Xinjiang Discipline and Inspection Committee Attacks "False Reports"

The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region's Discipline and Inspection Committee (Committee) issued a public statement on October 20 condemning "false reporting" about Xinjiang government efforts to force officials and state-owned enterprise managers to divest and disclose their illegal holdings in coal mines (CECC coverage of one such report is available here). According to the statement, some reporters in Xinjiang "did not go through normal channels to gather information, and instead relied on rumors and fanciful reasoning" to publish a "series of false articles." The statement refers to an October 20 China Youth Daily article that noted some Xinjiang government officials would prefer to lose their jobs than forfeit their financial holdings in coal mines, and condemns the article as "pure fabrication . . . with a harmful impact on society."

The Committee's statement asserts that Xinjiang authorities are abiding by the State Council's August 24 directive that all Party and government officials and state-owned enterprise managers throughout China must disclose and divest all of their financial holdings in coal industries and mines unless they purchased their shares in a public stock exchange. Although the State Council initially set a September 22 deadline for all government and Party employees to comply with the directive, an October 14 Xinjiang Daily article reported that no Xinjiang officials had disclosed their coal mine assets by the deadline, and the Xinjiang government had thus been forced to extend the deadline to October 20. The October 20 China Youth Daily article reported that 62 officials in Xinjiang had divested 2.67 million yuan from local coal mines, but cited a Discipline and Inspection Committee official who worried that others, who may have divested their assets without publicly disclosing their holdings, might reinvest in the mines once "the current winds change."

The Committee statement concluded by saying that the Discipline and Inspection Committee "retains the authority to investigate and hold [responsible parties] accountable for the consequences of false reporting."