In an unusual report the South China Morning Post (December 4) quoted a source and publicised that the measures targeting Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang have triggered “widespread discontent among Han Chinese officials and citizens”. The source said Chinese President Xi Jinping was aware of the problem because he had been briefed by the country’s chief Xinjiang policy coordinator, Wang Yang. He said “[Wang has] said in his briefings that even the Han people are deeply dissatisfied,” the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “Life is harsh [in Xinjiang] even for cadres. Officials are exhausted as nobody is allowed days off [even after working for weeks].” Meanwhile on December 3, China Youth Daily published an article by Zakir, Chairman of the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region, making the same argument and urging Western politicians and media to give up their “double standards” in criticising the vocational centres in Xinjiang. Peking University sociology professor Li Jianxin studying Xinjiang confirmed that Han Chinese are leaving the region’s capital of Urumqi. He said “The [Han] people can’t voice their discontent, but they vote with their feet. Xinjiang is facing a severe problem of Han population outflow.” Wang Yang, Chairman of the CPPCC, has made three public inspection trips to the region: once in April 2018 and twice this year in March and July. He ranks fourth in the ruling Communist Party’s seven-member Politburo Standing Committee and is the head of the Central Committee’s Xinjiang Work Coordination Small Group, a body deciding Xinjiang policies.

(Comment: Urumqi had 3.5 million permanent residents in 2018, a decline from the 3.52 million reported in 2016, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. While the bureau did not give a breakdown by ethnic background, it’s Han Chinese that are leaving.)