Many countries suffered financial losses and lost many valiant officers each year. The reasons were the defective Chinese equipment, expensive/no after-sale assistance, and poor contract evaluations with a lack of clarity….
Civic groups in Lilongwe, Malawi, marched in protest over the actions of Chinese national Lu Ke, who was arrested by Zambian authorities after filming a racist video involving local children, calling for him to be tried in the country rather than sent back to China, the Nyasa Times reported on Wednesday. Protesters from the University of Malawi Child Rights Legal Clinic and other civil society organizations also called for compensation and psychological support for the children exploited by Lu and made to say racist things about themselves in Chinese, the paper said. The Maravi Post cited clinic supervisor Garton Kamchedzera as saying that Lu’s treatment of the children was in breach of the Malawian constitution. The group said it would also deliver a petition to the Chinese embassy. The paper said Lu had been “using violence to force the children say the phrases he wanted.” Lu fled the country after being outed by BBC journalist Runako Celina as the maker of a video in which children from Lilongwe’s Njerwa village said “I am a black ghost. I have a low IQ” to camera. The phrase “black ghost” is considered the Chinese equivalent of the N-word. Lu’s video was far from being a one-off. Celina’s documentary also uncovered a lucrative industry in short videos featuring Africans. “There’s something inherently sinister in swanning into a village somewhere in Africa, tossing a few coins at people less privileged than you and being able to instruct them to do whatever you want,” Celina wrote in an article on the BBC website after the documentary aired. “If the price (or pay off) is high enough, or the sense of humor crude enough the possibilities are endless.” “It’s this exact boundless freedom, plus a deeply ingrained racist ideology that has made an online Chinese industry I’ve spent the last year investigating possible,” she wrote. A social media post with a commenter in blackface supporting anti-black racist commenters. Weibo. Anti-Black racism remains uncensored Immigration authorities in Zambia confirmed they had arrested Lu on June 21. Ghanaian YouTuber Wode Maya told the Black Livity China podcast that the Chinese term “heigui,” or “black ghost,” is equivalent to the N-word in English. Guests told the show that anti-Black racism remains largely uncensored on China’s tightly controlled internet, and that the video was part of a lucrative industry exploiting African adults and children with custom-made greetings videos. Not everyone in China likes the videos, which have been sold on online stores, but many believe they are a harmless and fun way to send a novelty greeting, while others see anti-Black racism as a function of Chinese colonial power in Africa, according to views expressed on the podcast and on social media. One video resulting from a keyword search on Wednesday showed young black men dressed in coordinated clothing, performing to camera to cheer up residents of Shanghai during the grueling COVID-19 lockdown in April. Another showed black children dressed in red holding flowers and chalk boards with birthday messages for a Chinese woman called “Xingxing.” The Malawian Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives (CDEDI) has called on the Chinese embassy in Malawi to apologize to black Malawians over the racist video filmed by Chinese national Lu Ke, and called for an immigration sweep for Chinese nationals who remain illegally in the country. “CDEDI is hereby challenging both the Malawi and the Chinese governments to treat this matter with the urgency and seriousness it deserves,” Namiwa said in a June 17 statement posted to the group’s website. A screenshot of the Chinese embassy statement on Twitter on June 13 that it had “noted with great concern” the findings of the BBC documentary Racism for Sale. ‘Zero tolerance’ “It should be emphasized that any attempts to downplay the issue or help the suspect to beat the long arm of the law will only succeed in stirring avoidable actions with far-reaching consequences,” Namiwa said, but said the group didn’t want anyone targeting the Chinese community for retaliation as a whole. “Since the matter also borders on aspects of profit-making, CDEDI is urging the relevant authorities to ensure that survivors of the exploitative filming should benefit by way of compensation,” it said. The Chinese embassy said via Twitter on June 13 that it had “noted with great concern” the findings of the BBC documentary Racism for Sale. “We strongly condemn racism in any form, by anyone or happening anywhere,” it said. “We also noted that the video was shot in 2020. It shall be stressed that Chinese government has zero tolerance for racism.” It added on June 17: “We demand internet & social media platforms to strictly prohibit the dissemination of all racist contents.” The BBC documentary found that two Douyin accounts were sharing the video in question, along with other anti-Black racist content, and that Lu had bribed the kids with food and candy to take part in the shoot. Shih Yi-hsiang of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said China’s response to the incident was inadequate. “The Chinese government is condemning this matter and also saying that China has zero tolerance for racism, which is ridiculous, because what the Chinese regime has done to Tibetans [and] Uyghurs … for a long time is seriously racist,” Shih said. “What we actually see behind [these words] is exploitation and oppression,” Shih said. “Chinese people are abusing these kids.” Shih called for further investigation into the exploitation of African children by Chinese content creators. Blackface on CCTV Taiwan strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu cited the use of blackface on the CCTV Lunar New Year TV gala, as well as costumes associating black people with monkeys. Chinese people go to Africa to shoot these videos to make money, rationalize racism, which is clearly colonialism with Chinese characteristics, Shih Chien-yu said. “They believe that the local people are poor and they will be obedient if you give them some small benefits,” Shih said. “We see the 19th century colonial mentality being replicated in 21st century China.” Gong Yujian, a Chinese dissident now living in democratic Taiwan, said…
A new Chinese study on the ancient populations of Xinjiang purports to show modern-day residents descend from a mix of ethnicities, but scientists and experts on the region cautioned the findings are being used to support China’s forced assimilation policy toward the predominately Muslim Uyghurs. The study from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is based on 201 ancient human genomes from 39 different archeological sites in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Scientists analyzed the genetic composition, migration and formation of the ancient inhabitants of Xinjiang during the Bronze Age, which lasted from 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, the Iron Age, which lasted between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and into the Historical Era, which started about 2,000 years ago. They published their findings in the April edition of the journal Science in an article titled “Bronze and Iron Age population movements underlie Xinjiang population history.” The report states that the region’s ancestral population during the Bronze Age was linked to four different major ancestries — those of the Tarim Basin, which includes present-day Xinjian; Central Asia; and the Central and Eastern Eurasian Steppes. “Archaeological and mitochondrial studies have suggested that the BA [Bronze Age] inhabitants and cultures of Xinjiang were not derived from any indigenous Neolithic substrate but rather from a mix of West and East Eurasian people, whereas BA burial traditions suggest links with both North Eurasian Steppe cultures and the Central Asian BMAC civilization,” the report says, referring to the Central Asian Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in the south. Further mixtures between Middle and Late Bronze Age Steppe cultures continued during the late Bronze and Iron Ages, along with an inflow of East and Central Asian ancestry, the report says. “Historical era populations show similar admixed and diverse ancestries as those of present-day Xinjiang populations,” the report says. “These results document the influence that East and West Eurasian populations have had over time in the different regions of Xinjiang.” The study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences comes at a time when the Chinese government has stepped up its assimilation of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs to inculcate a common identity among Uyghurs with other ethnicities in the country. The government rejects claims that the ethnic minority group has its own history, culture, language and way of life. The Beauty of Xiaohe, a mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, is shown at the ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Feb. 18, 2011. Credit: Associated Press ‘We have to think carefully’ Following the beginning of the mass internment campaign targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in April 2017, Chinese archaeological and anthropological research in Xinjiang entered a new phase. The XUAR’s Communist Party Committee set a political goal for archaeological research aimed at combating “separatism” and emphasized that cultural relics should serve the concept that Xinjiang has always been an inseparable part of China. On March 22, 2017, then-Party Secretary Chen Quanguo said at an archaeological work conference that “archaeological work is necessary in establishing and advancing socialist values in Xinjiang, in deepening patriotic education, and in the fight against separatist ideas.” But an expert in the genetics of ancient Central Asian populations based in the United States says the report’s findings do not significantly differ from findings on the Bronze Age published recently by a group of international researchers. Vagheesh Narasimhan, an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, told RFA that the findings in the Science article are similar to those published late last year by international researchers. “A few months ago there was a report of the sequencing of certain mummies from the Tarim Basin from the Bronze Age,” he said. “In this paper [from April 1], they also added 200 genomes from various time periods from all over Xinjiang. They co-analyzed the data from the previous analysis with the analysis in this paper, and they tried to draw conclusions combining the data from the previous paper by the international team with data from this group.” Narasimhan said that the two studies found a similar genetic ancestry in Xinjiang from the Bronze Age. But he said the findings do not refute the idea that Uyghurs are a distinct ethnicity. “You can’t think two groups are the same just because they have a common ancestry; in that case, every person in the world would have a common ancestry from Africa,” he said. “We have to think carefully about which population they’re actually using as a reference.” In its analysis of the Iron Age population of Xinjiang, the Science article stresses that iron materials found during this era were related to the Saks, or the Scythians, an important nomadic culture at the time. It also notes that many archaeological finds connected to the group have been found in Xinjiang’s Ili River Valley and Tarim Basin, and that a diverse conglomeration of many nomadic tribes, including the Saks, Huns, Paziriks and Taghars, appeared around the region. The Science article also states that from among these groups, the Saks were the descendants of the Andronova, Srubnaya, and Sintashta peoples from the latter periods of the Bronze Age and that the other ancestors of the Saks are connected to the populations of the Bayqal Shamanka and Bactria-Margiana and are related to the language of Hotan, which was part of the Indo-European family. But about 2,200 years prior, the region had become a point of conflict between the Yuezhi (Yawchi or Yurchi), Huns, Hans and Turks. “Thus, Xinjiang represents a key area for studying the past confluence and coexistence of populations with dynamic cultural, linguistic and genetic backgrounds,” the report says. Members of the media view an infant mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, at the ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum…
Wang Yaohui has taken an unconventional career path for a Cambodian diplomat. For one thing, he was born in China and lived there for most of his life. For another, he has a very checkered past in the business world, tainted by bribery scandals over a copper mine in Zambia and a state-run bank in China for which he was detained and an associate was sentenced to life in prison. But following a path well-trodden by other Chinese tycoons with reputational problems, Wang used connections among the Cambodian elite to land himself a new nationality, a new name and a new career. Using his adopted Khmer name, Wan Sokha, he rapidly became an “advisor” to Prime Minister Hun Sen and landed a plum post at Cambodia’s embassy in Singapore, a position he still holds. That diplomatic posting has not prevented him from furthering his business interests. Untangling the web of those interests which stretch from Asia to Europe is no easy task. Wang has gone to great lengths to conceal his enormous but undeclared commercial footprint. A key piece in this complex puzzle are the Singaporean holdings of a Cambodian power couple: Sen. Lau Ming Kan and his wife Choeung Sopheap, who has been instrumental in Wang’s progress. This story explores those ties, using documentary evidence and also flight manifests from aircraft owned by Wang. It is part of a wide-ranging RFA investigation into more than $230 million in financial and property interests that figures linked to Cambodia’s ruling party have in the prosperous city state of Singapore. The documents not only show how Sopheap helped transform Wang from a fugitive to an accredited Cambodian diplomat. They also show how Wang has become the apparent beneficial owner of an energy company granted an exclusive 10-year license to import liquified natural gas by the Cambodian government. The documents also show that Wang has concealed from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the English Football League his substantial stake in a major English soccer team, Birmingham City Football Club. That is potentially a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison. Additionally, the documents shed light on how Sopheap has been embroiled in a real estate deal in Cyprus involving Wang that is the subject of a European police investigation. Mired in mining scandal Wang was born in June 1966 in Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province bordering Russia, soon after the start of the Cultural Revolution, which saw millions die as the Communist Party sought to purge society of traditional and capitalist elements. That’s in stark contrast to the dynamics of Wang’s adult life which associates say has been spent in single-minded pursuit of money. From the late 1990s onwards, his zest for profits saw him invest in everything from African mining operations to the Chinese art market and he did so with gusto. By the end of each venture, however, his business partners almost invariably felt that they had been wronged. A truck leaves the Chibuluma copper mine after collecting ore from 1,693 feet (516 meters) below the surface in the Zambian copper belt region, Jan. 17, 2015. (Reuters) In 2009, Wang signed an agreement with the government of Zambia on behalf of his Zhonghui Mining Group, pledging to invest $3.6 billion in a copper mine in the central African nation. The deal – which was hailed by Zambia’s then-President Rupiah Banda as a “positive development” – would quickly come undone, according to By All Means Necessary: How China’s Resource Quest is Changing the World, a 2013 book by Elizabeth Economy and Michael Levi, who would go on to be a special assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama. Economy and Levi recount how in 2011 Zhonghui “began building the mine without conducting an environmental impact assessment, violating Zambia’s 1997 EIA regulations.” The year also saw a new party take power in Zambia, which set about scrutinizing land and mining deals overseen by its predecessors. While the move was viewed by the government’s supporters as a marker of improved governance, others “believed that the new administration simply wanted to nullify previous deals to reap its own payments and bribes as the various concessions were sold anew.” Zhonghui was ordered to stop work immediately pending its production of an EIA. The company failed to do so and was charged alongside Zambia’s former minister of mines and minerals with corruption. The government alleged that Zhonghui had paid close to $60,000 of Zambian customs duties for 5,000 bicycles the minister had imported from China in 2011. Reuters reported that prosecution witnesses, “testified that with the minister’s influence, the Chinese firm was awarded the licenses within three days when such a process normally lasted months.” The minister was found guilty in 2015 and sentenced to one year in jail with hard labor (although in 2019 he received a presidential pardon). The court ruled Zhonghui had no case to answer. But by that time, Wang had bigger problems closer to home. A bribes for loans scandal In June 2012, the South China Morning Post reported that Wang had been detained late the previous month in Beijing by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog. Citing unnamed sources, the newspaper claimed the party was investigating allegations of “bribery and money laundering” within a “complex network run by low-profile but well-connected businessman Wang Yaohui.” Photograph of Wang widely distributed around the time of Agricultural Bank of China Vice President Yang Kun’s arrest for allegedly receiving bribes from Wang. (Photo: Supplied by source) In particular, the authorities were examining Wang’s relationship with Yang Kun, the vice-president of the state-owned Agricultural Bank of China. Sources told the South China Morning Post that together Wang and Yang had “lost several hundred million yuan during their gambling trips to Macau.” Moreover, the sources added, Yang had overseen loans from the bank to one of Wang’s companies, putatively intended to support property development, but which, “may have been misused to cover gambling losses in Macau.” Yang was…
Due to several attacks on the Chinese nationals working in Pakistan, failing economy and Power crisis China might bring its military forces in Pakistan to secure its investments or leave Pakistan.
Read the complete report and what Chinese Citizens are saying about this relation and why many Chinese are Panic Posting on Chinese social media here
The West or the NATO nations employed several tactics of the perception warfare to tackle Russia when it started the special military ops in Ukraine in February, 2022. The perception war between Russia and NATO is at its peak and following are some of the tactics employed by…
Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Foreign actors take advantage of Western Media freedom to spread disinformation.
A recent report from Fudan University in Shanghai revealed that Beijing secured a new construction deal in Iraq for around $10.5 billion in 2021 — a sum constituting almost one-sixth of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) investments that year.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s law enforcement agencies routinely track, harass, threaten and repatriate people who flee the country, many of them Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, under its SkyNet surveillance program that reaches far beyond China’s borders, using a variety of means to have them forcibly repatriated. A video clip of a Uyghur mother and her 13-year-old daughter crying for help after being detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China recently surfaced on social media, highlighting China’s use of pliant allies to circumvent criminal justice processes and ensure political refugees and Muslims are sent back. The Safeguard Defenders rights group has called on the Saudi authorities to release Abla Buhelchem and her daughter Babure Miremet immediately, as well as two other Uyghur men being held without charge by Saudi police. “We call on Saudi authorities to immediately release four Uyghurs – including a 13-year-old girl and her mother – who are at grave risk of enforced disappearance, torture and forced separation if sent back to China,” the group said in a statement on its website. Abla Buhelchem and her daughter were detained near Mecca and told by police they would be sent back to China along with Abla Buhelchem’s ex-husband Nurmemet Rozi and Hemdulla Weli, both of whom have been detained without charge since November 2020. Rozi and Weli were both in Saudi Arabian on pilgrimage, an act that the CCP deems “extremist” along with many other required expressions of Islamic faith, and were detained at the request of the Chinese embassy. It said the two men were moved from the detention center where they were being held in March 2022, and their whereabouts are currently unknown. Abla Buhelchem (L) and her 13-year-old daughter Babure Miremet (R), who have been detained in Saudi Arabia and told they would be sent to China. Credit: Uyghur Human Rights Project. ‘ Gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights’ On Friday, April 1, United Nations legal experts said the four should on no account be sent to China. “The prohibition of refoulement is absolute and non-derogable under international human rights and refugee law,” the statement said. “States are obliged not to remove any individual from their territory when there are substantial grounds for believing that the person could be subjected to serious human rights violations in the State of destination, including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.” Norway-based Uyghur scholar Abdul Ayup, said he last heard from Abla Buhelchem on April 9. “At that time, she had already arrived at the detention center in Riyadh,” Ayup said. “She said she was waiting for the Chinese embassy personnel. She said that she was told that she would be deported in three hours. She kept crying.” Abduweli, a person familiar with the situation, said all four were still in detention in Saudi Arabia as of April 28. He said he had tried to warn Abla Buhelchem of the danger, and advised her to leave the country, but she wanted to stay and tell her ex-husband’s story to the international community, fearing he would disappear and be forgotten about. “My friends who work in the Saudi government told me privately that Uyghurs shouldn’t come to Saudi Arabia.” “As far as I know, there has been no clear accusation until now, and the officials have not explained why they were arbitrarily arrested without any documentation,” Abduweli said. “This is very strange.” Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International secretary-general for the Middle East and North Africa, said the forcible repatriation of the four Uyghurs was “unconscionable,” and a violation of Saudi Arabia’s obligations in international law. “In China, they will be arbitrarily detained, persecuted, and possibly tortured,” Maalouf said. Nurmemet Rozi (L)m Abla Buhelchem’s ex-husband, and Hemdulla Weli, who have been detained without charge in Saudi Arabia since November 2020. Credit: Safeguard Defenders Arab world repatriations In 2020, Saudi Arabia and 45 other countries signed a letter in support of China’s mass detention camps in Xinjiang, marking a “turning point” for Saudi foreign policy, according to Bradley Jardine, fellow at the Kissinger Institute for U.S.-China Relations. At least five other governments in the Arab world — Egypt, Morocco, Qatar, Syria and the United Arab Emirates — have detained, extradited, or participated in cross-border repression of Uyghurs at China’s request. And the problem isn’t confined to the Middle East. “It is very difficult for Uyghur advocates to travel to Central Asia now,” Omer Kanat, chairman of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress told RFA after being sent back to Turkey from Kazakhstan. “I was stopped by border officials while visiting Kazakhstan. I was interrogated by Kazakh security officers at the airport, who asked me why I came to Central Asia.” Beijing’s allies among Central Asian nations are grouped under its Shanghai Cooperation Organization initiative. “They told me that no member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is going to let me in, then they sent me back to Turkey,” Omer Kanat said. According to statistics from the Uyghur Human Rights Project and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, the Chinese government has detained, deported or extradited more than 1,300 Uyghurs since China’s “war on terrorism” began in 2014, most of the them from Muslim-majority countries. U.S.-based Freedom House has described in a recent report several key features of China’s transnational crackdown. Political dissidents, activists also sent back China will target ethnic groups like the Uyghurs, but also political dissidents, rights activists, journalists and former officials using its overseas networks. Between the launch of the SkyNet program in 2014 and June 2021, China repatriated nearly 10,000 people from 120 countries and regions, the report said. Yet according to Safeguard Defenders, just one percent are brought back to China using judicial procedures; more than 60 percent are just put on a plane against their will. “The diversity of the CCP’s so-called ‘extradition’ is something that worries us,” Chen Yanting of Safeguard Defenders told RFA. “For example, the Interpol red…
China has enlisted some fresh faces in its pushback against charges it is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang: young foreign social media influencers who produce short videos showing happy minorities in the far-western region. Travel videos recorded by video bloggers known as vloggers are carried on platforms such as Twitter that are banned in China and spread by state media and affiliated sites. The echo and amplify Beijing’s massive propaganda effort to depict Uyghurs as content with and grateful for Chinese rule. The videos show “foreign travelers” interviewing people in factories in Xinjiang, with captions such as “Friends, it’s a lie that there is a genocide of the Uyghurs.” “Everything is normal here,” and “Is there a single piece of evidence that there are more than 1 million people in concentration camps?” State-owned media outlets and local governments organize the pro-China campaign, paying vloggers to take trips, according to documents posted online and video producers familiar with the system. “What happens is you’ll have a state media like CGTN or CRI or iChongqing or any number of organizations which are run by the Chinese government — which are the Chinese government — and what they will do is they will pay for the flights, pay for the accommodation, organize the trip, and liaise with the content creator and invite them to go on these trips,” said YouTuber Winston Sterzel, who lived in Xinjiang. Minders working as translators or fixers are always present to make sure the content creators follow the script, he said. Vloggers, who post short videos on their personal websites or social media account on platforms like YouTube, say that local government officials arrange their travel and logging during trips they are hired for to make videos that put China in a good light. “They arrange our travel, and they pay for our lodging and food,” said YouTuber Lee Barrett in a video he recorded. Business Insider reported in January that China’s consulate general in New York signed a U.S. $300 million contract with U.S.-based Vippi Media in New Jersey to create a social media campaign promoting positive messaging about China TikTok, Instagram, and Twitch as a lead-up to the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing. Social media influencers were asked to produce content for their target audiences on Chinese culture, positive diplomatic relations between China and the U.S., and consulate general news. ‘Living happily and joyfully’ On the YouTube channel “Two Brothers,” Netherlands-based Tarekk Habib and Anas Habib, both of Egyptian descent, published a video on Dec. 31, 2021, in which they say a Chinese company agreed to pay them U.S. $1,000 to produce and share a video extoling the government’s measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus at the Olympics and to ensure the safety of athletes. They said they turned down the request and instead produced a video discussing China’s oppression of Uyghur Muslims. China’s struggle to shape world opinion about Xinjiang will come into sharp focus this month, when U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet makes a long-awaited visit to China, including Xinjiang. Since 2017, about 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples are believed to have been incarcerated a vast network of internment camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. and a handful of European countries have labelled these practices genocide, while China has angrily rejected criticism and maintains the camps are vocational training centers designed to combat religious extremism and terrorism. In fall 2021, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government began an initiative to mobilize foreign students in China to praise “Xinjiang policy.” The effort was part of the central government’s larger plan to portray ethnic minorities in Xinjiang as happy and content, according to an article in Xinjiang Daily. Under the title “The people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are living happily and joyfully,” the report cited a series of letters written by Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in which he called on foreign students in July 2021 to increase their understanding of the “real China,” so that their knowledge would inspire others to understand the country as well. The XUAR government in October 2021 sponsored a trip to Xinjiang for students from 16 countries, including Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Burundi, Uganda, Russia, Pakistan, Korea, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, the U.S. and the U.K. Chinese state media said the students visited Kashgar (Kashi), Hotan (Hetian), and other places, and saw Xinjiang’s economic development, social stability, quality of life, culture, ethnic unity and religious harmony. “They are not only able to look after the young and old people in their homes, they can also earn a salary. Their work environment is very good, and they are truly happy,” an Armenian student was quoted as saying. Such accounts are meant to counter a growing tide of well-researched reports by researchers and foreign media about conditions in Xinjiang. Government minders Since the start of 2018, authorities have prevented most international journalists from entering Xinjiang and forced foreigners living in the region to leave. YouTubers from the U.S. and South Africa who lived in the Xinjiang or in mainland China for a decade or more said that while recent vlogs by foreigners “traveling” to Xinjiang appear to be simple and normal, government fixers are always on the other side of the camera, controlling what is said and recorded. “You’re gonna be approached by your agent or your middleman … who is a communicator between you and the management company, or as they call themselves, talent agencies,” said LeLe Farley, an American comedian and rap artist who lived in China for years and worked as an announcer for Chinese-language programs. “Those talent agencies get word directly from the government, like ‘we need foreign bloggers for white-washing Xinjiang; we need them to go there, and here’s the trip that we’ve prepared for them to go on. We’ll pay for the whole trip,’” he said. Josh Summers, who ran a popular blog known as “Far West China” as well as a YouTube channel, moved…
