zlacker

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+(OP)
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+h1
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+z3
I hope you mean population, not ovulation.

>>Quercu+Gm
Yikes! Fixed.

>>seanmc+(OP)
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.