A tale of two crackdowns in China
The demonstrators in Hong Kong have exceptional access to the rest of the world. Not so the Uighurs
Two years ago I was strolling along a wintry street in a coal town at the edge of the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang in the far west of China.The town was remarkable for its many security cameras mounted on streetlights. We stopped and pointed at one, then walked on. When I looked back, the camera was tracking me and I felt a chill colder than the air settle on my skin.The people who live here are mostly from the Uighur ethnic group. The Uighurs have been in the news recently — though not a fraction as much as their fellow citizens in Hong Kong — following a heavy-handed crackdown in which as many as 2-million people have, since April 2017, allegedly been detained in what Beijing says are "vocational training centres".The demonstrators in Hong Kong have everything going for them. They live in a global financial and tourism centre with exceptional access to the rest of the world and they are using this gift like a sledgehammer.The authorities convulse with every blow, such as when a Hong Ko...
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