Xi Jinping defends ‘totally correct’ Xinjiang policies despite growing human rights concerns
- Beijing has been accused of detaining an estimated million Uygurs and other Muslim minorities in re-education camps
- But Xi tells a high-level party meeting its approach is bringing stability and prosperity to the region and must continue ‘for a very long time’
Beijing has denied the allegations and insisted these camps are “vocational training centres” where people are given education and training to improve their job prospects and counter religious extremism.
Xi made the comments on Saturday at the party’s highest level meeting concerning the far western region, the Third Central Symposium on Xinjiang Work.
Xi told the central and provincial officials present that since the second symposium in 2014, Xinjiang has achieved significant economic growth, higher standards of living and better environmental protections, which he described as a “success proven by fact”, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
“All the party must regard the implementation of our Xinjiang policies as a political task to be completely and accurately accomplished, to make sure our work in Xinjiang always follows the correct political direction,” he said.
He said the “socialist rule of law” must be upheld to maintain social stability in Xinjiang, and emphasised the importance of ideological works, including education to promote a common Chinese identity and a Sinicised form of Islam.
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Xi stressed the need for cadres in Xinjiang to implement the party’s policies and said a team of “loyal and competent” members of minority groups must be developed.
The last such meeting was held in May 2014, a month after a terrorist attack at the railway station in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, which left three dead and 79 others injured.
That meeting concluded that containing religious extremism and improving ethnic solidarity were the top priorities and led to the imposition of increasingly tight controls across the region.
Earlier this year, the Uygur Human Rights Policy Act imposed sanctions on groups and officials accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
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This week the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-based think tank, released a report, which estimated that about 16,000 mosques in Xinjiang have been destroyed or damaged as a result of government policies, mostly since 2017.
The estimates were based on satellite imagery that examined satellite images of a sample of 900 religious sites, including mosques and shrines, taken before 2017 and comparing them with the present day.
The Chinese foreign ministry dismissed the report as “slanderous rumours”.
