China’s foreign ministry brings in new press official from Xinjiang

Lin Jian was party chief at paramilitary organisation XPCC’s foreign office
The appointment comes as China steps up efforts to push its own narrative

Diplomacy

Sylvie Zhuangin Beijing

Published: 9:00pm, 15 Mar 2024

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China’s foreign ministry has appointed a new senior press official whose previous role was in Xinjiang – a flashpoint in ties with the West – as Beijing steps up efforts to push its own narrative to the world.

Career diplomat Lin Jian has been named as deputy director general of the ministry’s press unit, which releases information on diplomatic events and foreign policy.

The announcement was made on the ministry’s website on Friday, with Lin now holding the same administrative title as foreign ministry spokespeople Wang Wenbin and Mao Ning.

Lin Jian will have the same administrative title as foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. Photo: EPA-EFE

Lin has just finished a stint in the far western region of Xinjiang, where for several years he was Communist Party chief at the foreign office of state-run paramilitary organisation the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

During his time at XPCC, some of its top leaders were sanctioned by the United States and other Western nations in 2020 and 2021 over alleged human rights abuses against Uygurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities in the region.

Lin was not among those sanctioned, but the list included XPCC party secretary Wang Junzheng, who is now the party chief of Tibet.

The European Union also imposed sanctions on XPCC’s public security bureau, accusing it of running detention centres and violating the human rights of Muslim ethnic minority groups.

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Lin, who is from Wuhan in Hubei, started his career in Europe. After graduating with a major in English from Beijing Foreign Studies University, he was sent by the foreign ministry to study in Denmark, according to Chinese media reports. He went on to work at the Chinese embassy in Copenhagen.

He later moved to Poland, serving as a political counsellor for the Chinese embassy in Warsaw.

Lin then returned to China to take up a job at the foreign ministry’s European affairs department, according to the ministry’s website.

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He took up the post in Xinjiang after that, in late 2020. During his time at XPCC, Lin took part in talks seeking to boost exchanges in trade and tourism between Xinjiang and Hong Kong, according to a 2022 report on the website of the Hong Kong government’s Beijing office.

Beijing’s treatment of ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang has drawn mounting criticism from the West, with allegations it detained a million Uygurs and members of other Muslim minorities in re-education camps and forced them into labour.

Those claims have been strongly denied by Beijing, which says its security measures in the region are intended to counter terrorism and extremism.

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