Jakarta –
Chinese President Xi Jinping has justified the demolition and alteration of many mosques in the provinces of Ningxia and Xinjiang in northern China, where the vast majority of Muslims live.
In a speech to the Chinese Communist Party Congress, he stressed that religions in China must be “China-oriented”.
Structures believed to reflect the Arab image of Islam have been replaced by more aesthetically Chinese structures.
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In 2018, the government of the small town of Weizhou planned to demolish the mosque because the mosque did not have a building permit, so it could be called an “illegal building”.
The inhabitants of Weizhou, mostly Hui Muslims, then occupied the mosque to prevent its demolition.
The mosque was later not demolished but converted to a Chinese style. The towers and domes were replaced with Chinese-style pagodas.
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This was one element of what Xi delivered in his two-hour speech.
Another element is that he stressed that there has been no easing of measures to deal with the Covid pandemic.
He said there would be no doubts about the zero-Covid policy in an attempt to save the lives of many.
Efforts to strengthen movement, mass testing, health code scanning, quarantine and travel restrictions will continue.
There is not even the slightest acknowledgment of the social and economic suffering caused by these policies.
Students and faculty of the Nanjing University of the Arts attended Xi Jinping’s speech. (Getty Images)
Other major challenges facing the government, but not mentioned, include rising youth unemployment and a housing crisis.
By contrast, the nearly two-hour speech was laden with standard party rhetoric and lacked real solutions to China’s problems.
If you are a graduate who cannot find a job in the technology sector after the government crackdown on these companies, Xi Jinping urges you to “follow the guidelines of the Party … strive to become a new generation, build a modern socialist area. “won’t make you happy. at ease.
Loud applause, no doubt, came as Xi spoke of the unification of the mainland and Taiwan.
He said Beijing will encourage economic cooperation with the island and make serious efforts for peaceful unification, but the Party “will never promise to abandon the use of force as an option.”
He also defended Hong Kong’s widely criticized state security law which, according to him, restored order to the territory.
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There are many other elements not to be missed.
Former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin did not participate, but he is currently 96 years old and perhaps too weak to participate.
Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao from the previous government were on stage with Xi.
Also present, seated in the front row on the podium, was former Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli – this is his first public appearance since the days of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai. accuse her of sexual harassment last year.
The 75-year-old has not publicly commented on the allegations.
Zhang Gaoli (center) sits front row on the podium at a congressional event. (Getty Images)
However, the Xi administration has a good story to tell regarding climate change and other environmental initiatives.
The congress opens in Beijing under a blue sky. Unusual in the capital. Now it’s the other way around; bad pollution days are extraordinary days.
The Chinese leader said: “We will promote low-carbon industry and promote a low-carbon lifestyle. We will step up pollution control. We will work to eliminate all severe pollution.”
However, coal-fired power plants will not be phased out until new energy sources become available.
“We are building a new one before we throw the old one away,” he said.
There may still be a huge income gap here between Chinese billionaires and the underprivileged, but there has also been an improvement in poverty alleviation and Xi Jinping points this out. truth happening in China right now, you will have a distorted picture of reality. The general message of the speech is that China is advancing rapidly under the leadership of the Communist Party, but the economic uncertainty swirling here right now is somewhat invisible as a country for decades.
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