China’s Xi calls for ‘great wall of iron’

‘Notable results in 2-child’

BEIJING, March 11, (RTRS): Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday called for a “great wall of iron” to safeguard the restive western region of Xinjiang after a top official said Islamist separatists pose the “most prominent” challenge to the country’s stability.

Xi make the comments at a meeting of Xinjiang’s lawmakers on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, marking his first ever visit to the regional delegation since taking office.

Beijing has long said it faces a determined campaign by a group known as the East Turkestan Independence Movement, or ETIM, in Xinjiang, where hundreds of people have been killed in recent years in attacks and unrest between mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese.

“(ETIM) is the most prominent challenge to China’s social stability, economic development and national security,” Cheng Guoping, State Commissioner for counterterrorism and security, was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper.

The comments come about a week after a video purportedly by the Islamic State group surfaced showing Uighurs training in Iraq, vowing to plant their flag in China and saying that blood will “flow in rivers”.

“Just as one loves one’s own eyes, one must love ethnic unity; just as one takes one’s own livelihood seriously, one must take ethnic unity seriously,” Xi told the delegation, according to the state broadcaster.

Xi

The daily evening news showed Xi meeting delegates in traditional Uighur dress, with one individual presenting him with a photo of a Uighur family whose relative once met Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.

“I’m too excited. In 1958 old Kuerban met Chairman Mao in Beijing and now I’m meeting Chairman Xi,” he said in heavily accented Mandarin. China is worried that Uighurs have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for militant groups there, having travelled illegally via Southeast Asia and Turkey.

Rights groups say the unrest in Xinjiang is more a reaction to repressive government policies, and experts have questioned whether ETIM exists as a cohesive militant group. China denies there is any repression in Xinjiang.

Cheng told the China Daily that China should “closely check in on whether Afghanistan is becoming another paradise for extremist and terrorist groups. Such a major development may pose a serious challenge to the security of our northwestern border”.

The Global Times, an influential state-run tabloid, said Xinjiang authorities would issue a new anti-extremism regulation this year, possibly later this month, that would “prevent the spread of extremist ideas”.

It said the regulation would supplement an existing counterterrorism law that is focused on acts of terrorism, but did not give details.

Meanwhile, China said it would “resolutely strike” against the “Dalai Lama clique’s separatist activities” as protesters planned demonstrations in major world cities on Friday to mark the anniversary of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. The sensitive anniversary coincided with the yearly news conference of Tibet’s delegation to China’s annual meeting of parliament, under way in Beijing.

Che Dalha, Tibet’s governor, said the government would “hold a clear-cut stand against separatism, resolutely strike against the Dalai clique’s damaging and separatist activities”.

“The most important task is to protect our motherland’s frontier regions, build up our homes, absolutely not allow any groups to separate even one inch of our land from the motherland,” said Tashi Yangjen, a representative of the tiny Lhoba ethnic minority of southeast Tibet.

Chinese troops marched in and took control of Tibet in 1950 in what Beijing calls a “peaceful liberation”.

China views the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s Buddhist spiritual leader who fled into exile in India after the failed uprising, as a dangerous separatist. The Nobel Peace laureate denies espousing violence and says he only wants genuine autonomy for Tibet.

International human rights groups and exiles routinely condemn what they call China’s oppressive rule in Tibetan areas. They say pervasive surveillance and displays of military force are being used to intimidate and quell dissent, which has included Tibetan Buddhist monks self-immolating in protest at lack of religious freedom.

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, said Chinese authorities were again shutting off travel and holding military parades “to bully the Tibetan population into silence”.

Foreign journalists are not allowed to travel to Tibet without government approval, while all foreigners have been barred during sensitive periods.

Tibet’s most senior Communist Party official, Wu Yingjie, said foreign reporters were welcome as long as “they objectively and accurately report the changes in Tibet, the blissful lives of the masses, Tibet’s ethnic unity and religious harmony”.

BEIJING:

Meeting

Also:

China’s two-child policy is showing “notable results” with the fertility rate expected to rise through to 2020, a senior health official said on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of China’s annual meeting of parliament, Wang Peian, vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission said there were “notable results” in 2016, with the largest annual number of newborn babies since 2000.

Wang said 18.46 million live births were recorded last year, two million more than the average of the previous five years.

The total fertility rate also rose to 1.7 children per woman, compared to 1.5-1.6 between 2000 and 2015, he added. China introduced its controversial “one-child policy” in the 1970s to limit population growth, but authorities are now concerned the country’s dwindling workforce will not be able to support an increasingly ageing population.