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China expands anti-terror campaign
RWilly Wo-Lap Lam
CNN Senior China Analyst
Monday, November 18, 2002 CNN
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Beijing has expanded its
anti-terrorist capacities with the appointment of an
unprecedentedly large number of Xinjiang-related
cadres to the ruling Central Committee of the
Communist Party.
And the Xinjiang party boss, Wang Lequan, who has just
been named a Politburo member, will be given new
responsibilities in rooting out terrorist cells and
preventing the "infiltration" of radical Islamic
groups into western China.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S.,
Beijing has beefed up action against underground
groups active in Xinjiang such as the East Turkistan
Islamic Movement (ETIM).
The central government has claimed that the ETIM and
its sympathizers are responsible for numerous
terrorist acts in Xinjiang that have included
explosions, arson and assassination.
Diplomatic analysts in Beijing said it was very rare
for a party boss from Xinjiang to gain Politburo
status, and Wang's elevation reflected the new
leadership's determination to maintain stability in
the restive region.
Wang, 58, has worked in Urumqi since 1990 and he is
reportedly close to newly named party General
Secretary Hu Jintao, who served as a party secretary
of Tibet from 1988 to 1992.
The new Central Committee elected at the 16th
Communist party Congress last week include the
Xinjiang governor, Ablait Abdureschit , the Xinjiang
vice party secretary Zhou Shengtao, and the Commander
of the Xinjiang Military Construction Corp, Zhang
Qingni.
Three leading officers from the Army's Lanzhou
Military Region (LMR), which is responsible for
Xinjiang and neighboring provinces, have also been
inducted to the policy-setting committee.
They are the Commander, General Li Qianyuan, the
Political Commissar General Liu Dongdong, and the
regional Chief of Staff General Chang Wanquan.
Qiu Yanhan, the Commander of the Xinjiang Military
District, a unit within the LMR, was made an alternate
member of the Central Committee.
Beijing's campaign against terrorist and separatist
elements in Xinjiang has increased since the U.S. and
United Nations in August agreed to put the ETIM on
their lists of international terrorist organizations.
And Xinjiang newspapers last week ran photos of "anti-terrorist
maneuvers" in unspecified areas in the region in
tandem with their reports of the 16th party Congress.
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