Xinjiang Announces New Leadership Training Program

Beginning in 2005, Xinjiang authorities will assign "outstanding" county and city-level party secretaries and mayors to head a variety of smaller departmental offices throughout Xinjiang. In addition, government officials will assign a select corps of provincial-level party and state leaders to senior positions at the prefectural, county, and city levels. According to a Xinjiang Economic News article, this policy shows that cadres must recognize the importance of people seeing them do productive work in different grassroots offices, and must realize that their future depends on hard work, not simply on "putting in your time at the office." Han Yong, a Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region CCP Standing Committee Member and Director of the region’s CCP Organization Department, announced in late December 2004 that future promotions within Xinjiang would require that cadres have experience "at the grassroots level in arduous, complicated environments."