This news that Uyghur folklorist Rahile Dawut was given a life sentence reders absolutely ridiculous any PRC claim that its oppression in the Uyghur region is about terrorism, job creation or poverty. (a thread)
duihua.org/life-sentence-… @nytimes wrote about her before, so should do a follow-up now. Prof. Dawut had a job teaching and researching. She didn't need vocational training. She studied Uyghur folklore, oral literature, some aspects of religion, and did so for many years at Xinjiang's main university.

Some thoughts for how to try to think about and report the story of the 11-24 Urumchi fire and wave of protests across PRC opposing zero-Covid policies (a thread). 1. Obviously try to find out what happened (how many dead? were doors and gates sealed? Could people exit freely as Urumchi officials said? Who were the victims? What ethnicity?

We should see the GOP bandwagoning on the complaint by a former employee of @thechinaproj as part of a broader shift, or lurch, in US politics to a point where even to suggest having anything to do with China ("engagement") or PRC people is now considered suspicious (thread) We've seen this in FBI ethnicity-profiled investigations of Chinese academics under "China initiative." We've seen this in Trump's nearly cancelling student visas for ALL Chinese students. We see it in the Biden admin continuing $billions of Trump tariffs that add to inflation.

Rubio and GOP Rep Chris Smith have decided to go after The China Project (Sinica, SUP China). They say it’s a foreign agent, like Global Times. Here’s what Global Times says about Darren Byler, who’s work has done so much to explain and call out the atrocities in the Uyghur Region:

Why do I post that pears labeled “Xinjiang pears” are on US supermarket shelves? I have nothing against XJ’s delicious fruits (thread) But, first, the 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act makes it a “rebutable presumption” that ANY product mined, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in Xinjiang, could be made with forced labor. Importers have to make the case that it is not.

Stories portray defeat of resolution to debate UNHCHR report about crimes against humanity as contest of China vs. the West. This gets it very wrong. (thread)
reuters.com/world/china/un… Sure, democracies (not just US) have been pushing the point that throwing 1-2 million people in concentration camps, separating families, banning language, etc. are crimes against humanity. UN report agrees. But casting this as geopolitical contest severely misses the point.

Seems to be a new phrase by which CCP (Xi Jinping) describes the relationship of Xinjiang non-Han people to "Zhonghua" (Chinese) identity, maybe first rolled out in Xi's speech after his recent Xinjiang tour: 中华文明是新疆各民族文化的根脉所在 (1/n) gz.gov.cn/xw/jrtt/conten… In Xi's speech at the 3rd Xinjiang forum in Sept. 2020 (and in other speeches around that time) a different phrase was used: 新疆各民族是中华民族血脉相连的家庭成员, “Every minzu (ethnic group) of Xinjiang is a family-member linked to Chinese (Zhonghua) bloodlines.” 2/n

A strong case why we need faculty oversight over diversity, equity, inclusion bureaucracies on campus--just as there is faculty governance / involvement in the other areas of university life, from curriculum to renovation of buildings. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… It is not just the US left using the "hostile environment" argument to shut down speech or attack professors. Besides right wing, in some places PRC embassy has coordinated claims of campus racial harassment when PRC policies are criticized by faculty, visiting speakers or art.

Interesting Chinese Whispers podcast re PRC *social credit system,* with Jeremy Daum and Vincent Brussee @Vincent_WDB but HUGE gap in their analysis: #Xinjiang version of social credit system IS the Black Mirror @CindyXiaodanYu
spectator.co.uk/podcast/mythbu… The podcast says so-called social credit system in PRC is not one thing, rather mishmash of local pilots, financial credit rating, Yelp done by the govt, etc. PRC Govt. "not interested" in more dystopian use of broad spectrum monitoring and scoring commentators fixate on

Disturbing news from AAS2022 (Association of Asian Studies conference, this past weekend) that PRC-based scholars were blocked from participating by their government. Some gave "medical reasons" as reason for not joining on Zoom. The extent of this is not yet clear, but broad which is to say, not a danwei here and there preventing their professors from participating, but center-level mandate to ignore the main international interdisciplinary conference on Asian studies. It's a return to before 1979, when PRC isolated itself from global scholarship.

A lot of comments to this thread missed the point. Being able to speak a standard national language is not the a problem--that's advantageous. The problem is the state forbidding people from speaking other languages--which is what PRC policy increasingly does. The US examples would be: kids punished for speaking Spanish on the playground; Chinese students forbidden from speaking Chinese to each other in the dept. corridor. Or MAGA-maniacs accosting foreigners in a supermarket for speaking something other than English while shopping.

I've been wondering to what extent the assimilating Mandarinization drive under Xi targets not just non-Chinese languages like Uyghur and Mongolian, but Sinic languages like Sichuanese and of course Cantonese. Here's news of a regulation requiring "putonghua" in 四川 work units: I had the privilege of studying briefly with Rulan Chao Pian, daughter of Yuen Ren Chao 趙元任, the foundational Chinese linguist. Zhao Yuanren was involved in the creation of standard Chinese, and tells what an arbitrary process t was:

All China scholars, regardless of field and where in PRC you work, should read this essay by Guldana Salimjan. She’s providing great resources on the XJ atrocities, and … blog.westminster.ac.uk/contemporarych… a trenchant argument why we can’t ignore “minorities” and “borderlands” as China scholars: Han majoritarian privilege shares many of the same problems as white privilege…

One thing that has not got enough attention: the new "Uyghur language and literature" textbooks that replaced the supposedly subversive (CCP approved) old ones, teach Uyghur language with old Chinese lit translated into modern Uyghur. Uyghur literature itself was mostly cut.

https://twitter.com/AndersonEliseM/status/1378025771411865603

This is like teaching Spanish literature, not with Don Quixote or Garcia Marquez, but with Shakespeare or Updike translated into Spanish as the main texts. And saying that teaching Spanish with Don Quixote is separatist, and throwing the textbook editor in prison.

The flaws in the argumentative logic are so cringe-worthy, but also so telling. I've been trying to articulate the ironies and problems with current PRC whataboutism over racial, indigenous issues (next)

https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1375015592944537605

This trolling is seemingly premised on the idea the "Americans" (as a collective) want to defend our national past, and have no grounds to critique CCP. But in fact, the obvious answer is "yes, coerced cotton-picking is bad. That's why we're calling it out (next)

State Dept determination, 1/19/2021, that PRC policies in Xinjiang Uyghur Region comprise genocide and crimes against humanity is important. Below, first, essentials, then I'll discuss Pompeo's lies in the statement (a thread for the record) 1/22 bit.ly/3nTi5ig This follows a November Biden campaign statement calling the policies in Xinjiang "genocide," so we can expect the new administration will continue to endorse this determination once it takes office tomorrow 2/22. axios.com/biden-campaign…

This needs to be explained. The Covid reasons explain foreign places: Hing Kong, Macao, Taiwan. It does not explain excluding Uyghurs (next)

https://twitter.com/uyghurspeaker/status/1350790067070119939

Is there an outbreak in Xinjiang? Not reported. And Uyghurs are only one component of Xinjiang’s population. So Uyghurs are forbidden for a different reason.

Coordinated disruption of Brandeis webinar on Xinjiang: a thread. web.archive.org/web/2020111504… Link above is archived version of a letter sent to Brandeis Chinese students by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. It says the event would disrespect Chinese people (forgetting the Uyghurs are also Chinese people?) and that critical academic events are inappropriate.

Some too-loose writing by @nyt @KatherineKornei about early horse riding in Xinjiang. Mistake is saying that Xinjiang in 350 BCE was "China": it wasn't politically, and it wasn't culturally. (Thread)
nytimes.com/2020/11/13/sci… Story says scientists found "oldest direct evidence of horseback riding in China" and implies this is riding by Chinese or proto Chinese, in contrast to "neighboring civilization" in Mongolia. But western boundaries of Zhou and Qin empire were some 1700 km east of these burials.

Zoom is at it again. Last summer it cancelled meetings about Tiananmen and Hong Kong. Now it has cancelled university meetings about Palestine (SFSU) and meetings about the cancelation (U Hawaii Manoa) and NYU. mesana.org/advocacy/lette… A third party service provider simply cannot be allowed to determine content on our campuses. If they say their corporate policies require them to do so, our university policies must require us to cancel our contracts. There are other providers of the same services.

Chinese student jailed for his social media activity while a student at Minnesota. This is a test for University of Minnesota @UMNews --and other universities who should join in solidarity and strength: axios.com/china-arrests-… I assume and hope Minnesota @UMNews is working behind the scenes on this student's behalf, providing legal aid, involving US State Dept., tapping alumni in PRC, opening back doors, whatever is possible and advisable. But