Plus Ca Change
Having spent a bit of time in that part of China, I'd have to say that this level of repression is not really new - just different tech / better publicized. At that time (turn of the century), the roads in the area were some of the best in China - and were built *solely* for the benefit of heavy troop movements.
Even then we used Chinese-made burner phones; cash, rather than credit cards - you get the drift..... maybe still good advice.
Incidentally, part of the ongoing Han Chinese paranoia towards the Uighurs may stem from the fact that, unlike the Tibetans further South, the Uighurs are not (at all) given to turning the other cheek. In other (completely unreported at the time) news, the PLA and their nastier cousins, the Gong An, came off a decidedly poor second in several small encounters with Uighur groups in the desert West of Urumqi.
Didn't really help in the long run though, and its hard to see this ending well.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
