It's not just Tibet
Updated on 24 April 2008
Lindsey Hilsum evades minders and a shadowy, silver Mitsubishi on the trail of the independence-seeking Uighur.
I wish I could tell you about the old man we met in Khotan. But I can't, because he risked arrest and worse to talk to us.
"I'm old and I'm dying, so what's there to be afraid of?" he said, but I'd hate to think that he was picked up by the Chinese police because of us.
Khotan is in China's far western region of Xinjiang - check the map, it's nearer Islamabad than Beijing.
This is the area where Peter Fleming, the Times China correspondent, travelled in the 1930s, taking seven months to get from what was then called Peking to Kashmir.
When we went through our interviews, we found that our guide had not translated correctly.
It's a little less romantic now, but the names Pamir Mountains and Taklimakan Desert still hold a certain magic, even if we travelled by plane rather than camel caravan, and I can't claim - as Fleming did - to have got "News from Tartary".
In Fleming's day, China was only nominally in control of the area known as Sinkiang. Russia jostled for influence, and imperial Britain lurked on the other side of the Karakorum Mountains.
Fleming and his companion, the Swiss writer Kini Maillart, could not get the passes required by the Chinese authorities, so had to blag and occasionally bribe their way through checkpoints, flattering grumpy guards and persuading self-important local officials that their mission was legitimate.
As journalists resident in Beijing today, we don't need a special pass to travel to Xinjiang, but the authorities are much less relaxed than in Fleming's time.
The translator we hired seemed nervous. Before we set off on the first morning, we saw him having a conversation with a well-dressed woman in the hotel car park.
Watch Lindsey Hilsum's report
Click here to watch Lindsey Hilsum's investigation, first shown on Channel 4 News on 28 April 2008.
A few minutes after we arrived at our destination - a river, where we were talking to local jade diggers - we spotted a silver Mitsubishi (I won't tell you the licence plate, but we noted it) which - surprise surprise - had also been in the hotel car park.
And so it went on.
Our guide had to call his 'minders' every time we went anywhere. Soon he decided that we were too hot to handle and that he could no longer work for us. Thank goodness.
When we went through our interviews, we found that he had not translated correctly.
'This place belongs to the Uighurs. We all want to be independent. Russia split into seven or eight countries. We want the same.'
He clearly thought it was too sensitive when I asked about relations between the local Uighur people and the Han Chinese, who have come to the area in great numbers in recent years, so he simply made up the questions and answers.
The Chinese government accuses Uighur groups of planning terrorist attacks during the forthcoming Olympics. It's stepped up the arrest of Uighurs, who - like the Tibetans - chafe under Chinese communist rule.
One prominent local Uighur merchant, Mutallip Hajim, recently died in police custody, but his neighbours said they were too scared to tell us what happened. No-one could even explain exactly why he had been detained.
"He became too powerful" was one answer. "He gave money to a Muslim school," was another.
China is fully in control of Xinjiang.
The government talks of terrorism but there have been no significant terror attacks since the 1990s, and outside experts say it uses the spectre of "Islamist terror" to justify restricting the Muslim religion and arresting Uighurs.
The old man said the Uighurs aren't allowed to practice their religion and culture freely - that's why they look over the mountains and are envious of the Kazakhs, Tajiks and Afghans, all of whom have their own countries.
"This place belongs to the Uighurs. We all want to be independent. Russia split into seven or eight countries. We want the same." he said.
That's why I can't tell you any more about him, because demanding independence can get you locked up for a long time in Xinjiang.
In Fleming's day there was no electricity, and no paved roads. Many went hungry. China has brought development, but for the Uighurs we met, that's not enough.
