China Journal
How China is changing - and changing the world
Jul 6, 2009
5:28 AM
News of Sunday’s riots in Urumqi, the capital of China’s far west Xinjiang region spread quickly on the Internet, where users posted amateur photos and videos of the violence and its aftermath, including images of lifeless-looking bodies piled on the streets. The official death toll keeps rising, from three on Sunday night to the current 140.
The flow of information on Xinjiang stands in marked contrast to the last major incidence of unrest in the region. In February 1997, members of the Muslim Uighur minority rioted in the frontier city of Yining. Those riots were reportedly put down by violence, though details about what happened remain sketchy. The official death toll was nine, though Uighur activists and human rights groups claimed it was much higher, reaching into the hundreds.
But while officials have been quick to revise the death toll upwards, there are also signs of discomfort with the rapid transmission of news from unofficial sources. Urumqi residents reported that they were unable to access the Internet on Sunday and Monday. Internet users in other parts of Xinjiang also reported service disruptions.
Meanwhile, on Monday, as “China’s Xinjiang,” “Xinjiang” and “China” were making their way up Twitter’s top trending topics list, users of the popular micro-blogging service in China reported that Twitter.com was unavailable, though access to Twitter accounts was still possible through third-party software applications. In early June, just before the 20th anniversay of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Twitter and a number of other Web sites suddenly became inaccessible in China, though access to most sites was restored soon after the sensitive date of June 4.
At the same time, it appears that authorities are also welcoming the mainstream media to report on the conflict. Unlike in the late 1990s, when media was banned from the region, today Xinjiang remains open to foreign journalists. The State Council Information Office has even set up a reception desk in Urumqi for domestic and foreign reporters, where they can check in to receive guidance and schedules of planned press conference, without further restrictions, according to the SCIO.
–Sky Canaves
source：http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2009/07/06/a-dual-strategy-on-xinjiang-and-the-media/
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