China replaces Communist Party boss in Xinjiang region, hit by ethnic violence last year

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China replaces party boss in region hit by unrest

BEIJING — China replaced the unpopular Communist Party boss for the restive Xinjiang region on Saturday, months after ethnic riots killed nearly 200 in the sprawling far-western region.

State media reports gave no immediate reason for removing Wang Lequan, 65, who had served as party boss in Xinjiang since 1995.

He was replaced by Zhang Chunxian, who turns 57 next month and has been the party boss in southern Hunan province since November 2006.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the change was announced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It said Wang had been appointed as the deputy secretary of a political committee of the Central Committee. It is not known if he is still a member of the party’s Politburo, the 25-member body near the pinnacle of power in China.

Wang was in charge last July when bloody street riots in the regional capital of Urumqi pitted minority Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) against ethnic majority Han Chinese. Almost 200 people were killed, mostly Han, in the country’s worst communal violence in decades.

The Uighurs see Xinjiang as their homeland and resent the Han Chinese who have moved into the region in recent decades. A simmering separatist campaign has occasionally boiled over into violence in the past 20 years.

The government says it has poured billions of dollars into the area and substantially raised living standards.

After the riots and subsequent unrest in September, thousands marched through the streets of Urumqi to demand the resignation of Wang and other local leaders. The party boss of Urumqi was replaced in September.

Wang is an ally of President Hu Jintao and has been known as a hard-liner in charge of Xinjiang as China carried out a massive migration of Han Chinese into the area.

China blames the rioting on overseas-based groups agitating for greater Uighur rights in Xinjiang, but has presented no direct evidence. The region was smothered in heavy security following the violence.