In the annals of “If-you-believe-this-you’ll-believe-anything” propaganda so beloved of the much misunderstood People’s Republic of China (PRC), last week saw the zenith (nadir?) of bullshit-shoveling as a political philosophy. According to officials ethnic minority people in China’s Xinjiang provide are far too busy dancing, singing & partying to make trouble, dismissing completely the idea that the far western region continues to be the scene of riots & violent anti-government protests.

The original local people are Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group who regularly protest at Chinese restrictions on their culture, language & religion, & already this year the region has witnessed deadly ethnic violence & continuing repression.

Last month, over 20 people were killed in clashes in the heavily ethnic Uighur part of Xinjiang near the city of Kashgar, the deadliest violence since 2009, when about 200 people were killed in riots in the Xinjiang capital of Urumqi.

The government says it offers an unusual degree of autonomy in Xinjiang, yet few Chinese officials can speak the Uighur language or are sympathetic to Islamic mores & traditions.

Deputy Xinjiang governor Shi Dagang said in  a press conference, that he had worked in southern Xinjiang for more than a decade & never had to carry a gun or have a police escort (although he did make this claim from the safety of an office in Beijing).

He went on to claim that this was “the common experience of government officials who are members of the majority Han Chinese ethnicity, many of whom work in areas heavily populated by minorities.” (Although, of course, they weren’t actually minorities before the PRC started shipping-in outsiders.)

“There is mutual respect by Han cadres & the ethnic minority & we are friends. When we go into their houses as guests we are treated to meat & wine, with song & dance,” Shi added (thus demonstrating a breathtaking lack of knowledge of Islam which rather undermined his entire presentation).

The government claims armed Uighur groups have links to Central Asian & Pakistani Islamist militants, & of carrying out attacks to establish an independent state they call East Turkistan.

“Those minority of people, the violent terrorists, ethnic splittists (sic) & religious extremists who want to cause trouble, their organizations are all outside the country, as are their backers behind the scenes,” Shi said.

I’ve always rather admired the PRC, its rotten human rights record & Tibet notwithstanding, considering everything that went before the Party has made a decent go at feeding the population & offered a degree of relief from centuries of external & internal wars; but every now-&-again it manages to offend even my limited intelligence.