A View of Tensions in Xinjiang

The New York Times recently released an article that calls into question the veracity of China's claims of a "terrorist" attack by Muslim Uighurs that killed 16 officers in the northwestern province of Xinjiang on the eve of the big Olympic party.

The Chinese government said at the time that Uighur terrorists drove a truck into a formation of officers as they were out for their early morning run. The two assailants, the reports said, then hurled explosives and attacked officers with knives. I'll let you read the article if interested in the details, but the gist of it is that three eyewitnesses watching from a hotel window told the Times a strikingly different account of the events that unfolded.

I'm not saying that the Uighurs had nothing to do with the attack, but the new accounts leave just enough room for doubt. The Chinese government has proven in its dealings with the Dalai Lama that it's not prolific at PR battles, but I think the authorities are astute enough to know that if they link the words "Islam" and "terrorism," they can get support from Americans who don't understand the nuances of the situation.

But Xinjiang is a tense place full of nuances and bubbling over with ethnic tensions . I know from experience. I was there two years ago, near the border with Kazakhstan. I was kicked out of one town for failing to register with the police while staying with a Mongol family. After that, two friends and I were sent on a road trip that bounced us between four or five different cities. Along the way, we were questioned by officers in every single city.

Because it's such a sensitive area - closer to Kabul, Afghanistan, than Beijing - the authorities are skittish about foreigners roaming around Xinjiang. Only select hotels are allowed to house "overseas guests." These are delineated by gold plaques that usually hang behind the front desk - "Fixed Hotel for Overseas Guests," they say.

I had an interesting experience the first time I tried to check into a hotel in the province, in a city where Uighur independence movements were active during the 1940s. The hotel attendant asked if we were from Kazakhstan. When we said no, we were Americans, they told us to find other lodging arrangements. At that point I knew we were in for a wild ride.

During one of our many interrogations, we were asked - politely, mind you - whether we could speak Russian or if any of us served in the U.S. armed forces. Thankfully, we could all truthfully say no.

I say all this not act like a cool secret agent. We were just backpacking. But our experiences underscore the sensitivity in the region and why Beijing might be apt to exaggerate a terror threat to legitimize its crackdowns on dissidents.

Every Uighur we met was nice and helpful. Many of them are sick of the Han Chinese immigrating into their homeland and starting new developments. You can't really blame the common Chinese folks, who are just looking for economic opportunity and feel like they're helping the region. But some Uighurs don't feel like they should be subjected by force to the Chinese brand of prosperity.

The city of Jinghe is a perfect example. A crossroads town between the provincial capital of Urumqi and the large city of Yining, we stopped there for lunch to break up a long bus ride. The entire center of town was dug up to make way for runaway development, and new storefronts had sprouted up everywhere.

We didn't interview Uighurs, but on the way into town we saw cemeteries with the Islamic crescent moons topping the grave markers. To the outsider's eye, it seemed that this had been Uighur country just a few years before.

Caption: Brad and I don the touristy attire of Mongol kings.

State of Christian Persecution in China

On Aug. 8, I watched the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies in Atlanta with about 100 Chinese people. They cheered with each spectacular act of choreography and acrobatics. They were dazzled by the thousands of colorful, luminous costumes. They sat stunned by each passing vocal or dance performance. At commercial breaks, they scrambled to answer Olympic trivia questions. As an outsider, I saw a moment of pride unfolding.

And so it should. China has come a long way since most of them have been alive. Many in that room lived through the Cultural Revolution, when young people ruled the nation and sometimes imposed a state of near anarchy in their zealous pursuit of Chairman Mao's ideal of revolution. During that time, all things foreign, intellectual and religious were considered regressive and "counter-revolutionary" and targeted for humiliation and destruction.

Contrast that climate with China's current hospitable stance toward foreign investment, global brands and even iconic American athletes like Kobe Bryant, and it's easy to see the substantial progress over the past three decades since reform and opening helped China begin to shake off its dour international face and march towards political integration.

But just like in the U.S. and every other country, progress simply means strides toward an ideal, not its achievement. China still has ample room for improvement on that eternally wide continuum between totalitarian regime and full-on democracy.

For one, the Chinese economy's dizzying growth has produced a cavernous wealth gap. Many companies are targeting China's emerging middle class, but it should also be said noted that classes of super rich and super poor are being created along with this new consumer market. Peasant farmers still make up the majority of China's population, though many believe that a massive urban migration will occur over the next 20 years, at which point three-fifths of the country's 1.3 billion people are projected to live in cities. That huge movement of humanity will create a whole new set of problems.

During the Olympic run-up, human rights have been the buzz word. Even as the festive echo of fireworks hangs in the Beijing air, many residents have been forced from their homes and businesses. Dissidents have been jailed or cordoned off while the foreign press is present. Farther off, in areas like Xinjiang, Tibet and Sichuan provinces, periodic unrest has forced the government into defense mode, meaning more crackdowns on groups that don't exactly share the Party's point of view.

This has far-reaching implications for leaders of Christian house church networks and foreign missionaries, who often operate outside the realm of legality for the sake of theological and organizational independence. A missionary friend told me that the well-meaning efforts of many believers looking to "win China" during the Olympics were making it difficult for the folks on the ground there, who have to deal with government monitoring and interrogation in a very real way.

So how bad is Christian persecution in China? I often wonder how to answer that question. I've read and heard firsthand horror stories, but its easy to extrapolate incorrectly when working from emotional anecdotes. A few ministries have made it their mission to compile these stories into a systematic and ongoing study of the fate of believers in China.

The China Aid Association is led by former house church pastor and Tiananmen democracy activist Bob Fu. The association tracks stories of persecutio, using the power of public opinion by reporting their untold stories. Recently, the association partnered with Voice of the Martyrs, a group that ministers to the persecuted church worldwide. Fu joined Todd Nettleton, VoM's director of media development, for a conference call moderated by "Charisma" magazine.

A few highlights:

-The Olympics are being used as a massive PR tool by China. "This is our party, our face to the world. Don't do anything to cause a bad impression." That was Fu's summary of the Chinese government's justification for jailing pastors and kicking many out of their homes in Beijing.

-Bush urged to attend house church. Instead, for the second time, the president decided to go to a registered Three-Self church and advocate for religious freedom from the front steps. Bob Fu says it wasn't enough: "By choosing to worship in government-sanctioned church again, it will further validate the government's stance," he said, adding that 80 percent of Chinese believers worship in unregistered house churches.

This point of view ignores many of the diplomatic and cultural issues Bush would face in going to a house church. Fu has the luxury of ignoring such considerations. Bush doesn't.

-Amity Press in China recently celebrated publishing its 50 millionth Bible. Many believe this is a sign of openness. Nettleton points out that most of these are exported, and even if they were all Chinese, they'd only be half of what's needed for all the Christians there.

-House churches that have relations with foreigners and sophisticated networks may be targeted more heavily by the government. The highest ideal in Chinese politics is stability, which the government perveives is threatened by belief.

-China Aid found instances of persecution in half of China's 22 provinces in 2007. Labor camps are still prevalent as a tool of the government to "re-educate" offenders.

-Nettleton rejects the idea that we can't use capitalism as a tool to convert them to our ways. "I think that's a myth, that we're gonna trade them into democracy, trade them into relgious freedom," he said. Personally, I think it's a way to work from the inside.

-With local officials running their own fiefdoms, there's no end in sight for rural and urban persecution, but government policies have gotten more receptive to a general idea of religion.

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW AT THE CHARISMA WEBSITE

Photo: Our bags confiscated at a border stop. Notice the green hats of the border patrol agents. Copyright Trevor Williams, 2008.

Firsthand View: China's Olympic Grand Opening

This is a guest post by Evan Sussenbach, my best friend and a fellow Chinaphile. We've been to the Middle Country four times together, and we've each gone separately once this year. Evan recently returned from a two-week trip to whitewashed, Olympic-crazed Beijing. Though not inside the National Stadium to witness the flashy opening ceremonies, Evan roamed the streets of the exuberant capital city as it ushered in the Games. Here, Evan lends four years worth of perspective to his description of China's "grand opening" to the world.

In my time I have been to some pretty spectacular openings. A few years back, some friends and the male members of my family sat outside Office Max in frigid, sleeting temperatures for the birth of XBox360 into the video game world. I have been to (though I haven't actually stayed all night) a Chick-fil-A grand opening, where karaoke and overly safe and fun disc jockeys dominate the night. And I have now been on the first fast train from Beijing to Tianjin, a commute advertised as lasting 38 minutes, although in reality it took only 25. We timed it.

But by the time I finish this paragraph, the literature will have been updated
and republished to correct this numerical error, and by the time I finish this
letter, there will probably be a faster fast train that will have opened from
Beiijing to the airport, that will get passengers there approximately minus-three
minutes after they have left the station.

That is because I think I am witnessing the largest grand opening in the
history of the world, the opening of Beijing and China - the forbidden "Middle
Country" - to the West. I was handed a map at the airport the other day by
seven friendly, Olympic t-shirt-clad teenagers with Olympic venues, road
names and famous sites. It is already obsolete. My 2003 China guidebook by
Lonely Planet might as well have been published in the 19th century for all the new
changes in prices, how to get places and relevant information.

When I was going to pick up tickets for the fast train to Tianjin, I got lost on
two separate cab rides because neither taxi driver knew where the new train
station was. Buildings are going up around Tiananmen Square at such a fast
rate that every time I go there, crowds gather to see a new hutong-style
shopping mall or Olympic garden piece and anticipate what will be behind the
next set of concealing poster board and barbed wire.

The Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven have been completely repainted.
Every historic site has the Olympic motto - "One World, One Dream" - plastered
next to the entrance and the Beijing running man emblem at each historic
marker.

Perhaps the funniest new thing is the rise of the Fu Wa. Imagine Beanie
Babies gone universal or Izzy (the Atlanta 1996 Olympic mascot) multiplied five times, and you have an idea of the Fu Wa--five very cute, very overhyped creatures (that all look like pandas to me) that have taken Beijing by storm. They are in cartoons, storefronts, Olympic ads, and at the sites, holding lacrosse sticks and riding equestrian horses. They are actually supposed to be representative of four noble animals - the fish, the swallow, the Chinese antelope, and the panda - with the fifth one being symbolic of the torch itself. Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. When just the first syllable of each name is taken, it says "Beijing Huanying Ni," or Beijing Welcomes You.

Beijing is certainly doing a good job welcoming me. On publicly run
commercials, government officials are telling the Chinese how to be nice to
foreigners. Taxi drivers are being made to wear white collared shirts and ties.
People are advised not to roll up their wife beaters, keeping their tanned bellies
within their shirts. As I was in a cab to the Tianjin train station, I was given an
English lesson over the cab's radio. "How are you?' "Today is a nice day"
"Welcome to Tianjin."

I am in Beijing for one more day before I go back to Tianjin for the US-Japan
men's soccer game. I have never felt more like an American outsider in a foreign
country as I am here. "Jiayou Meiguo" (Let's go America) said my Chinese friend
Leah today, who went on to explain that she will root for any country
against Japan.

I, like you, will probably be watching the Opening Games on TV, and that will
probably be the official grand opening of China to the world. But this week
leading up to the games has been a delight to experience a world so different
from America getting a face-lift, manners instruction, and a world-class
transportation system to show off "the Jing" to the world.

Note on times: This is adapted from an e-mail written a few days before the opening ceremonies.

Bush Finds Diplomatic Middle Way With China

A few days ago I made a post about the mixed signals China often gives us about its human rights picture, especially in relation to Christian persecution. While in many ways the situation has drastically improved, the sterilized and whitewashed view of China that the government would like us to see at the Olympics has not erased the all-too-obvious blots on the its recent record.

That said, President Bush has a difficult tight-rope to walk in attending this week's Olympic opening ceremonies. Ironically, in a country where Buddhism thrives, Bush has had to take a sort of "middle way" of his own.

The balancing act he'll undertake is typical and necessary in dealing with the Chinese conundrum. The leader of the free world has said repeatedly that he will not stop urging the government to use the Olympics and events beyond as a chance to recognize the religious rights of all its citizens. At the same time, he's come under fire from some human rights activists and even the highest officials of the Democratic Party, who believe he should've boycotted the games altogether.

Somewhere on the line the president is straddling is the right approach. A conciliatory tone toward the government would be deadly to his legitimacy as an advocate for China's persecuted Christians and a step back from the tough line he's already taken. Antagonistic rhetoric could lead him into an equally undesirable quagmire. The Chinese authorities would suffer serious embarassment if Bush were to insult their progress on the eve of their big party. As anyone who knows anything about Chinese culture knows, it's hard to gain the trust of someone there when you've made them lose face.

For all the fiery comments by the Democrats during the primary season, Bush has taken the right tack. He stuck it to the Chinese government when he awarded a congressional medal to the Dalai Lama last October, despite their childish insults and noisy opposition to the gesture. The action turned out to foreshadow of a much more intense conflict that would break out in March of this year, when violent acts of vandalism committed by Tibetans against Han Chinese in the province escalated into weeks of protests and subsequent crackdowns by the government in western China.

On July 29, a little more than a week before Air Force One is scheduled to touch down in Beijing, Bush made another very crafty move. He hosted five high-profile human rights activists at the White House. Among these were Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in a Chinese labor camp; Rebiya Kadeer, the foremost activist in the U.S. for the Muslim Turkic Uighur people in China; Bob Fu, a former persecuted pastor and head of China Aid Association; Wei Jingsheng, a prominent political dissident and Sasha Gong, a dissident and writer.

Bush's message was clear. “These are very high profile people. These are people designed to get the Chinese’s attention. It was not just a political move to provide cover at home. It was an important move to let Chinese leaders know that he’s not satisfied with the progress,” the New York Times quotes Michael Green, an Asia expert and former White House adviser as saying.

Christian activists are urging Bush to do even more during his trip. In a conference call Tuesday night, Bob Fu of China Aid and Todd Nettleton, director of media development for Voice of the Martyrs, a Christian group that ministers to the persecuted church, both urged Bush to attend a unregistered house church while in China. Mr. Fu gave Mr. Bush "Pray for China" bracelets during the meeting at the White House and gave the president coordinates of four different house churches in Beijing where Fu assured him he would be welcomed.

Bush attended a registered church during a 2005 trip to China and held a press conference afterwards. Fu said a return visit to the government-sanctioned church could be seen by some as validating the Chinese government's policies of hosting religion on its own terms. This would be disheartening to see for pastors who have been ousted from Beijing to keep them from talking to foreign media during the games, Fu said.

Some 80 percent of Chinese Christians worship in house churches, he added.

"By choosing to worship in a government-sanctioned church again, it will further validate" the government's stance on persecution, Fu told listeners from around the world who had tuned in for a Webcast and conference call with Charisma magazine. Listen here to the complete interview. You might have to log in or return to the Web site at a later time.

It remains to be seen what the president's legacy will be with regard to China. However it turns out, he's taken as right an approach as his position and its many responsibilities will allow.

Photo: A gate in the Forbidden City. Beijing. Copyright Trevor Williams, 2006.