All residents in China’s restive region of Xinjiang must hand in their passports to local police stations for “examination and management,” the Global Times newspaper said yesterday.
“Anyone who needs the passport must apply to the police station,” an anonymous police officer in Aksu Prefecture told the paper, adding that the policy has been implemented throughout Xinjiang.
Many members of the more than 10 million-strong Muslim Uighur minority in the region complain of discrimination — including denials of passport applications — as well as controls on their culture and religion.
The Global Times article followed numerous reports from cities across the region of tightened passport controls.
In the middle of last month, the public security bureau of Shihezi City posted a directive on a verified social media account asking residents to hand in their passports to police, stating: “Those who refuse to hand them in will bear the responsibility themselves should there be consequences, such as being forbidden to go abroad.”
The post was later deleted. Photographs of other notices posted on social media showed police stations in various counties and in the regional capital, Urumqi, requesting citizens to hand in passports or stating that new documents would no longer be issued. Angry questions about the new restrictions abounded on Chinese social media.
“I didn’t spend time and money getting a passport to become the focus of the government’s safeguarding or to ask for their instructions every time I go out on holiday,” said one user, from the border district of Tacheng, on Sina Weibo. “If citizens cannot enjoy even basic rights, how can we live? Would the government please give me a sensible reason for this?”
“Xinjiang is becoming stranger and stranger, regressing as time goes on,” a second said.
In June, local state-run media reported that the mostly Kazakh residents of a Xinjiang border district had to give police DNA samples, fingerprints, voiceprints and a “3D image” to apply for certain travel documents, including passports.
A Xinjiang official told the Global Times that the new policy tightening was intended to maintain social order in the region.
Beijing regularly accuses what it says are exiled separatist groups, such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, of being behind attacks in Xinjiang, which has seen a wave of deadly unrest.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2