Unite in anti-terror fight

The second terrorist attack in less than a month in the capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region points to the severity and complexity of China's anti-terror fight.

The attack on an open market in Urumqi on Thursday morning, which killed 31 people and injured 94, raised immediate associations with the attack at a railway station in the city on April 30, when President Xi Jinping was visiting the region. It was confirmed that attack was plotted by a separatist organization called the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement.

Although no organization has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attack, the timing of its occurrence, one day after the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia summit concluded in Shanghai, suggests the organizers of the attack may have intended to send a provocative message not only to the Chinese government but also to the regional security forum.

However, the message the Chinese people and the government received was they must be prepared for a long-term and hard battle against terrorism.

By launching terrorist attacks, the separatists wanted to sow the seeds of animosity between the Uygurs and other ethnicities. By causing such bloody events, they seek to sabotage the social and political stability in Xinjiang and the rest of China.

Yet, the more attacks they launch, the more importance the Chinese people and the government will attach to the unity of all ethnic groups and to economic development and social progress in Xinjiang.

As Xi said during his Xinjiang trip in April, development is the key to the settlement of all problems and is also the key to the settlement of problems in Xinjiang. Prosperity will undermine the very foundations of separatism and extremism.

It is not difficult for the majority of Uygurs to recognize that their well-being rests with the unity of all ethnic groups and with the prosperity of the motherland. Neither is it difficult for the rest of the country to realize how important the anti-terror battle is to the life and stability of the entire nation, which is the very guarantee for the realization of the Chinese Dream.

That is the converging point of interest, from which the anti-terror fight will get its power and Xinjiang its economic development and social progress.