China Daily Global Weekly

Xinjiang life keeps getting better

Multiprong­ed initiative­s spanning several years open new economic and social opportunit­ies for the people of the region, improving livelihood­s, vocational skills and children’s education

- By ZHANG YANGFEI zhangyangf­ei@chinadaily.com.cn

Over the past five years, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region has stepped up efforts to create favorable conditions for people from all ethnic groups to find employment and start their own businesses, according to Xu Guixiang, a spokesman for the regional government.

He added that in the past five years, the Xinjiang government has added 2.35 million jobs in urban areas and found work for 14.3 million laborers in the rural areas.

Tursonnayi Memet, a factory manager for Xinjiang Lebel, a company that specialize­s in the manufactur­e of medical clothing and equipment, said she used to work odd jobs to earn enough money to take care of her parents and children.

She joined the company in 2019 through a friend, starting as a trainee seamstress. “When I first arrived at the company, I knew nothing,” she said.

“The company arranged a mentor to teach me all the techniques from scratch, patiently and carefully,” Tursonnayi Memet said, adding that she studied hard, mastered the techniques and became a qualified worker.

She was later promoted to manager in charge of production, and her monthly salary rose to 5,500 yuan ($863).

“I was thrilled. I used the first month’s salary to buy new clothes for my family and took them for a big meal,” she said.

Thanks to her career, Tursonnayi Memet has refurbishe­d her home and bought new furniture and appliances.

“There are many ordinary people around. Like me, they are using their own hands to build happy lives,” she said.

All ethnic groups in Xinjiang enjoy equal social status and jointly participat­e in State affairs. The 13th National People’s Congress, China’s top legislatur­e, which held its annual session in March, has 61 deputies from Xinjiang, including members of the Uygur, Kazak and Hui ethnic groups, said Xu, the regional government spokesman.

He added that the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultati­ve Conference includes 34 political advisers from Xinjiang.

Wurnisar Kadeer, an NPC deputy from the Uygur ethnic group, said her hometown of Turpan is Xinjiang’s largest grape producing area and home to China’s largest grape cultivatio­n area.

In recent years, Wurnisar Kadeer, who works at a service center that promotes technologi­es in the forestry and fruit industry, has put forward many suggestion­s to the NPC related to environmen­tal protection for local oases and the constructi­on of a logistics and distributi­on center for dried fruit.

“They have received timely responses. This is my right as a deputy from the Uygur group to exercise my political rights and participat­e in politics and democratic supervisio­n,” she said.

“I’m happy that nearly 40 percent of farmers’ incomes in the city comes from the grape industry — including grapes, raisins and wine — and the business is a pillar industry to raise incomes.”

Yirzat Zadar, a member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee and deputy director of the Xinjiang health commission, prepared a number of proposals for this year’s two sessions.

He said he hopes government at all levels will raise investment to provide more qualified physicians at the village level so people in rural areas can enjoy quality medical treatment.

“The CPPCC is a great creation of China’s political system that safeguards the political rights of citizens, enabling people from all ethnic groups and walks of life to fully exercise their right to participat­e in politics,” he said.

The right to survival and developmen­t is the primary basic human right, said Xu, the regional government spokesman.

Speaking on March 17 at a news conference in Beijing during the 49th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which started in Geneva on Feb 28, Xu said geographic­al and historical reasons meant Xinjiang was a key part of poverty alleviatio­n efforts.

In recent years, the regional government has taken a series of measures to boost industrial developmen­t and employment. By the end of 2020, Xinjiang’s 3,666 poor villages, with an impoverish­ed population of 3.06 million, had been lifted out of poverty, Xu added.

Reziwangul Mutalif, head of Daliyabuyi township, Hotan prefecture, said a relocation measure has helped the villagers live modern lives.

The old Daliyabuyi village was located in the heart of the Taklimakan Desert, battered by sandstorms for at least seven consecutiv­e months each year. The land was barren, and generation­s of residents had lived in houses made from red willow branches, reeds and mud.

In 2018, the government helped all 360 households move to the new vil

lage, also called Daliyabuyi, where they were given new houses equipped with running water, electricit­y and internet access.

The settlement was designed with sealed roads, schools, medical centers and open cultural spaces. The regional government also guided villagers to establish farmers’ cooperativ­es and operate desert tourism businesses, she said.

Villager Ehat Daman said that after he relocated, the government gave his family a one-time payment of 22,500 yuan ($35,000) and allocated 200 hectares of grassland to him. He opened a supermarke­t in the village, so he can now earn more than 60,000 yuan a year.

“Our villagers have witnessed the old and new Daliyabuyi villages and experience­d the great changes in the rural areas of southern Xinjiang. Our lives are getting better and better,” he said.

Xinjiang has constantly raised investment in education. The national free nine-year compulsory education plan covers the entire region, while four prefecture­s in southern Xinjiang provide 15 years of free education up to high school level.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan (201620), the regional government built 4,408 rural kindergart­ens, accelerate­d the constructi­on of boarding schools in townships and raised living allowances for rural boarding students to solve the problems such children face in remote farming and herding areas, according to Xu, the regional government spokesman.

Kurban Niyaz, founder and teacher at the National Common Language Primary School in Qianjin Town, Wushi county, said the school has popularize­d the use of Mandarin, which has helped children realize their dreams.

“In the place I used to live, many children spent their lives in a world of a few hectares and a few sheep. Some never got out of the town,” he said, adding that the conditions sparked his idea to help children step out of villages and realize their ambitions in big cities.

When he initially proposed opening a Mandarin language school, many people did not understand, thinking it was unnecessar­y and impossible to achieve.

“Until I was offered support by the local government, I didn’t know where I should go to find funding, whether parents would support the venture or where to find teachers,” he said.

“To my surprise, parents rushed to send their children after we opened. We could only recruit 120 full-time elementary students for the first year, but more than 2,000 applied,” he said.

He added that many parents told him that learning the national language will help their children find better jobs in the future.

He is proud that many of his students have achieved good academic results, with many admitted to prestigiou­s schools like Tsinghua University in Beijing. Some have also studied overseas.

In the past, Xinjiang experience­d terrorist attacks that caused great harm to the lives and property of people from all ethnic groups, noted Xu, the regional government spokesman.

To address the problem, the regional government decided to build vocational education and training centers in accordance with the law, he said.

Patgul Kasim, who attended a training center in Moyu county, now runs her own bakery. She said that having loved cakes and desserts since childhood, she opened her first store in 2010.

“At that time, some customers told me things like ‘Muslim women shouldn’t go out to earn money’ and ‘Muslim women have to participat­e in jihad’,” she said, adding that the comments affected her mindset and made her think constantly about jihad and martyrdom.

The thoughts also made her slack off on her business. She said she often lost her temper and made a fuss with her family. Her bakery closed, her husband would not talk to her and her children avoided her.

“My mother was worried when she saw me like that, so she persuaded me to attend the training center,” she said.

At the center, she learned Mandarin, legal knowledge and vocational skills.

“Through my studies, I learned that extremist religious ideology compels people to engage in violent activity, which is harmful to them and others,” she said.

The center helped her improve her baking skills and she learned about more types of desserts and baking methods.

Later, she opened a new bakery, offering a wide range of cakes and pastries, plus burgers, fried chicken and soft drinks.

“Some people overseas say the training centers are ‘concentrat­ion camps’ that imprison and persecute students. I can tell you from my own experience that their claims are false,” Patgul Kasim said.

“In fact, it was the training center that pulled me out of the mire of religious extremism, gave me a new life and changed my destiny. Without it, I would not have the happy life I have now.”

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