A Police Surveillance State: The Case of Xinjiang

"Things are different here," the local driver nonchalantly quipped, "the rules that govern the rest of China simply does not work here in Xinjiang." As the driver took a drive in search of hotels in Urumqi, the metropolitan capital of Xinjiang, he began to remark on just how years of terrorist threat changed how locals in the city and the wider region live their daily lives.  After a few hours in China's volatile western reaches, the restrictions can easily be felt.

The police presence is just everywhere.  Even in regular, on the road side bus stops, policemen holding metal detectors stand at the ready, scanning all bags and checking ID of all passengers.  The taxi driver remarked that since a few years back, not even a bottle of water is allowed on city buses, after a couple was blown up using liquid explosives held by suicide bombers.  Police stop all suspicious looking people (i.e. Uyghurs, as racist as it maybe) for more thorough checks. 

Technology has been greatly assisting the police in keeping taps on where the suspects lurk.  The second generation national identity cards held by all Chinese citizens can be (and indeed are here in Xinjiang) scanned by handheld machines everywhere to immediately identify and track where the ID holders have been and are going. In Xinjiang the technology is even more comprehensive, with ID linked with fingerprints and iris scans to make sure no one move around with borrowed ID.

The tracking has become compulsory in ways that affect the very daily lives of locals.  ID is needed to do everything from going around the city on public transport to buying essentials like gasoline and fruit knives.  Without ID, the local citizen simply cannot do anything outside his or her house.  The level of pervasiveness of checks on local citizens by the police is much higher than rest of China, and probably is not matched by anywhere besides the Arab districts of Israel.

The constant terror threats have also impacted the economy in tangible ways.  The taxi driver driving the author around was running a barbecue stall at the local night market.  But after a spate of terrorist attacks against the city's night markets that killed dozens, the city authorities shut down all street stalls, effectively ending livelihoods for everyone that used to do brisk trades in selling people late night food.  The risk of having so many people congregate in open air is just too much.

Perhaps the biggest victims of such strict checks (aside from inconveniences and reduction of incomes for locals, of course) are foreign travelers in the city.  Since they do not have Chinese ID, there are many things they simply cannot do.  Many products they cannot buy and places they cannot go.  Even what used to be a burgeoning tourist trade handled by local inns are pretty much dead as crackdowns on unlicensed hotels taking in foreigners become much more rigorous.

As grim as the police surveillance state sounds, there are certain tangible benefits.  Whether the pervasive police presence indeed curbed the number and intensity of terrorist attacks can be questionable, all other crimes have been minimized.  The taxi driver remarked that Urumqi's police maybe the most responsive in the country, with the KPI of arriving at the scene under three minutes after 911 call.  The fact that they are operating everywhere 24 hours a day make street crimes difficult to undertake.

The irony is uncanny.  In a city under siege from bigger issues, pickpocketing really is not that big of a deal.  As the city become more and more segregated into majority Han areas and Uyghur neighborhoods that Han Chinese are truly afraid of going into, mutual hostility can only grow.  And as security check selectively target Uyghurs, their discontentment will only grow.  Neither situation makes the terrorist threat any less palpable.