Chen Quanguo Photo:Weibo

Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region completed the elections of the Communist Party of China's regional committee recently with Chen Quanguo remaining as the Party chief of the region. Four deputy secretaries of the regional Party committee were also elected, making the region the first to finish this round of provincial-level Party committee's reelections across China.

The new leading group of the CPC Xinjiang Regional Committee was announced on Monday. Chen Quanguo was reelected as secretary of the CPC Xinjiang Regional Committee and Erkin Tuniyaz, Li Yifei, Zhang Chunlin and He Zhongyou were elected as deputy secretaries of the CPC Xinjiang Regional Committee.

Chen, who came to work in the Xinjiang region in 2016, is among the four officials in Xinjiang who were sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury in July 2020 over the US' groundless accusations of human rights violation. In response, Chen refuted the accusations in an interview with the Xinhua News Agency and said that the sanctions are "blatant hegemonic acts." 

Among the four deputy secretaries, Erkin Tuniyaz was appointed as acting chairman of the regional government of Xinjiang in September, Xinhua reported. 

The Monday meeting also elected members of the new Standing Committee of the CPC Xinjiang Regional Committee with three new faces. Yilizat Ehmetjan, who was born in June 1975, became the youngest member of regional or provincial standing committee across China. Yang Fasen, who had worked as a grassroots level official, was elected as one of the excellent secretaries of county committee of the Party in 2015 when working in Kuqa county in Aksu Prefecture of Xinjiang.

Global Times