China slams criticism of anti-terrorist campaign
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, March 11 (Reuters) - China on Tuesday slammed criticism of its recent crackdown in the far western region of Xinjiang, adding that a majority of the ethnic Uighur people who live there oppose terrorism.
On Sunday, the government announced it had foiled two terrorist plots, including an attempt to bring down a Chinese airliner and the shooting dead of members of a gang which had been planning to attack this summer's Beijing Olympics.
But some Uighur dissidents, including Rebiya Kadeer, jailed for more than five years for championing her people's rights before being sent into exile in the United States, have cast doubt on China's version of Xinjiang militant activities.
Some have said that China is using the two incidents as an excuse to crack down further on the Uighurs, a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people who have agitated for greater religious freedom, autonomy and rights.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said that was not true.
"These people, like Rebiya, link the government's efforts to strike hard against terrorism and connect it to the majority of the Uighur people, which is extremely insidious," he told a regular news conference.
"They have ulterior motives and they will not achieve their aims," Qin added. "They are inciting relations between the Han Chinese and Uighur peoples, to create ethnic contradictions.
"This attempt will be resolutely opposed by everyone, including most of the Uighur people," he said. "These people, like Rebiya, cannot represent the Uighur people. They only represent a small minority of terrorists.
"Most of the Uighur people, like the rest of the nation, love peace and oppose religious extremism and splittism," Qin added.
The China Southern flight was en route from Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, to Beijing on Friday when it made an emergency landing in Lanzhou after the crew discovered what one source told Reuters was inflammable material in the toilet.
None of the passengers or crew was harmed, authorities said, and the plane arrived in Beijing on Saturday.
The civil aviation administrator said a passenger had been found to be carrying a "suspicious liquid".
Qin did not provide any other details about that incident.
In the other case, Xinjiang's Communist Party boss Wang Lequan, told reporters police had shot dead two members of a "terrorist gang" in a January raid and rounded up 15 others whose aim was to disrupt the Olympics.
Qin said the gang was operating under the auspices of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement -- named as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations -- and their aim was to carry out terrorist activities.
"At the site were discovered some materials related to terrorist activities and weapons," he added, saying the investigation was still ongoing.
Rights groups have accused the Chinese government of exaggerating the threat of violence in Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia, in the interests of exerting greater control in the energy-rich region.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
