Makhdoom Babar President & Editor-in-Chief
The factual Xinjiang Papers (Part-VI)
One more thing that we witnessed was that it was very difficult to get a room at the hotels in Xinjiang without prior booking due to mounting rush and the room rates of these hotels were much higher than of those in megacities like Beijing and Shanghai and was just due to more tourists and fewer hotels.
Even small guest houses and Motels, being run by locals in traditional tents were offering luxurious rooms like honeymoon suits but again at high rates. This was reflective of the tourist boom and negating the Western Media propagations. It became a personal experience that when due to bad weather, our flight got canceled at Kanas Airport,
it became very difficult for airlines to provide hotels to travelers as all hotels were having 100% occupancy. At the end of the trip, the visiting journalists generated an opportunity to meet a Director of the Information Office of Xinji- and Uygur Autonomous Region AilitShaliyefu, to get the official response to many questions that they had in their minds. He was quite generous in responding frankly to all the asked questions. He said that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, was not only for the development of China but it was also a ladder for the common destination of human being through stronger partnership and broader connectivity among countries along the Belt and Road.
“We’ve made a lot of achievements. Terrorism, separatist and religious extremist ideas, these aren’t only the problems of China but these are also the common problems all over the world,” he added. He further stated that aid China was making the best use of Xinjiang’s geographic advantages and its role as a window of westward opening-up to deepen communication and cooperation with Central, South and West Asian countries.
He stated that most of the news that China’s foreign friends hear about Xinjiang was simply “misleading or false and biased .” “You’ve visited here; you saw what’s really happening here. You can continuously witness as to what’s happening here to have an objective understanding of Xinxiang as we don’t have anything to hide here and your free moment here is a self speaking proof of the same”, he added.
To a question by the media representatives, Ailit said there was a firm belief in China that other common problems of countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt, component of the Belt and Road Initiative, would be resolved by not a single country alone but by all the BRI Member States through joint and synchronized efforts. He hoped that more international cities and cosmopolitans along this belt and road will prosper just because of con- nections and connectivity.
Al further stated that awareness campaigns and education for a better understanding of religion were going on in every educational institution to help young people have a better and deep understanding so that they are not misled or cheated. “It’s important to have the correct understanding of religion and history,” he said that about 200 billion Yuan were invested in Xingjian recently which was much more than other places in China.
