China to offer Han-Uighur marriages $2,000 a year to promote ‘positive energy’ in Xinjiang
The Straits Times, 3 September 2014
BEIJING (AFP) – The authorities are offering rewards of 10,000 yuan (S$2,000) a year to promote intermarriage in restive Xinjiang between ethnic minorities and China’s dominant Han ethnic group, state media said.
The far-western region borders Central Asia and is the homeland of the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic group. China’s ruling Communist Party has blamed separatist militants from the area for a series of attacks across the country over the past year, including in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
“We are advocating the intermarriage of Han and ethnic minorities to promote positive energy,” local official Zhu Xin said in a media report posted last week on the website of the Bayingol Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture government.
The programme also provides health care, housing, employment, educational and other benefits for intermarried households and would contribute toward the realisation of the “Chinese dream”, he added, employing a favoured slogan of Chinese President Xi Jinping.