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Communist Party’s picks to join Xinjiang leadership point to focus on security
- ‘Rising star’ trained in information management and Uygur with experience of community-level surveillance are among appointees
- Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has prompted Beijing to place even more onus on guarding against potential terror threats
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Beijing has appointed a Guangdong veteran and two Uygur cadres with significant security and development experience to the Xinjiang Communist Party committee, Xinjiang Daily reported.
He Zhongyou, 55, worked for over three decades in the prosperous Guangdong province, and was a top official in Hainan. He has become one of five deputy party secretaries to Chen Quanguo, the Xinjiang party chief since 2016.
Yusufujiang Maimaiti, 53, is a Uygur cadre who was born and has spent most of his career in Aksu prefecture in southern Xinjiang, where most of the Turkic-speaking minority live.
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Yilizhati Aihemaitijiang was a vice-president of the state-owned Cofco, China’s largest food processor and trader. It is rare for a Uygur to rise to the senior ranks of a large state-owned enterprise, which are usually dominated by Han officials.
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Leaked state documents describe repressive operations at China’s detention camps in Xinjiang
Leaked state documents describe repressive operations at China’s detention camps in Xinjiang
The appointments, especially He’s, suggest that Beijing is focusing further on security in far-western Xinjiang after the Taliban takeover of neighbouring Afghanistan and subsequent fears that the Central Asian country could re-emerge as a major terrorist base.
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