Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on the 24th and said, "We must promote the building of the Chinese nation community and the Sinicization of our country's religions."
According to the Chinese state-run People's Daily that day, Xi made the remarks while receiving a regional party-government work report. Xi is visiting Urumqi to attend the 70th anniversary celebration of the autonomous region.
Xi also emphasized building a "people's anti-terror defense line." He said, "We must spare no effort to safeguard the overall stability of Xinjiang society," and "We must build a people's defense line for counterterrorism and social stability."
He went on to say that "cadres and the public of all ethnic groups must be guided to establish a correct view of the state, history, ethnicity, culture, and religion."
Earlier, in 2009, Uygurs, asserting separatist independence, staged the largest protest in Urumqi, resulting in a bloody incident that left at least 197 dead and more than 1,700 injured. In April 2014, the separatist group "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" (ETIM) carried out a bombing at Urumqi Railway Station.
Meanwhile, international human rights groups and Western countries have claimed over the past few years that about 1 million Uygur and other ethnic minority Muslims are being mobilized for forced labor at reeducation camps in Xinjiang. The Chinese government maintains that such allegations are nothing more than rumors.