Tracking systems to monitor cars

Xinjang ramps up campaign to prevent violent attacks by militants

BEIJING: A prefecture in China’s far western Xinjiang region is requiring all vehicles to install satellite tracking systems as part of stepped-up measures against violent attacks.

Traffic police in Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture announced the regulation on Sunday, shortly after thousands of heavily armed police paraded in the Xinjiang capital and ruling Communist Party officials vowed to ramp up their campaign against separatists and Islamic militants.

The vehicle-tracking programme in Bayingolin would utilise China’s homegrown Beidou satellite system, launched in recent years to reduce China’s reliance on US-based GPS providers for sensitive applications.

Authorities said they would also track cars using RFID technology embedded in licence plates.

“In recent years, the terrorist situation around the world has become severe, and cars are the main means of transport for terrorists,” said prefectural authorities in an online statement.

Authorities aimed to register and track up to 20,000 vehicles, the statement said.

Gas stations would only serve cars equipped with the tracking system, according to a separate local news report.

Xinjiang officials have sharply increased surveillance, street searches and police patrols in recent years amid bombings, vehicle and knife attacks blamed on separatist militants from the native ethnic Uighur minority.

In recent years, the terrorist situation around the world has become severe, and cars are the main means of transport for terrorists. Prefectural authorities

Xinjiang shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan and several unstable Central Asian states. The Chinese government denied religious discrimination and said its policies were needed to maintain stability in a region targeted by militant Islamic radicals.

Despite the constant state of police lockdown, three knife-wielding attackers killed five and injured five others in Xinjiang’s far western Pishan county last week, while several clashes between police forces and militants had been reported in recent months in the region’s southern towns.

At a Saturday rally in the regional capital of Urumqi, Xinjiang party official Zhu Hailun exhorted rows of rifle-toting soldiers and police in tactical anti-riot uniforms to deal a “crushing, obliterating blow” against separatist and radical Islamic forces from Central Asia.