China needs to be more candid about the nature and causes of recent incidents of deadly ethnic violence in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, the European Union’s ambassador to Beijing said Monday.
The EU appreciates China’s efforts to develop the region but “we do believe it is necessary to address the underlying causes of ethnic tensions in order to achieve lasting stability and prosperity,” Markus Ederer said.
“We are concerned by the lack of transparency when it comes to the reporting about what happened. We believe that transparency would help to make clear the amount and the source of this violence,” Ederer said.
Bordering Central Asia,Afghanistan and Pakistan, Xinjiang has long been home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule among parts of the Uighur population opposed to large-scale migration by China’s Han majority and angered by strict communist restrictions on their Muslim religion and Turkic language and cultural institutions.