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it was actually the second conversation i had had that day on that very topic, and both times my observations were met with veiled skepticism.
my perception of it is skewed, for sure, since i live in far west, "turbulent" xinjiang, home to terrorist separatist muslims who would like nothing more than to destroy the peaceful, harmoniously integrated multi-ethnic society the CCP has so laboriously built up.
my google alerts recently have been flooded with this news item, about a "terrorist camp" found in a desolate mountain region of south xinjiang. here's the chinese angle.
now, these guys were probably not hanging out there having a tea party, or a male-bonding drum circle sort of thing, or plotting ways to make the communist party more powerful, but ... 18 people shot dead on sight? is this what a country does when it's working hard to improve its human rights record?
more of you probably heard or read about the incident made famous by a climber and his cellphone camera, where tibetans trying to cross into india were also shot on sight. here's a bit about that.
things are definitely more tense in xinjiang and tibet, minority areas with long histories the chinese don't figure into as much as (or in the ways that) they profess. if all the minority areas in china split off, it would be a pitiful fraction of its current size.
of course they're nervous.
but this kind of cruelty and repression is not limited to people who speak a different language. take a look at the front page of RFA and you will see stories about human rights lawyers and journalists being detained, tried, and found guilty of various crimes constantly.
it's no north korea, it's no turkmenistan, but the heavy hand of the powers that be is much, much heavier than most people seem to realize.