Envoys to visit Kashi, Hotan in Xinjiang
Inviting diplomats from other countries to visit Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China shows that China is confident about showing its governance and achievements in counter-terrorism and de-extremism to the world, Chinese analysts said on Sunday amid the ongoing visit of a diplomatic delegation in the region.
Senior diplomats from permanent missions of eight countries to the United Nations Office at Geneva arrived in Beijing Friday and would visit Xinjiang from Saturday to Tuesday, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday.
An official from Xinjiang confirmed the visit with the Global Times on the condition of anonymity on Sunday and said the diplomats are scheduled to visit vocational training and education centers in
Kashi and Hotan, two cities in souther Xinjiang. The diplomats, from Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Egypt, Cambodia, Russia, Senegal and Belarus, are visiting at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“China wants to further display its achievements in counter-terrorism and de-extremism to the world after receiving heavy criticism and groundless accusation from the outside world,” said Yang Shu, head of the Institute for Central Asia Studies at Lanzhou University.
Currently the hostile voices against China’s governance in Xinjiang are still dominating the Western world and countries like Turkey, so China wants to improve the situation by being more open and transparent on those topics of much concern like vocational training and education centers, Yang noted.
During talks with the delegation, Jiang Jianguo, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that since the 1990s, the “three evil forces” – terrorism, extremism and separatism – have organized and conducted thousands of violent terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, causing massive casualties and injuries to people as well as substantial property damage.
Based on international anti-terrorism experience and its own reality, the Xinjiang regional government has made obvious progress in recent years by means including setting up vocational education and training centers, Jiang said, adding that local people’s sense of gain, happiness and security have been greatly lifted.
Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng said when holding talks with the visiting delegation that the world is faced with rising instability, uncertainty and insecurity, thus multilateralism should be insisted on.
All parties should respect other countries’ own human rights development paths, jointly oppose supremacy of human rights and promote the sound development of human rights causes in the world, Le said.
Members of the visiting delegation spoke highly of China’s development paths, concepts and achievements, Xinhua reported. They also expressed willingness to make joint efforts with China to promote all parties to treat various kinds of human rights issues equally and prevent the issue from being politicized.
Not first time
This is not the first time for China to invite foreign diplomats to visit Xinjiang.
In December 2018 and January 2019, China also invited senior diplomats from 12 countries and a group of foreign media journalists to visit vocational training centers in Xinjiang.
An official from the publicity department of Xinjiang who requested anonymity confirmed with the Global Times on January 7 that diplomats from 12 countries including Russia, Indonesia, India, Kazakhstan and Pakistan were invited to visit vocational training and education centers in Xinjiang in late December. A group of foreign media, including Reuters and TASS, visited the centers January 3-5, the official said.
Li Wei, a Beijing-based anti-terrorism expert, who was invited to visit the education centers in November, said that some of these countries face a threat of extremism similar to Xinjiang and the diplomats’s visits would facilitate exchanges on de-extremism measures.