading halfway across the world, but nobody can say for sure in these pre-Olympic times... and it'll be good to be home for the 4th of July. I'm looking forward to my first (and second and third, etc.) non-Uyghur summer barbecue since 2004. I want to point out an interesting article in the LA Times about ethnic tensions out west — particularly in Qinghai — between Tibetan and Hui (Chinese Muslim) residents:
"Waitress, there's a tooth in my soup," a Tibetan woman said indignantly.

Before long, a curious crowd of Tibetans gathered around the soup bowl. Restaurant owner Yun Sha came out of the kitchen and insisted that the offending item was just a chip off a lamb bone. "Let's trash this restaurant," Yun hea...


Setting Them Free. Maybe. (Jun 24)
This will undoubtedly not be the end of the long legal journey for Uyghurs being held without reason in Guantanamo Bay, but it's a step in the right direction. From the NY Times: After the first court review of the basis for holding a Guantánamo detainee, the federal appeals court in Washington has overturned the Pentagon’s decision and ordered that the man be released or given a new military hearing.

The ruling involved a detainee, Huzaifa Parhat, one of 17 Guantánamo detainees who are ethnic Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority in western China. The imprisonment of the Uighur detainees has drawn wide attention, largely because of their lawyers’ claim that they were never enemies of the United States and were mistakenly swept into Guantánamo. So, congratulations Huzaifa, for stickin' it to George W. Bush. I hope you and your buddies are released soon into some sort of protection program in the US. Maybe we can get together for some kebabs and kosher hot dogs next 4th of July? Si...


Image of the Day (Jun 17)




Olympic Fever in Xinjiang (Jun 15)
Two vaguely related news items today, both of which tie into the whole pre-Olympic security craziness we've been living through in China lately... First, the Olympic torch is heading to Xinjiang on Wednesday... probably. Surprised? So is everybody else, because the festivities have suddenly been moved forward a week. The torch relay was kinda maybe sorta supposed to go through Tibet this week, but those plans are up in the air and very hush hush. (Translation: nobody know what the f#%! is going on.) AFP has published a prequel follow-up on the whole "Uyghurs bomb a police station" story from last week. The first article indicated that the attack was in response to a heavy-handed police crackdown in Xinjiang. This article — again based on an interview with a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress — fleshes out a few details:
China has tightened controls on Muslims in its remote west ahead of the Olympic torch's arrival next week to thwart any actions aimed at disrupting the rela...


Tianjin TV, tonight! (Jun 13)
It's official... in less than 24 hours the entire country will know that I'm an ass. If you're in the Middle Kingdom and own a television, make an effort to watch China Right Here on Tianjin TV tonight (Saturday) at 6pm. Hear me talk about never leaving Xinjiang, always being the sundried tomato king, and various other nonsense. Watch me ride a camel, as if that's something I did every day. Sigh. The previous entries about making this program are here and here. I'll try to get a copy of the show and upload it to YouTube someday, unless one of you beats me to it.


Softening 'Em Up II (Jun 11)
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights held a hearing on extraordinary rendition and other delights of the War on Terror on Tuesday, June 10th. After making their way through the finer points of extralegal prisoner transfers and the torture methods employed by the U.S. and our allies, the conversation turned to the Uyghurs marooned at Guantanamo Bay. John Bellinger — previously a legal adviser to the National Security Council and currently shoveling shit over at the State Department — served as the Bush administration witness du jour. A transcript of the hearing indicates that there is at least some congressional support for allowing the Uyghurs in limbo to start new lives in the United States:
BELLINGER: You mentioned the case of the Uighurs, I think, Mr. Rohrabacher. But that's where diplomatic assurances come in, because if we don't have a good alternative, if the alternative is to let the person go into the United States, I think you will be hearing from y...


Xinjiang, 1941. (Jun 9)
I was checking out Frog in a Well's interesting collection of 20th century Chinese currency, when I suddenly remembered taking the picture you see above two years ago in the Xinjiang Museum. I'm not exactly sure if you can call it a bank note (it says something about being a "construction bond"), but the imagery is fantastic and it comes from an interesting period in Xinjiang history. The text along the bottom reads "printed in the 30th year of the Republic of China" above the date, 1941... during the decade between the briefly independent First and Second East Turkestan Republics, when Sheng Shicai ruled with an iron fist and Moscow more or less called the shots in Xinjiang. Chairman Mao's little brother, Mao Zemin, was living in Urumqi at the time and became the proud father of a baby boy that year, named Mao Yuanxin. (Mao Zemin and his pregnant wife were arrested by Sheng Shicai and the baby was born in prison. Mao Zemin was executed in Urumqi two years later, and the baby gr...


Uyghurs Attack Police Station (Jun 6)
Late news tonight from AFP of an attack on a police station last week in Sangong, Xinjiang. The town appears to be right near China's border with Kazakhstan:
Ethnic Uighur Muslims in western China have attacked a police station with rocks and petrol bombs to protest a pre-Olympic crackdown, an exiled group said Friday.

The petrol bomb attack occurred last week in Sangong township in China's western-most Xinjiang region, Dilxat Raxit, spokesman of the German-based World Uighur Congress, told AFP.

Local police confirmed the attack when asked by AFP, but refused to comment further on the case.

Raxit said it was prompted by a police crackdown aimed at heading off unrest among the Uighurs, the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang region, ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.
No further details at the moment, but I'll check again in the morning and update this post if anything new comes out. The AFP article is posted below.


Don't Forget Gansu (Jun 4)
Up in the title bar I claim to focus on northwest China, though that almost always means writing about Xinjiang, and occasionally Tibet. Today, though, I'd like to turn your attention to Gansu for a moment. When the earthquake struck on May 12, Sichuan was absolutely devastated, but southern Gansu was also hit hard. 364 people were killed and thousands of buildings were damaged or destroyed. The scale of the disaster pales in comparison to what happened in Mianyang, Mianzhu, Aba, etc... but there are plenty of other people out there blogging about Sichuan. An article in yesterday's South China Morning Post publicized Gansu earthquake victims' complaints that the aid they're receiving is inadequate and slow to arrive:
Zhang Quanshou, party secretary of Ranjia village, reachable only by a treacherous switchback mountain road, said they desperately needed more tents. All 72 houses in the village had collapsed.

"We know the governments are not deserting us, but we do need more help,"...