Xinjiang

Work Forum Stresses Development and Stability

Central government and Communist Party authorities convened a central "work forum" on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in May that sets state objectives for the region's economic and political development. The meeting marks the first work forum directed at the XUAR. (Authorities have held five work forums to date addressing the Tibet Autonomous Region and, most recently, other Tibetan autonomous areas of China. See a related Congressional-Executive Commission on China analysis for details.)

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continue to exert tight control over the practice of religion, according to reports from XUAR government Web sites and Chinese and overseas media. In the aftermath of demonstrations and rioting in the XUAR in July 2009, authorities claimed "religious extremism" as one cause of the events in July and they continue to include controls over religion as part of security measures in the region. Some details about recent controls over religion in the XUAR remained unknown in the aftermath of the July events, as authorities curbed Internet access and imposed other restrictions over the free flow of information from the region.

The Urumqi municipal People's Congress Standing Committee in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) passed a new regulation on April 23, 2010, that regulates the management of rental housing, in a step one official connected to problems allegedly stemming from the city's large "floating population" of migrants, according to an April 26 Tianshan Net report. Among other stipulations, the regulation requires people renting out housing to register with their neighborhood or village committee within 15 days of signing, modifying, or canceling a rental contract. The committee, in turn, is to conduct an on-the-spot verification and submit the rental files to the local office in charge of rental managements. Where files are "standard" and "conform to conditions" (fuhe tiaojian), authorities will issue rental credentials, according to the regulation.

The Communist Party-controlled Women's Federation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) has strengthened measures in the past year to regulate the religious activities of Muslim women, according to recent reports from the region. It carried out at least one prefectural campaign in coordination with government offices, while a separate Communist Party office in another locality reported it would increase monitoring of Muslim women religious specialists. The efforts build on previous official steps in recent years to interfere in the religious activities of Muslim women. See previous Congressional-Executive Commission on China analyses (1, 2, 3) for more information. Recent developments include:

Regulating Women Religious Figures

Against a track record of imposing top-down development programs that have exacerbated inequalities and denied local residents the autonomy to chart their own course of development, central and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government authorities have described plans for new initiatives to accelerate development in the region, according to Chinese government and media sources. Premier Wen Jiabao said in his March 5 work report at the annual meeting of the National People's Congress that the government would draft and implement policies to spur economic and social development in the XUAR, as well as in Tibetan areas of China, according to a copy of the report from the People's Daily (via Sina). (See also a March 5 Xinhua report, via China Daily.) Wen did not provide details on the plan.

The number of ethnic minority students receiving "bilingual" education in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in 2009 increased by more than 150,000 over the previous year, according to a January 12 Xinjiang Daily report (via Xinhua). As noted in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) 2009 Annual Report, educational policies described as "bilingual" by the XUAR government have placed primacy on Mandarin Chinese through methods including eliminating ethnic minority language instruction or relegating it solely to language arts classes.

An official from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) reported that 198 people involved in 97 cases have been sentenced in the XUAR for crimes committed in July 2009, a period when demonstrations and rioting took place in the region. The figure appears to far exceed the number of cases reported to date by Chinese media. XUAR government chairperson Nur Bekri reported the figure at a March 7 press conference during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, according to March 7 reports in English and Chinese from Xinhua, and suggested more sentences are possible, as trials are ongoing.

Authorities in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), have implemented measures to curb citizen petitioning to higher levels over grievances connected to a demolition and resettlement project in the Old City section of Kashgar. According to a March 4 Xinjiang Daily report (via Xinhua), authorities in Kashgar have resolved residents' concerns about the project and have implemented a "zero-tolerance system" (lingkongzhi) to control petitions to higher level authorities. Authorities have included the rate at which officials "stop appeals and end complaints" (xisu bafang) and lower the rate of "serious letters and visits" (zhongxin zhongfang) in evaluations of "cadre effectiveness" (ganbu jixiao) and "peaceful construction" (ping'an jianshe).