Xinjiang showcasing patriotic tourism to attract local tourists

Friday, June 18, 2021

On a recent national holiday, visitors to the Xinjiang province in China enjoyed new theme park-style tourist centres. These showcased the region’s Muslim Uyghur culture signs of heavy security and state surveillance were never far away.

Visitors took snaps and smiled, posing in traditional dress on camels for photographs in the middle of billboards extolling the ruling Communist Party.

As per UN experts and researchers, China is trying to move on from a security crackdown in Xinjiang which for a million ethnic Uyghurs were detained in re-education centres since 2016, – part of what Beijing narrated as a drive to eliminate extremism.

It wants to build a patriotic, multi-ethnic region. It would be secular, mandarin-speaking area and attract domestic tourists and make them spend trillions of yuan a year on group tours and curated experiences.

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