Back when I lived in ACTUALLY EXISTING China, I literally had a conversation with a Uyghur guy, in fucking old-town Kashgar of all places. His main critique about government educational changes was precisely how English language education was pushed further along the pipe so that by the time kids got linguistic access to the outside world, they would be predisposed to distrust outside info.
Unless this guy was some kind of East-Turkestani political operative who could sniff out any old Han-lookin' tourist as a foreigner, it's largely inconsistent with contemporary Western alarm bells about the region.
Also, he would have totally fucked up, because, well, I'm not some grizzled western conflict journo, or my travel papers would have been hella denied. I was 1000% a total fuckin' tourist.
Back when I lived in ACTUALLY EXISTING China, I literally had a conversation with a Uyghur guy, in fucking old-town Kashgar of all places. His main critique about government educational changes was precisely how English language education was pushed further along the pipe so that by the time kids got linguistic access to the outside world, they would be predisposed to distrust outside info.
Unless this guy was some kind of East-Turkestani political operative who could sniff out any old Han-lookin' tourist as a foreigner, it's largely inconsistent with contemporary Western alarm bells about the region.
Also, he would have totally fucked up, because, well, I'm not some grizzled western conflict journo, or my travel papers would have been hella denied. I was 1000% a total fuckin' tourist.
Good. Nobody should trust the western world.