Amid Western criticism of China’s reported oppression of Muslims in Xinjiang, Beijing released a documentary promoting the state narrative that rejects all wrongdoing in its treatment of its Muslims.
Documentary shows real lives of people in Xinjiang
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A woman dances on a street in the Old Town of Kashgar, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. (ZHAO GE/XINHUA)
As the fear of terrorism in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region subsides and the spread of religious extremism has been effectively curbed, Xinjiang people can freely explore more life options than ever, experts said. Xinjiang people from different walks of life have been working hard to find the value of life and contributed to the development of society, said Zhou Weiping, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Chinese Borderland Studies. The time when people had to live in the shadow of religious extremism and follow its rules is gone.
1 A screenshot of CGTN s documentary Beyond the Mountains: Life in Xinjiang.
Tianshan Mountains, stretching for thousands of miles across China s northwestern frontier, divides the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in half – the relatively affluent north and the less developed south. For some time, people in the south with a bigger ethnic minority population didn t understand the rapid development in the north while those in the north lacked accurate views of the south, let alone people from outside the region.
After decades of development and interaction, people from both sides of the mountains became acquainted with each other. Mountains are physical boundaries that can be crossed, but a dose of prejudice comes from the mountains in our mind that prevent us from seeing the truth, according to Han Bin, director of the documentary Beyond the Mountains: Life in Xinjiang.