President Xi’s comments, made in a speech to Communist Party leaders on Thursday and quoted heavily in Chinese media yesterday, came after five suicide bombers killed 39 people and wounded 94 in an attack on a vegetable market in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi last week.
Economic marginalisation of Xinjiang’s large Muslim Uighur ethnic group has been generally recognised as one of the main causes of the violence.
President Xi said “the most long-term problem in Xinjiang is still one of ethnic unity” and that investment in the region must be increased to alleviate poverty.
“We must emphasise absorbing local labour and encourage Xinjiang people to work in the region,” he said.
“Employment must be made a priority.
“Authorities need to help people find employment in the cities as well as find jobs and set up their own businesses near their homes.”
Xinjiang, which is rich in resources and strategically located on the borders of central Asia, is crucial to China’s growing energy needs.
But Uighur activists claim that, despite its mineral wealth and high levels of investment, much of the proceeds have gone to the country’s majority ethnic group, the Han Chinese.
Rights groups have also complained that Uighurs — who speak a Turkic language — are cut off from economic development because they face job discrimination, with jobs going to an influx of migrant workers from other parts of China.
The official China Securities Journal said yesterday that Xinjiang will now be allowed to open up its oil and gas sector to private investment to give it a bigger share of energy profits.
Local firms will also be able to participate in upstream exploration and development, a sector normally limited to China’s state-owned energy giants.
It said three large oil and gas blocks will now be put out to tender for Xinjiang companies to make bids.
President Xi also said education funding must be expanded and that China would push forward bilingual education.
“The fruits of Xinjiang’s development must be used to improve people’s livelihoods,” he said.