Beijing showcases Xinjiang’s ‘progress’

BEIJING: China recently took diplomats from several countries, including India, to Xinjiang province, where members of the Uyghur Muslim community have been interned in camps.

A group of foreign journalists were also taken to the region as part of Beijing’s plan to showcase Xinjiang’s “social and economic progress” amid speculation of a systematic crackdown against the minority community.

This was the first time that Beijing took diplomats and journalists to the province after acknowledging the existence of the camps following months of silence on human rights violations there.

“The regional government invited diplomatic envoys as well as representatives of diplomatic envoys from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Kuwait,” the official news agency Xinhua said in a report on the visits that took place late last year.

“The diplomatic envoys visited local markets, farmers, educational institutes, mosques, factories, as well as vocational education and training centres... they interacted with local vendors, students and workers in Xinjiang and learned about the region’s progress in maintaining social stability, improving people’s livelihood and developing the local economy,” it added.

The diplomats were chaperoned to what the Chinese government calls vocational training institutes but rights groups and the UN termed “re-education camps”.

At least a million Uyghurs are in those camps.

“Xinjiang is an open place,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said earlier this week.

But he cautioned those who would visit to “abide by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and refrain from interfering in others’ internal affairs or undermining others’ sovereignty”.