zlacker

OK, Xinjiang is basically a low level war zone/prison camp.

Quite different from the rest of China.

>>Burnin+(OP)
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.

>>dirtyi+W3
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+Ya
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+fc
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+xe
I hope you mean population, not ovulation.

>>Quercu+Ex
Yikes! Fixed.

>>Burnin+(OP)
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.

>>seanmc+Ya
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.