Crackdown on "three key threats" in Xinjiang

China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has been struck recently by terrorist attacks which claimed the lives of 24 innocent civilians and police officers. In a commentary on Monday, the CPC’s flagship newspaper People’s Daily asserted that the source of these atrocities was what it describes as “three key threats” based in China and abroad.

The three key threats are extremist forces employing terrorism in pursuit of their ends all over the world, which in China’s case manifests itself in a drive towards separatism. They incite racial hatred, promote religious fanaticism, advocate so-called “holy war”, launch terrorist activities, take innocent lives, and provoke riots.

In China these forces of evil collude with local ethnic separatists, religious extremists and violent terrorists, causing social disorder with the purpose of sowing chaos in Xinjiang and encouraging division in China.

It is important to recognize that our struggle against these key threats is neither an ethnic issue nor a religious issue, but a fundamental battle with divisive forces in the cause of safeguarding national unity, ethnic unity, and social stability.

In this battle we must always be ready to seize the initiative, and make every effort to quell violence. At the same time we must also recognize that the forces ranged against us will never give up on their designs. They will continue with their attempts to strengthen their ideological and political penetration, spreading ideas of ethnic separatism and religious extremism as well as carrying out specific acts of violence intended to devastate the ethnic unity and social stability of Xinjiang.

In the battle with these key threats we must defend the socialist legal system as well as safeguard ethnic unity and the fundamental interests of the masses. Those who provoke these riots must be severely punished in accordance with the law so as to defend the safety of the people and strike back against terrorism and extremism.

At the same time we must maintain a cool head. We should give equal importance to development and stability, promote economic and social development, and do everything possible to build a firewall protecting social stability.

The right to live with a sense of security is one of the most basic demands of every ordinary person. To be able to live and work in peace and contentment is a common mutual aspiration that we all share. In meeting this demand and fulfilling this desire, in fighting the forces of extremism, and in safeguarding social stability, China will live up to the hopes of its people and create a peaceful environment in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region for the 22 million people of various ethnic backgrounds who live there.

Edited and Translated by Yao Chun, People's Daily Online

Read the Chinese version: 坚决打击“三股势力”, source: People's Daily

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