AP Interview: China signals shift but no let-up in Xinjiang
BEIJING (AP) — An official from China’s Communist Party signaled Monday that there would likely be no let-up in its crackdown in the remote Xinjiang region, but said the government’s focus is shifting more to addressing the roots of extremism.
China’s policies in Xinjiang, home to the Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, have become a major point of division with the US and other Western nations over alleged human rights violations.
“We cannot be complacent at this moment, because the threats are still out there,” Xu Guixiang, the deputy director-general of the Xinjiang Communist Party publicity department, said in an interview with The Associated Press in Beijing.
Analysts say China has detained more than a million people in Xinjiang, forcing many to give up at least elements of their faith and traditions. Activists accuse China of mass detentions, forced labor, forced birth control and wiping out the Uighur (pronounced WEE-gur) language and culture.
Chinese officials deny the accusations and tout what they say has been a successful effort to deradicalize the population and provide job training, saying the region hasn’t had a terrorist attack in four years.
Xu said the party is consolidating the measures taken to date and would also explore ways to achieve sustained stability in multi-ethnic border areas such as Xinjiang, a western region about 1,500 miles from Beijing. To Xinjiang’s south is Tibet, another region marked by past unrest.