Last weekend's riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, represented the worst ethnic tension in China since marches by monks sparked anti-Chinese riots in Tibet last spring: 156 people died, at least 828 were injured, 261 buses and cars were torched, and 203 shops and 14 homes were burned down. Xinjiang's violence seems to have begun with a police crackdown on ethnic minority Muslim Uighurs protesting for justice on behalf of two Uighurs killed in a factory brawl in southern China. Even by the dubious official numbers, the death toll in Urumqi dwarfed last year's toll (22) in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Police have detained at least 1,434 people since Sunday, and there are 20,000 security forces patrolling Urumqi's streets today.
Crisis? What crisis? For perhaps the first time, China is managing the PR with aplomb. It moved just as swiftly to justify its crackdown as it did to deploy the crackdown itself. Party officials know that the riots risk tarnishing China's global image the way Lhasa did, so they have undertaken a swift program of public relations, getting the official version of the story out fast and busing in foreign journalists to visit the riot-torn city center. The Chinese are suddenly looking like credible spin doctors.
This is another step in the learning curve for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, accustomed to the one-party state privilege of going relatively unquestioned. Internet and mobile phones have made full news blackouts like after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake"”or the 1997 riots and shootings in Yili (also in Xinjiang)"”impossible, so the CCP has been forced to learn spin.
That's not to say news blackouts aren't in force. To contain the damage to its reputation, China's government has adopted a twin-track strategy with opposite treatment for old and new media. It swiftly shut off the Internet and mobile phones on Sunday to control news and imagery seeping out, while feeding the press and TV with pictures and information. Web connections were still unavailable late Tuesday in Xinjiang; mobile signals and texting services remained intermittent. Twitter has been blocked, too.
These measures are harsher than during the Lhasa riots, where residents remained able to speak to the outside world, though many were too fearful to say much. The contrast reflects Xinjiang's higher level of development and the government's greater anxiety, says Prof. Xiao Qiang at Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. "Urumqi is a very wired city. "� [If] the government want[s] to control this information, they have no choice" but to enforce a blackout, he says.
Unlike Tibet last year, the riot area remains open to foreign journalists, a sign that Beijing has learned media-management lessons from the globally hostile coverage it got for barring reporters in Tibet. The day after the Urumqi bloodshed, the State Council Information Office set up a Xinjiang Information Office in Urumqi to assist foreign reporters. It went further, inviting foreign media on a trip to Xinjiang to tour the riot zones, visit hospitals, and see the damage for themselves. Journalists were given CDs loaded with photos and TV clips. "They try to control the foreign journalists as much as possible by using this more sophisticated PR work rather than ban[ning] them," says Xiao.
The fact is that the 156 people who have been killed are mostly Han Chinese!!!Please know the fact first! Don't lend your conclusion on an unjustifiable fact that some people creat to amuse themselves and attack some countries or peoples they dislike!
The fact is 156 people have been killed who are mostly Han Chinese!!!Please know the fact first! Don't lend your conclusion on an unjustifiable fact that some people creat to amuse themselves and attack some countries or peoples they dislike!
Many innocent Han people died before they knew what was happening!How to explain that? Blame Chinese government? Please use your ration to analyze the whole riot but not to attack innocent Chinese people and government just as you like!You should know that no matter Urgur people and Han Chinese are all Chinese nationality and lived together for thousands of years!
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