Government Assigns Largest Group of Ethnic Han Officials to Date to Posts in Uighur Areas

September 27, 2005

According to the Xinjiang Daily, 947 government workers from outside the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region began three-year assignments in Xinjiang in mid-2005.

According to the Xinjiang Daily, 947 government workers from outside the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region began three-year assignments in Xinjiang in mid-2005. Wang Encheng, director of the Central Personnel Department, reported that this fifth class of "Assist Xinjiang" cadres is the largest to date, with 130 more officials than were assigned in 2004. He noted that a "new era in the 'Assist Xinjiang Cadre Policy' has begun," with the new arrivals assuming a larger number of first secretary Party posts at the county level. The Personnel Department will place the cadres primarily in southern Xinjiang, where over 95 percent of the population is Uighur, though new positions also have been added in the north.

The Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law mandates that the top official in each autonomous area be a member of the titular minority, but no similar provisions exist reserving senior Communist Party posts for minority representatives. All of the Xinjiang Party first secretaries, for example, are ethnic Han. The central government's "Assist Tibet, Assist Xinjiang, Assist Border Regions" personnel policy has placed tens of thousands of ethnic Han officials in minority areas since 1982. The goal of the policy is to combat "domestic and foreign forces'...vain attempts to stir up ethnic separatism and to threaten our country's social stability, ethnic harmony, and national unity," according to the State Ethnic Affairs Commission Web site. The Xinjiang Daily article downplayed the cadres' contributions to security and highlighted their role as "bridges for cooperation" between Xinjiang and the rest of China.