links for 2009-07-12

Dru Gladney writes of the "viral" transmission of news and expansion of the recent events in Xinjiang.

"All pandemics have three aspects: the initial virus, the vector transmission and an available host. The viral pre-conditions for this epidemic include severe unemployment, unequal opportunities, uneven distribution of wealth and ethnic discrimination. The new media that allow for rapid global dissemination provide many different vectors for transmission of information as well as dis-information. The available hosts are now dispersed worldwide through an active and increasingly connected Uighur diaspora, who are concerned for their people and seek to effect change in their homeland."

In an effort to reduce “white pollution”, the country restricted the sale, distribution and manufacture of flimsy plastic sacks. Is the effort working? chinadialogue joined the discussion in Beijing.

China’s restrictions on the plastic bags came into effect on June 1, 2008. How well have the rules been implemented? What problems have arisen? What changes are still needed? chinadialogue, the internet portal Sohu’s environmental channel and the Global Village Environmental Culture Institute of Beijing (GVB) recently held a forum to mark the anniversary and to explore these questions.

The East-West Center has just published a policy study with an interesting, big-power-rivalry take on the Uighur unrest in China: Ethno-Diplomacy: The Uyghur Hitch in Sino-Turkish Relations, by Yitzhak Shichor. Policy Studies 53. Honolulu: East-West Center, 2009. xii, 72 pp. (Available free online.) Here's the abstract: