Xinjiang relocates 460k residents
July 07, 2018Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China relocated 461,000 poverty-ridden residents to work in other parts of the region during the first quarter of the year, in what a Chinese expert on Friday said was a bid to improve social stability and alleviate poverty.
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The Xinjiang government plans to transfer 100,000 residents in southern Xinjiang’s Hotan and Kashi by 2019, to get employed somewhere else, the report said.
Poverty alleviation in Xinjiang is more difficult compared to other places because, aside from poverty, Xinjiang also faces “ethnic issues,” Yu Shaoxiang, an expert on social security and poverty relief legislation at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Friday.
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Xinjiang governments have also moved 2,410 people from four prefectures in southern Xinjiang for jobs elsewhere, Xinjiang Daily reported in January.
Organizing people to work away from home would help them better integrate with the rest of China, and take their advanced skills back to Xinjiang later, Yu said. The relocation also helps maintain regional security, he said.
Compared with other parts of China, Yu said the education level of southern Xinjiang residents is relatively low, and learning how to speak Putonghua - the standard spoken and written Chinese language - is key to landing a job outside Xinjiang.
To tackle these problems, the Xinjiang government provided career and Putonghua training all over the region to make sure at least one person in a family possesses employable skills.