Luke Buckmaster reviews the new film about the life, career and advocacy work of exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, that has caused so much controversy for the government and Melbourne International Film Festival. Whilst highly topical, he says, it’s a listless and un-enticing documentary.
Uighurs
China does its best to make Uyghur all but pronounceable
Two months ago, virtually no Australians would have heard of Rabiya Kadeer or the Uyghur people. The Chinese government has done a lot to change that.
Essay: the thin light shone by Rebiya Kadeer
It seems so long ago that we thought of the Chinese as the “nice” communists, writes Peter Craven.
Political snippets: Testing the Chinese friendship
A visit to Melbourne by Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer look set to test Chinese-Australian relations, a hairy headline, and Turnbull sniping continues at The Oz.
Xinjiang riots traced to exported labour program
The origins of last week’s riots in Xinjiang region can be traced to a labour export program that saw the sudden integration of Uighur and Han workers in a toy factory, where a brawl between the two groups left two Uighurs dead.
Xinjiang: more than just “ethnic tension”
The Uighurs are not engaged in some context-free ethnic rivalry; they are protesting against the threat of becoming a minority in their own land.
Xinjiang riots: it’s all about the money
The recent civil unrest by Muslim Uighurs in China is not about Islam, as the Government alleges — it’s about economics, writes Josh Chin.
China struggles to control its minority groups
China is made up of 56 nationalities: one majority nationality, the Han, and 55 minority groups. The recent Urumqi and Lhasa riots show that monolithic China is fragmenting as the government loses its traditional control.
The man who controls Xinjiang
Communist Party Secretary Wang Lequan has run Xinjiang for 15 years with iron fist and velvet glove. He’s helped keep ethnic tensions under control by “subsuming Uighurs into a greater China”. Can it keep working?
Your Say: Daily Mail readers' feedback: Uluru: “a money making exercise on an international scale”
Crikey readers on climbing Ayer’s Rock and the Uighurs.
Crikey Clarifier: Who are the Uighurs and why are they protesting?
Professor & Director at the Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Dr Marika Vicziany clarifies the conflict in Xinjiang.
A guide to China’s ethnic groups
The Washington Post provides a bit of context and background to some of the largest of the 56 ethnic groups living within China’s borders.
Beijing will always win
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it — crushing dissent has always worked for Beijing in the past, so why start listening to their Uighurs’ complaints now?
China vow to execute riot killers
Anyone found responsible for one of the 156 deaths that occurred during the Xinjiang riots will be executed, a Chinese government official has announced.
China will give no quarter on Uighurs
China learned a lot from collapse of the Soviet Union, says John Lee: it was Gorbachev’s ill-fated attempts to be reasonable that brought down that empire. They won’t make the same mistake.
China: the country that cried wolf?
Beijing have been talking up the threat of ethnic separatism in Xinjiang for years, despite very little action from the Uighurs’ side of things. Are they finally reaping what they’ve sown?
China’s new class struggle
As the influence of Marxism as the dominant ideology in China diminishes, so to does the sense of political equality between Han Chinese and ethnic minorities like the Uighurs. Could the recent riots turn into a new class struggle for China?
The price of omission in Xinjiang
The Chinese news narrative is hobbled by a national myth-making apparatus that allows no room for the acknowledgment of the Uighurs’ grievances — ultimately inflaming the very tensions it attempts to paper over, writes China-based PR commentator William Moss.
China learns the Yin and Yang of PR
China has a new media management strategy: savvy PR! The Uighurs have a counter-strategy: breaking shit.
Taking a stand on China
Australians have a vested interest in China’s economic growth. But problems like the ones in Xinjiang are not going to go away, writes Isabelle Oderberg.
Xinjiang riots: a Crikey wrap
Tensions boiled over in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region on Sunday night. We look at what the world’s media is saying about the country’s bloodiest conflict since Tiananmen.
Internet and Twitter blocked in Xinjiang
China appeared to have blocked Twitter across the country and internet access in a Xinjiang province, following bloody clashes between Uighur protesters and police in the region.
China riots: over 150 dead
The death toll continues to rise from the police crackdown of riots by Uighurs in Xinjiang, China, with at least 156 now dead and 700 being detained by the government.
More coverage
- GUARDIAN: China’s wounds weep
- SALON: What if the Uighurs were Christians?
- WASH POST: Photo gallery
China riots: the toll climbs
Riots broke out in Xinjiang after police tried to break up a demonstration by members of the Uighur Muslim minority. The death-toll, now at 129, has risen much higher than expected. Reuters has a good Factbox on the situation.
Uprising in Xinjiang — no one to defend the Uighurs
Just as in neighboring Tibet, the Chinese keep control by military force over the ethnically distinct and hostile population of the Uighurs in Xinjiang.
