zlacker

This bit is important: "Foreigners crossing certain Chinese borders into the Xinjiang region"...

I'm not aware of Chinese authorities getting quite that draconian (yet) at the normal border entry points in Beijing, Shanghai, etc. However, I think it's still worth following the general advice that if you have sensitive data on your devices, leave them at home and use a burner phone/laptop + restore from the cloud later.

>>mdoraz+(OP)
The same goes for a lot of EU to US travel I've been told...

>>mdoraz+(OP)
OK, Xinjiang is basically a low level war zone/prison camp.

Quite different from the rest of China.

>>Burnin+ra
Rest of China is captured by wechat anyways. This is only really useful for foreign reporters travelling in XinJiang. China could technically just ban foreigners from travelling there but somehow thinks the optics of this is better.

>>mdoraz+(OP)
There are million of people arriving in China every year - it would be impossible to do that at their major ports of entry.

>>mdoraz+(OP)
I don’t think they would even do this if you flew into Urumqi. Just if you crossed a border from one of the stans into xinjiang, and fen these are mostly closed to westerners.

>>dirtyi+ne
It is weird because there are no travel restrictions for foreigners going to Xinjiang (mostly, some places are off limits), you just buy a plane or train ticket. Going to Tibet is a lot harder for foreigners.

>>seanmc+pl
I think Tibet still very much has Western imagination captured whereas Uyghar Muslims... do not. Even more cynical analysis, Xinjiang is fundamentally an exercise in reducing the real problem of Islamic radicalization and the non response from many countries (including Muslim ones) is that they are quietly observing to see if the experiment pays off. The danger of Xinjiang is that surveillance state + "vocational" reintegration camps might actually be a productive model that can be exported elsewhere.

>>dirtyi+Gm
Xinjiang is also much larger population (21 million+) wise than Tibet (3 million+), along with the former having a much larger Han population, making restrictions much harder (and less appealing) to implement logistically.

>>seanmc+Yo
I hope you mean population, not ovulation.

>>Quercu+5I
Yikes! Fixed.

>>Burnin+ra
When I visited back in 2006 it felt like an occupied country. All the people were ethnic Uyghurs and only the police and military were Han Chinese. It was also the only part of China I visited where the police carried guns. Not only did they carry guns, but they were fully automatic weapons, not just something simple like a pistol.

>>mdoraz+(OP)
And don't bother restoring from the cloud, if any malware gets installed on your device at the border

>>mdoraz+(OP)
Agreed. I would say the same thing coming into America. Even if you are American. I always refuse to fill out the paper while reentering my own damn country, unless I'm travelling with others. But that means I get pushed to secondary every time. Usually only Hispanic and middle eastern people in there. But the border control agents can take and search anything they want. So I say probably do the same for coming into America on the chance they send you to secondary.

>>seanmc+pl
The reality for accredited journalists attempting to visit Xinjiang is somewhat different to what's written down, or what a western backpacker on a tourist visa will be subjected to.

Hire a car+driver? Mysteriously cancelled at the last minute. Pressure on any translaters/fixers you may have. Drive somewhere that isn't the hotel? Find that there's an accident and you can't pass that way. Shops that close, constant tailing from security and police, general harassment, and nobody will talk to you because they believe they'll disappear.