Ursula Gauthier exiting China from Beijing Capital International Airport (photo via Fred Dufour, @freddufour_afp)

Ursula Gauthier, erstwhile Beijing correspondent for the French newsweekly L’Obs, left China for good in the early hours of January 1. It was not, as they say, of her own volition.

When the clock struck midnight on 2015, Gauthier’s press visa expired and was not up for renewal. According to official organs, she had offended the Chinese people with her November 18 article written in the aftermath of the November 13 terrorist attacks on Paris. Gauthier’s refusal to publicly apologize for remarks concerning China’s attempts to link Paris with its own problems in Xinjiang was taken as the final straw.

But her departure merely concluded a weeks-long saga of intimidation and mudslinging directed from the highest reaches of China’s propaganda and foreign affairs departments (a typical example here). In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) summarized the campaign against Gauthier, in which her photograph and address were published on a military forum, and expressed its unqualified disgust: “Insinuating that Ms. Gauthier supports terrorism is a particularly egregious personal and professional affront with no basis in fact.”

Indeed, on the basis of this (to say the least) unbecoming treatment of an accredited journalist, foreign correspondents have presented a united front, whatever they might have thought – and privately grumbled about – the substance of Gauthier’s piece. So let us be as similarly bold, so there’s no confusion: China’s official response to Ursula Gauthier’s piece in L’Obs is puerile, petty, and idiotic.

It can’t be said enough: expelling journalists for their work is not only a bad look – puerile, petty, idiotic, one might say – but terrible policy. As this excellent China Law and Policy blog post explains, Beijing has used the typically broad strokes of its Foreign Media Regulations to libel Gauthier as “championing terrorism,” offering a pathetic veneer of legality to its shit fit, and signaling a re-hardening of attitudes toward any who dare approach the invisible red lines of China reportage (ethnic policy, finances of the leadership, etc). It’s interesting to wonder whether Gauthier’s visa would have been affected if her article came out in June – six months before she needed an extension – as China renews all press credentials at the end of the calendar year; certainly, the timing benefitted her critics. Still, if Gauthier’s expulsion was meant to be a warning, it’s not likely it’ll rattle journalists worth their salt: within days of the announcement came a New York Times report entitled “Xinjiang Seethes Under Chinese Crackdown.”

But nor is any journalist willing to ask serious questions of Gauthier’s reporting, for fear of validating the response. Unfortunately, this code of silence – though broken quite frankly in private – is not only sketchy ethics (“We always report fairly and objectively – unless it’s one of us”), it’s a gift to Chinese propagandists who prefer their critics to be a homogenous, hostile mass – “Western media” – than an independent and wholly diverse group of earnest scrutineers.

Gauthier’s article – her English translation can be found here, via China Digital Times – was fatally flawed in one way: she failed to differentiate between terrorism – defined as the violent targeting of innocent civilians for political purposes – and Terrorism™, the post-9/11 brand, which is an empty shell of counterproductive rhetoric.

China wanting in on Terrorism’s™ endless war should not surprise anybody, because that “war” – for all its ceaseless costs and stupidity – is a stirring political success. Of course China’s ruthlessly savvy and shrewd politicians would like to be a recognized component of a globally legitimized campaign against Extremism. And naturally, when a journalist calls them out, they call her a hypocrite, kick her out of the country, and create a poll that asks, “Do you support expelling the China-based French journalist who championed terrorism,” then relish in the fact that 94% of respondents said yes. The War on Terror™ in the United States, by the way, has led to discrimination, censorship, lunacy, nationally televised bigotry, forfeited civil liberties, increased militarism, violence, and a real war that cost trillions and radicalized countless. But who cares, right? TERRORISM.™

In attacking China’s rhetoric on Terror™, Gauthier could have done herself a service by pointing out that this rhetoric is US-born and incredibly dumb. It’s not about using different yardsticks for China vs. “The West” – those yardsticks all suck. How is China’s War on Terror™ different than any other country’s? It’s not – it’s equally pathetic.

But Gauthier’s other, bigger mistake was the following passage, which – and many reporters, even those who vehemently support Gauthier’s cause, will admit this – veers too far from any factual basis to be considered good journalism:

But, bloody though it was, the Baicheng attack had nothing in common with the 13^th November attacks. In fact it was an explosion of local rage such as have blown up more and more often in this distant province whose inhabitants, turcophone and Muslim Uyghurs, face pitiless repression. Pushed to the limit, a small group of Uyghurs armed with cleavers set upon a coal mine and its Han Chinese workers, probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation.

“Probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation” is a sentence that will flunk you out of Journalism 101. (And how could these coal miners, among the most disenfranchised and vulnerable group of workers in China, possibly have it coming?) Even if this was a magazine column, where there’s room for occasional editorializing, the speculation probably outreaches the research. Ignoring this simply reinforces the “Us and Them” dynamic so beloved of state media’s criticism of the “Western media.”

And Gauthier’s kicker:

China is unlikely to win the sort of cooperation from the US and Europe that it garnered after September 11^th. Given the smothering control over Chinese society and territory that the authorities enjoy, it is equally unlikely that Islamic State jihadists will link up with infuriated Xinjiang residents. But so long as the Uyghurs’ situation continues to get worse, China’s magnificent mega-cities will be vulnerable to the risk of machete attacks.

Seen in light of the Baicheng attacks – in which scores of coal miners were knifed to death – the phrase “China’s magnificent mega-cities will be vulnerable to the risk of machete attacks” reads as tone-deaf, and dangerously close to the sentiment, Maybe they deserved it. (Gauthier doesn’t say those words, and maybe she would never try to imply it, but it’s a sentiment that some people hold, and that disembodied sentiment lurks in the context of what Gauthier did write.) For the record, there’s a way to say “repression can radicalize the marginalized” without sounding callous.

Should Gauthier have been expelled for publishing this? Absolutely not. Xinjiang is a place of swirling ethnic tension, where many Uyghurs have legitimate fears of “being labeled ‘a terrorist,’” as BJC columnist Beige Wind wrote last month. But the issue is with the label itself, and the War on Terror.™

China is not the first – and won’t be the last – country to politicize a tragedy. (They certainly could have picked a better time than post-Paris to point at their own terrorism problem, particularly a massacre they were more than happy to suppress at the time.) Then again, they didn’t come up with the original terms for the War on Terror™, and seem to have only the faintest understanding of what it entails. Blame them roundly for expelling Gauthier, yes. But let’s remember that they’re merely parroting a flawed rhetoric, one that a significant number of leaders probably don’t believe themselves, except for the political benefits that they deem theirs to share.

Two vehicles rammed into pedestrians in an open market at 7:50 this morning on Gongyuanbei Street in Urumqi, Xinjiang, killing at least 31 people and injuring more than 90, according to Chinese state media. AP reports that “the Xinjiang regional government said in a statement that the early morning attack was ‘a serious violent terrorist incident of a particularly vile nature.’”

More details:

The SUVs then crashed head-on and one of them exploded, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. It quoted an eyewitness as saying there were up to a dozen blasts in all and that at one point one of the vehicles stopped because it was blocked by bodies and handcarts.

Authorities have blamed separatists for the attack, with president Xi Jinping once again urging severe punishment and stability. He’s had to make similar statements in the very recent past: three were killed in a bomb and knife attack at a Urumqi railway station on April 30.

Also, this via SCMP:

In a statement domestic security chief Meng Jianzhu vowed to “destroy the arrogance of violent terrorists”.

Just the day before, on Wednesday, China sentenced 39 people to jail on charges of terrorism, many (or all?) with “ethnic Uighur names,” as Reuters points out.

If you’re wondering if the terrorist attacks will stop, Fear of a Red Planet offers this bit of distressing insight: “Nothing is ever likely to give the terrorists carrying out attacks like today’s what they want because what they want – at the very least independence for Xinjiang – is not achievable.”

Of course, the heinous act of targeting innocent civilians achieves less than nothing, and is the surest way to ensure one’s message goes unheard.

Some more photos from around the web (h/t China Digital Times):

The above, posted 17 hours ago to Youku, purportedly shows a female attacker being captured on the night of the Kunming Railway Station massacre that left at least 29 dead and more than 140 injured.

Sinosphere adds that the video, naturally, spread to news outlets including Hong Kong-based ifeng.com and Yunnan Television. Unlike previously reported, it seems that only four of the 10 attackers were killed and one captured.

Other coverage has focused on the numerous small acts of kindness during the attacks. Passengers fled into Dico’s, where employees tended to the wounded with what supplies were on hand. Hundreds squeezed into a hotel, where they were ushered to safety upstairs. A nearby grocery store also offered shelter. Taxi drivers gave free rides to the hospital.

Also, there’s an editorial from Xinhua, posted less than two days after the attack, which we’ll just gingerly leave here and back away from: “US double standard on terrorism encourages slaughters.”

At least 10 men wielding long knives began indiscriminately attacking pedestrians in the waiting hall of Kunming Railway Station yesterday around 9:20 pm. The initial death and injury count vary, but the latest from Xinhua places the number at 29 dead and more than 130 injured. (Others put the number as high as 33.) Official reports say Xinjiang separatist forces are responsible for this “3-1 terrorist attack.”

Police reportedly shot dead five attackers at the scene and are searching for the others. Chinese president Xi Jinping put out a statement calling for an all-out effort to find and “punish the terrorists in accordance with the law.”

The attack coincides with the arrival of deputies from around the country to Beijing for the second session of the 12th NPC, which opens on March 5.

Some graphic photos have been collected on Liveleak.

UPDATE, 3/2, 3:42 pm: Since more than a few people have brought this up, let me address this above the comment section: the quote marks around “terrorists” are not meant to imply the attack somehow doesn’t fit the literal definition of terrorism. It plainly does. But if the marks are guilty of making any implication, it’s that there’s a conversation to be had, at the appropriate time, about the word itself — how we use it, how governments use it, how the media uses it. Of course, many other issues are at play. Kaiser Kuo has begun a compelling conversation on Facebook, which you can join here.