One woman’s story of the violence in China’s west
　

UNCERTAINTY: Dong Yuanyuan was a happy newlywed until her husband disappeared as ethnic tensions spilled over into street violence

THE GUARDIAN , URUMQI, CHINA
Monday, Jul 13, 2009, Page 4
　

Dong Yuanyuan should be on honeymoon, sightseeing in Shanghai with her husband. But late on July 5, their bus stopped when a set of traffic lights in Urumqi turned red.

A few seconds earlier and the newlyweds might have escaped the ethnic riot sweeping the city. Instead, the hail of rocks and sticks that crashed down on them began an ordeal that would leave the 24-year-old teacher with injuries to her head, neck, arms and legs — and without her husband.

“I really hope to find him, no matter whether he’s dead or alive. At least I would know something. Now I know nothing. We had just got married and our new life was about to start. Now everything is ...” She did not finish her sentence.

As the capital of China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region appears to be settling into an uneasy calm, policed by a security force of about 20,000 paramilitary, riot and regular officers, Dong is one of thousands counting the cost of the past week’s vicious inter-ethnic violence.

After scouring hospitals, her parents have found one body and one unconscious patient who they believe could be Liang He, 29. They cannot be sure until Dong is well enough to be discharged from Urumqi’s People’s Hospital and to look herself.

On Saturday, the government raised the death toll of the riots to 184 and offered the first ethnic breakdown of the dead: 137 Han Chinese — the dominant ethnic group — and 46 Uighurs, who make up almost half of Xinjiang’s population of 21.3 million. One Hui Muslim also died. More than 1,000 people were injured.

Officials earlier said that 156 people had died on July 5 when peaceful protests over Han killings of two Uighur workers in Guangdong Province, in the south, turned into a mass riot and apparently indiscriminate attacks on mostly Han Chinese.

The state news agency, Xinhua, did not say whether any of the deaths happened last Tuesday, when vengeful Han mobs took to the streets armed with shovels, iron bars and cleavers and savagely assaulted Uighurs. Paramilitaries eventually dispersed them with tear gas.

Some Uighurs in the city voiced disbelief at how few alleged deaths they had suffered. Independent evidence to back claims by exiled Uighurs that the authorities beat to death and shot dead peaceful protesters has not come to light, despite the presence of foreign journalists. But Uighur witnesses told one reporter they had seen police shoot dead two Uighurs.

Many Uighurs reported gunfire and the People’s Hospital said it treated people for gunshot wounds. The government has said rioters were armed.

Human Rights Watch yesterday called for an independent investigation, saying China had presented “a skewed and incomplete picture of the unrest” that had not included attacks on Uighurs or fully accounted for the role of security forces. The authorities accuse Uighur exiles of orchestrating the violence. They deny the claims.

Dong was caught by a group of young Uighur men as she fled the bus with other passengers, losing sight of her husband in the crush.

“They thought I looked like a Han, not a Uighur. The people came and started to beat me. I ran away but they dragged me back. I fell to the ground. Some people punched me as they didn’t have rocks,” she said.

She came around hours later in the darkness, covered in blood; shaken awake by a Hui Muslim woman who hid the newlywed in her home.

“I asked them to find my husband,” Dong said. “But they said there were many people lying out on the streets and the Uighurs were still there. Nobody dared go out to rescue people.”

Instead, Dong lay listening to the sounds of breaking glass, fire spreading through torched vehicles and the roar of the mob sweeping back and forth before police finally suppressed the riot.

“When I was young, many Uighurs were my neighbors and classmates. Nothing like this ever happened. We’ve had very good relations,” Dong said. “Now my Han female friends and I feel a bit scared when we see Uighur men because we were all hurt by them. I’ll still be nice to the friends I know well, but I may feel scared by strange Uighur men.”

The sense of bewilderment is common to many Han in the city. Several said that government policies — such as the one allowing minority couples to have more than one child — favor Uighurs. But Uighurs resent mass Han immigration and strict controls on their religion.

For Dong, crouching on a hospital bed, perhaps it never will. Despite her bloodied eye, bandaged head and widespread scarring, all that bothers her is the fate of her husband.

“My physical injuries may heal soon, but my emotional wounds won’t heal for a long time,” the grieving newlywed said.

Urumqi tense after riots

AP AND AFP , URUMQI, CHINA
Monday, Jul 13, 2009, Page 4
　

State media says the Xinjiang government has raised the injured toll in last week’s riots in the restive Chinese region to 1,680.

The Xinhua news agency said yesterday the number of people wounded during the ethnic violence that broke out on July 5 in the regional capital of Urumqi has increased by nearly 600 from a previous total of more than 1,100, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region said.

The protests on July 5 by minority Uighurs escalated into deadly attacks on members of the Han Chinese majority.

The worst ethnic unrest to hit China in decades left 184 people dead, including 137 Han and 46 Uighur victims, state media said. Uighurs have said they think many more of their group died.

Meanwhile, residents of Urumqi were banned from gathering in public places yesterday for a traditional day of mourning.

Highlighting the extremely fragile nature of an enforced peace between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, riot police also stepped up security in particularly sensitive parts of the city.

“Assemblies, marches and demonstrations on public roads and at public places in the open air are not allowed without police permission,” a notice posted on streets of Urumqi said.

It said that police would disperse public gatherings and detain people who refused to move away, and specifically mentioned that no-one was allowed to carry weapons.

Yesterday was the seventh day since riots.

In Han culture, the seventh day is an important time for mourning the dead.

Relatives are meant to go out into the streets to burn incense and paper money, helping lost souls of the deceased to find their way back home.

But the government was apparently fearful this could ignite further unrest after thousands of Han took to the streets of Urumqi early last week wielding machetes, poles and other makeshift weapons vowing vengeance against Uighurs.

Han mobs were witnessed assaulting two Uighurs in separate attacks then and Uighurs said many other beatings took place despite a huge security presence. The government has not said if anyone died in clashes after the initial July 5 unrest, but Uighurs in the city said that mobs of Han did kill people.

“We are scared. We don’t want to go to the train station or other areas where there are a lot of Han,” said a college-educated Uighur man who did not want his named published. “It’s going to be pretty tense for a while. I think you are going to see people spending more time indoors watching TV.”

But the fear was just as deep on the other side of the ethnic divide.

“No, no, no. It’s still dangerous,” a Han supermarket owner surnamed Lin said when asked if he would venture into the Uighur district of the city’s 2.3 million people. “I had friends who went there yesterday who were threatened by Uighurs and they had to run out of there.”

In one of the most visible signs of increased security in Urumqi yesterday, police again blocked off major roads leading into the main Uighur district after allowing relatively free passage over the previous two days.

Han mobs had descended on to those roads early in the week in their hunt for Uighurs, before mostly being turned back by riot police and soldiers.

Xinjiang has 8 million Uighurs who make up roughly 40 percent of the vast region’s population.

They have long complained about repression and discrimination under Chinese rule, accusations the government insists are baseless.

Residents in other cities and towns across Xinjiang, a sparsely populated region of deserts and mountains that makes up a sixth of China’s territory, also reported intense security and a mood of fear yesterday.

“There are more policemen patrolling the streets. The shops are closing maybe one or two hours earlier than normal,” a Han Chinese shopowner in Kashgar said.

Also See: Rumors, lies and ethnic hatred: Welcome to Shaoguan, China

A silent prayer for common decency

Monday, Jul 13, 2009, Page 8

On Saturday night, in what used to be — and will soon again be — known as the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, a free performance was given by Cloud Gate Dance Theatre.

One of Taiwan’s most successful and treasurable cultural exports, Cloud Gate has for many years offered free summer concerts around Taiwan.

This time, however, founder and artistic director Lin Hwai-min (林懷民) made special mention of the anniversary of the 921 Earthquake — the 10th anniversary.

His comments were followed by a minute’s silence, during which Lin asked for the audience of thousands to close their eyes and pray for the dead and the bereaved.

When the minute was up, the audience opened its eyes to see a lone woman on the stage, twirling in pain and confusion. The dancer continued this motion for an astonishing length of time. Always moving, her body was contorted and her expression changed from distress to horror to exhaustion.

The dance was called Requiem, and the performer was Dung Shu-fen (董淑芬). Those who had not seen this work before could have assumed that it was choreographed to represent and memorialize the terror and misery that befell the victims of Taiwan’s deadliest tremor in a lifetime.

It was, in fact, developed 20 years ago to mark the Tiananmen Square Massacre — a rare artistic acknowledgement in Taiwan at the time of that Chinese atrocity.

As Lin introduced the minute’s silence, he made tactful reference to instability — a hook that could have meant individual economic hardship, local political unease or even the violence in Xinjiang, depending on one’s perspective.

But Lin, a consummate showman and communicator, refused to drag the audience into a lecture on this or that incident or an extended revisiting of the night of Sept. 21, 1999.

Instead, he appealed to the common decency of his crowd, knowing that among them were people of every political description, ethnic background and religious persuasion.

This channeling of common decency allowed general repugnance toward the killings 20 years ago to blend with the sorrow over the deaths of more than 2,000 people 10 years ago, and the effect was powerful.

The crowd, assisted by a team of high school and university volunteers throughout the night, was as silent during that communal prayer as a crowd could be. In that silence, and in that heat, something remarkable and comforting could be felt: a sense of benevolent community and mutual respect on a scale rarely witnessed in secular contexts in this country.

Amid a media environment replete with cynicism and half-truths, the remarkable decency of ordinary Taiwanese is something that this politically fractured society can overlook all too easily.

Lin, who has done his best over the years to express the communal sorrow of both Taiwanese and Chinese, deserves credit and respect not only for presenting his troupe’s best face to a public gathering, but also for enriching them with a respectful and dignified reminder of their own humanity.

The Act that silences academics
　

By Chiu Hei-Yuan 瞿海源
Monday, Jul 13, 2009, Page 8

The Act Governing the Administrative Impartiality of Public Officials (公務人員行政中立法) was passed by the legislature in May and promulgated by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on June 10. The Act prohibits research fellows in public academic institutions from engaging in politics to support or oppose political parties, political organizations or candidates for public office.

Meanwhile, the legislature passed a resolution requiring that the Ministry of Education submit a bill to the legislature subjecting faculty in public universities to a similar ban.

With the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dominating the legislature and the Democratic Progressive Party neglecting its legislative duties, legislation restricting the political rights of academics and teachers has been passed and promulgated by a president who is not paying attention. This shows that the KMT has been going against democratic trends since regaining power.

Article 9 is the core of the Act. It prohibits public officials from participating in political activities. The text of the article severely infringes upon the basic civil right to engage in politics when it states that public servants must not participate in political activities in support of or opposition to political parties, other political organizations or political candidates.

The political party is a key mechanism in a democracy, yet the article deprives public servants and academics of their right to be political. On the surface, the legislation merely places restrictions on academics who support or oppose parties or candidates, but in reality it forbids almost all political comment and activity by academics. What kind of politics is disconnected from political parties?

Activities prohibited by the article include hosting rallies, launching parades and initiating petitions, placing advertisements bearing the names and titles of academics in the mass media, stumping for candidates, joining marches and soliciting votes.

Since June 10, research fellows at Academia Sinica and staff of museums and libraries at all levels have been prohibited from participating in any such activity. In future, the Examination Yuan and the Cabinet could widen the prohibition even further.

The Act adopts different standards for other professionals. For instance, department chairs at private universities are allowed to do what their counterparts at public universities cannot. Research fellows at Academia Sinica are prohibited from doing what university professors can do. The same applies to public school staff, who cannot do what professors are allowed to do.

Implementing legislation to reduce political rights for members of public academic institutions but not for their private counterparts shows just how unnecessary it is.

For example, a department chair at a private university can launch a petition and collect signatures to criticize a political party, but it would be illegal for public university department chairs to do so.

I have participated in many signature campaigns over the years, but I am not allowed to now because I work at Academia Sinica. My old colleagues in the university system can still do so, at least before the Ministry of Education decides to extend “administrative impartiality” to faculty.

The Examination Yuan proposed the Act. The first version was filled with many unreasonable regulations, but the legislature then allowed each legislator to attach more unreasonable conditions. The Examination Yuan had proposed that the Act cover impartiality of “research fellows with administrative duties at public academic institutions,” but legislators proposed that this also cover “research fellows at public academic institutions.” Surprisingly, it was passed.

After examining each article of the Act, I found half of the articles to be problematic. It is astonishing how careless the legislature can be when drafting laws.

During the Martial Law era, Academia Sinica research fellows and department chairs and college deans at public universities were allowed to harshly criticize the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).

Since June 10, they have been prohibited from doing so, and after Ma claims the KMT chairmanship, they will not be able to criticize him either!

The administrative impartiality Act reflects the anti-democratic nature of the KMT, which holds all the reins of government. The situation is even worse now than during the Martial Law era because this Act was implemented in the guise of democracy.

Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica.

China’s actual goals are political

Monday, Jul 13, 2009, Page 8

Since assuming office, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration have aggressively promoted China-leaning economic policies, including direct transport links, Chinese tourism and Chinese investment in the stock and real estate markets.

With opportunism on the rise and under an economic shadow, the Taiwanese public is gradually becoming dependent on China, if not addicted, and may become subject to manipulation by the Chinese government.

The reason the Ma administration has managed to deceive a number of people with its policies is that it is has been calling for a separation of politics and economics, and has claimed that economic exchanges between Taiwan and China do not have to be political.

The government has gone so far as to say that controversial issues can be put aside, and that this means the public would not have to worry that Taiwan might lose its sovereignty, national identity and autonomy in the process.

It is a discourse that is both deceitful and dangerous.

Ma’s rhetoric of separating politics from economics has two pillars.

First, China’s economic power is so strong that it will not only help Taiwan ride out the financial crisis, but also bring the nation prosperity.

Second, China is a philanthropic state that asks for nothing in return; its economic activities relating to Taiwan are constructive and have no political connotations.

These presumptions are demonstrably wrong. For this reason, it is surprising that the Ma administration has managed to avoid stronger public dissatisfaction for failing to boost the economy since taking office more than a year ago.

On the other hand, the public has little choice but to sit on the driftwood of Ma’s policies through a once-in-a-century financial storm even if they know that it is a charade.

China has progressed to a certain extent after 30 years of reform, but its economic power has an aura only because its population accounts for one-fifth of humanity.

Even if average income per capita in China does not sit among the world’s well-to-do, this number multiplied by 1.3 billion is formidable and seductive.

When the term “BRIC” — Brazil, Russia, India and China — was coined to cover the economic entities with the most potential for development, the acronym was accompanied by a new bout of received wisdom that China’s GDP would soon surpass Germany’s and Japan’s to become the second-largest in the world.

Others chimed in by saying that China would overtake the US within 20 years.

This discourse deliberately ignored the huge discrepancy between national populations and intentionally highlighted comparisons that were calculated using different standards. China’s average income per capita is one-twentieth of the US’ and one-tenth of Taiwan’s. How could Taiwan pin its hopes on a country with a national income that in per capita terms is extraordinarily small?

Second, China’s economic infiltration of Taiwan has never been free of political motivations and intentions. Although China often avoids talking about politics in the context of Taiwan, it always employs political strategy.

Examples of this are direct transport links and the opening up of Taiwan to Chinese tourism.

In one year, Taiwanese tourist arrivals in China reached 4 million, while only around 300,000 Chinese visited Taiwan. The government, however, was reluctant to use this as leverage and demand that China respect Taiwan’s sovereignty and national identity and engage with it on an equal footing. Instead, China did so — requesting that Taiwan open up the Taiwan Strait median line.

In another example, Taiwanese tourists in China would never dare ask Chinese hotels or restaurants to display the Republic of China’s national flag, yet some stores in Taiwan’s more scenic locations have displayed the flag of the People’s Republic of China and have posted signs in simplified Chinese characters to pander to these 300,000 tourists.

Taiwan is suffering from the global financial crisis and has still sent millions of tourists to China. Yet a few hundred thousand Chinese tourists in Taiwan shamelessly state to reporters that they have come to “save” the local economy.

This imbalance means that as Taiwan exports its hard-earned money, Chinese in Taiwan barely make inroads into Taiwan’s tourism pie.

Yet the government still regards Chinese tourism as a panacea for the economy.

Not only is this government fatuous and incompetent, its conduct is also humiliating and compromises the nation’s sovereignty.

From the beginning, China’s policies on Taiwan have been political and economic. During a visit to the US last month, the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Wang Yi (王毅), said that the point of cross-strait relations was not to separate economic and political issues but to determine the correct priorities.

In other words, in the end, China wants to achieve political goals. If Beijing temporarily avoids discussing political issues, this is a strategy designed to protect its trump card and to avoid frightening ordinary Taiwanese.

As soon as Taiwan leans toward China to the extent that most believe Taiwan cannot live without its neighbor, China will begin political negotiations and the whole sordid agenda will become apparent.

By that time, it will be too late for regret.