Beijing is busy releasing propaganda pictures of smiling Han Chinese leaving the hospital having just recovered from the Uighur riots. Smiling children, colorful flowers and pink-cheeked local officials feature prominently in the photos.
These tableaux show to all the world that nothing has changed in Beijing's infantile estimation of its own people since the Mao era, when cheerful, chubby-cheeked Tibetans framed against blue skies featured in propaganda posters soon after the Chinese invaded Tibet. Evidence enough, if any were needed, that China has no notion of how to deal with the Uighur problem in Xinjiang. Where, one wants to ask, are the photos of Uighurs suffering under the Chinese boot--those disappeared, imprisoned or otherwise brutalized for not signing on to the program of Chinafication?
Read Full Article »