BuildingMyBento

If you have a thermos, as so many mainlanders do, you can fill it up post-security at one of the lukewarm water coolers/machines. Also good for instant noodles.

Though, regarding your "terrorist" comment, I noticed that, at URC (Urumqi), security made me take off my shoes (it was a flight absolutely not continuing to the US/UK), and no bottles of anything were sold post-security. Not sure what the deal is at Lhasa's airport, but you can safely assume Uighurs are Beijing's reasoning for the URC murk. Coincidentally, a week after my Xinjiang flight, a DeerJet flight from Kashgar (I think) was hijacked. This was last summer.

jiejie

The no-liquids-through-security rule was put into effect on Chinese domestic flights throughout the country in 2002, after a China Northern airlines flight from Beijing to Dalian crashed--with reputed cause an in-cabin fire caused by a deranged passenger taking flammable liquid on board concealed as a soft drink. Baggies of small quantities of toiletries is OK. You can take an empty water bottle through security and fill up at a drinking water stand on the secure side. The shoes-off thing is pretty limited to Xinjiang airports for now, particularly Urumqi and Kashgar, Hotan, due to threat of Uighur unrest there. Laptops out of cases is demanded at all domestic airports.

BuildingMyBento

I wasn't referencing a no-liquids ban at security, I was just talking about how post-security at URC provided no opportunity to buy a bottled drink. Indeed, the Uighur "issue..." I didn't want to mention it on here so as to not attract unwanted attention.

jiejie

Sorry, I misunderstood. But you are correct, I noticed this too. URC is the only Chinese airport I've found so far, where this is the case, that they have eliminated all bottled drink (including water) sales after the security checkpoint. And if you don't bring your own empty container through URC security to fill up at the airside drinking water stands, you're out of luck. I did manage to find one of those stands that had paper cups for immediate use, but not very satisfying.

On a different note, I don't think there's any need on the forum to dance around the Uighur issues, insofar as it may affect travel within Xinjiang differently than in Eastern China. There are more security measures and also more road checkpoints and permit-needed areas, no denying this. Generally it has no significant effect on foreign visitors, it just may surprise you if you're not expecting it.