China says ethnic policies 'successful' despite Xinjiang unrest.

BEIJING, July 21 Kyodo

China on Tuesday defended its policies toward ethnic minority groups as ''successful,'' saying recent violence in the far western region of Xinjiang does not reflect disharmony in relations between the country's Han Chinese majority and its 110 million people from ethnic minority groups.

Insisting the government's ethnic policies are ''effective and successful,'' Wu Shimin, vice minister of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, or SEAC, said annual gross domestic product growth in Xinjiang has averaged 10.2 percent per annum over the past 30 years, outpacing the rest of the country and validating the country's policies toward ethnic minorities.

''We will not abandon this effective policy simply because of an isolated and violent incident in some place,'' Wu told a press conference in the wake of rioting in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi earlier this month that left 197 dead and more than 1,700 injured, according to official figures.

Wu blamed the violence involving ethnic Uyghurs, a Turkic people who share linguistic, cultural and religious bonds with central Asia, and Han Chinese, China's majority ethnic group, on ''extremism, terrorism and separatism'' and said it had nothing to do with religion because ''no mosques or religious clergymen'' were involved.

''What the rioters were pursuing is a political agenda that is the independence of Xinjiang,'' Wu said. ''And I can tell them that they will never achieve this demand.''

China has blamed the country's worst ethnic unrest in decades on separatist forces operating from outside the country.

The government, the SEAC said in a statement, will ''unswervingly adhere to its policies toward ethnic minorities,'' focusing on economic and social development in ethnic minority regions, as these polices have proved ''absolutely correct.''

''I believe that China's ethnic relations on the whole are in good shape,'' another SEAC official Liu Wanqing told the same press conference. ''Equality, unity, mutual support and harmony remain the main theme of China's ethnic relations.''

However, many Uyghur rights groups say economic discrimination against Uyghurs and systematic dilution of their culture, religion and language have bred a deep-rooted resentment among them and led to the outbreak of violence more than two weeks ago.

Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim people, make up the majority of Xinjiang's population though there has been an enormous influx of Han Chinese into the resource-rich region in recent decades.

Washington-based Uyghur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer, who has been accused by China of masterminding the July 5 violence, released a statement Tuesday rebutting the official version of events as reported by Chinese media.

''What is missing from the Chinese official media's reporting...is the larger picture of repression of Uyghurs in China,'' Kadeer said. ''The six decades-long repression of Uyghurs by the Chinese government is the true cause of the unrest.''

Referring to the Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri's admission over the weekend that Chinese security forces had shot dead 12 Uyghur rioters during the unrest, Kadeers alleged far more were shot, and accused China of obscuring the truth in order to conceal a ''mass killing of Uyghurs by Chinese security forces.''

International human rights groups and Kadeer's World Uyghur Congress are calling for an independent and impartial investigation of what happened.

In the aftermath of the violence, authorities rounded up more than 1,400 people suspected of involvement, and the Xinjiang government has vowed to mete out severe punishment.