Question: Where are you from?

Answer: Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Question: What is your profession?

Answer: Former political commissar and secretary of Chinese Communist Party of Xinjiang Production and Construction Army, Major General.

Question: What is the issue of most concern to people in your area of China?

Answer: Most people in Xinjiang are focused on the question of how to improve the income level of peasants and herdsmen. Though agriculture is growing fast in the area, a bottleneck to achieving greater success is the transportation problem. Another worry of the people is terrorist activities carried out by separatists. The 190 million of population in the autonomous region want a steady political and commercial situation to develop local economy and are opposed to separatism and terrorism.

Question: What proposals have you made, or what did you hope to accomplish at this session?

Answer: I brought two or three proposals to the National People’s Congress each year during the past four years. Most of them are concerned with the construction army. This year, I delivered three proposals to the congress in the fields of education, sanitary and army management.

Question: What have you seen achieved over the last five years?

Answer: Progress shows in the following four aspects: First, people freed their minds from a planned economy to a market one. Second, the central and local government invested billions of yuan in infrastructure construction. Third, the oil and natural gas industry started from zero and is developing soundly. Fourth, the conception of environmental protection is rooted in people’s minds. The government has begun to dredge and build dikes along Tarim River, the longest continental river of China.

Question: When Congress is not in session, how do you exercise your responsibilities as deputy?

Answer: As a deputy to the NPC, it’s my duty to let people I represent know the result of the session. Besides that, I organized the deputies of Xinjiang in a group and carry out inspection in the region.

Question: What is your hope for the future?

Answer: Retire. I will leave the position and return to my family unless the army and the autonomous government arrange for me to perform duties as a veteran.

(By Liu Wenlong, china.org.cn staff reporter, March 12, 2002)