Lt. Gen. Wang Haijiang’s transfer to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from Tibet comes five years after Chen Quanquo took over as XUAR Communist Party chief and locked up some 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of internment camps in the name of fighting terrorism and extremism. The 58-year-old commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Xinjiang Military Region will oversee some 70,000 troops in the high-altitude northwestern region that borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, and three Central Asian states. Analysts say instability in Afghanistan and other neighbors is used by Beijing as a cross-border security concern driving the repression in the XUAR.
Wang’s posting to Urumqi was officially announced Wednesday on the Xinjiang Military District’s WeChat social media account, but an April report in the official Beijing Youth Daily said he had been transferred to the XUAR earlier this year.
