Some Uyghurs living in China’s Xinjiang are compelled into a type of sharecropper’s existence as they are forced to abandon their children and travel hundreds of miles to find work in the cotton fields as there are no jobs near their homes, RFA’s Uyghur Service has learned. An auxiliary police officer in Guma (Pishan, in Chinese) county, called the shortage of agricultural water and farmland the “biggest problem in our county.” “The local labor force is forced to move other regions such as Aksu (Akesu, in Chinese) and Korla (Kuerle, in Chinese) and even to the bingtuan’s cotton fields in the northern part of Xinjiang because the local farmers have no other income aside from being able sell their physical labor,” said the police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. The bingtuan is the local name for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, an economic and paramilitary government organization in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The bingtuan has administrative authority over several medium-sized cities as well as settlements and farms in Xinjiang. Guma’s Mokuyla township loses about half its 21,000 population to the bingtuan’s cotton fields each year as farmers there become a kind of indentured servant in order to make ends meet, the police officer told RFA. “The local residents don’t have enough income and they have to depend on a loan to live,” he said. “When they come back to their village, they have to pay off their loan, then they are empty handed and have to apply for a new loan.” A teacher in Muji Township in Guma backed up the police officer. ‘The kids always became the victims’ “There isn’t enough agricultural land and water in the village of Guma so most of the local labor force left for other prefectures such as Aksu and Korla and bingtuan’s cotton fields,” said the teacher who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Some of them spent their whole year, and some of them spent several months in the bingtuan’s cotton field,” added the teacher. “But the kids always become the victims of this kind of separation.” The teacher told RFA that the fate of the children “breaks my heart.” “Last year I taught a girl in the first grade who was 16 years old!” the teacher said. “You never imagine a 16-year-old girl studying at the first grade of an elementary school.” The teacher told RFA the girl spent her childhood in the cotton fields of Aksu following her parents so she never had an opportunity to attend a school. “Last year both of her parents died in a car accident and her elder brother is busy working in the Aksu cotton fields, so nobody is left in her family to take care her,” the teacher said. “So she was forced to start her elementary school education at 16.” Jur’et Obul, who holds a medical services doctorate and is a board member of the Uyghur-American Association, said his people were going through the “darkest period of Uyghur national education” since the Chinese exerted control over the region in 1948. “Without their parents’ love and a normal family life, the kids are becoming a mentally unhealthy generation,” he said. “Uyghur children already lost their right to receive education in their mother tongue. Now, they face a life without their parents’ love. This is a tragedy for Uyghurs because this kind of system forcefully changes them into a stranger at their own land.”

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Public Security Ministry, which runs the police, needs to deepen efforts to root out the "pernicious influence" of jailed former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, the ministry's Communist Party committee said on Wednesday. Zhou once ran China's fearsome domestic security forces, but was jailed for life last year for bribery, leaking state secrets and abuse of power, the most senior Chinese official to be ensnared in a graft probe since the ruling Communist Party swept to power in 1949. In a statement released by the party's graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the ministry's party committee said political discipline and education needed to be strengthened. "Further develop work to purge the pernicious influence of Zhou Yongkang," it said. "Organise public security organs around the country and the broad mass of police to deepen study and education, to deepen their understanding of the seriousness and harmfulness of the Zhou Yongkang issue," the ministry added, without elaborating. The statement was issued in the form of a status update from a routine round of anti-corruption inspections carried out between July and September. Since assuming office four years ago, President Xi Jinping has waged war on deep-seated graft, warning like others before him that the problem is so bad it could affect the party's grip on power. Dozens of senior people have been jailed, including Zhou, and investigations into others continue. In a separate statement, the discipline commission said that a senior official at the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps had been put under investigation for suspected "serious discipline violations", the usual euphemism for graft. It gave no other details of the probe into Tian Jianrong, a member of the corps' Communist Party standing committee, and it was not possible to reach him for comment. The corps is a state-run, semi-military organization that dominates cotton production and is involved in other industries in China's far western region of Xinjiang ranging from tomato growing to mining and construction. Strategically located on the borders of Central Asia, Xinjiang is at the front lines of what China calls its war on terror, where the government says it faces a threat from Islamist militants.

On December 28, 2016, Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the National Meeting of Directors General of Local Foreign Affairs Offices held in Beijing, and reported on current international situation and diplomatic work. Deputy Secretary of Beijing Municipal Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee and Acting Mayor of Beijing Cai Qi chaired the meeting. Over 190 people, including Directors General of Foreign Affairs Offices of all provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, principal comrades from Office of Foreign Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, the Foreign Ministry and Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and some municipal leaders of Beijing, attended the meeting. Foreign Minister Wang Yi deeply expounded on General-Secretary Xi Jinping's important diplomatic concepts, and stressed that it is necessary to earnestly study and understand the profound connotation of General-Secretary Xi Jinping's diplomatic thoughts and regard it as an action plan to forge major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave a comprehensive introduction to the current international situation and diplomatic work, stressing that under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, the central and local foreign affairs offices have safeguarded a stable external environment in general amid a chaotic and turbulent international situation as well as elevated China's institutional rights in the ever-changing international situation by working together to overcome difficulties, forge ahead and make progress. 2017 marks the convening of the 19th CPC National Congress and is also a crucial year to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. Local foreign affairs work should play an important role in serving the successful convening of the 19th CPC National Congress, actively serve the local reform, opening up and development and vigorously participate in the "Belt and Road" construction, so as to effectively protect China's continuously expanding overseas interests. Attending representatives expressed that they will earnestly study and implement General-Secretary Xi Jinping's diplomatic thoughts, forge ahead and make progress in accordance with the CPC Central Committee's deployment, and further create a new situation for local foreign affairs work, so as to greet the convening of the 19th CPC National Congress with outstanding achievements.