Significant protests which have been covered by major media outlets may be included -- > Chen Shirong , China editor on the BBC World Service , remarked at the improvement in media management by Xinhua : " To be more credible , it released video footage a few hours after the event , not two weeks . " Peter Foster of the '' Daily Telegraph '' observed that " long-standing China commentators have been astonished at the speed at which Beijing has moved to seize the news agenda on this event , " and attributed it to his belief that " China does n't have a great deal to hide " . A University of California , Berkeley academic agreed that the Chinese authorities had become more sophisticated . '' The New York Times '' and AFP recognised the Chinese learnt lessons from political protests around the world , such as the so-called colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine , and the 2009 Iranian election protests , and concluded that Chinese experts had studied how modern electronic communications " helped protesters organize and reach the outside world , and for ways that governments sought to counter them . " But Willy Lam , fellow of the Jamestown Foundation , sceptically said that the authorities were " just testing the reaction " . He believed that if the outcome of this openness was poor they would " put the brakes on " as they did after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake . There were instances of foreign journalists being taken into custody by the police , to be released shortly thereafter . On 10 July , officials ordered foreign media out of Kashgar , " for their own safety . " Xia Lin , a top official at Xinhua , later revealed that violence caused by both sides during and after the riots had been downplayed or wholly unreported in official news channels , for the fear that the ethnic violence would spread beyond Ürümqi
2008 Sichuan earthquake
2008 Sichuan earthquake
July 2009 Ürümqi riots