Kurbantay Tursun,Director and Lecturer of the Painting Department of Xinjiang Art Institute, Member of Chinese Artists Association

There is a Uygur proverb that says, “Wise men are admired, fools are despised.” Recently, on the verge of stepping down, Pompeo, the former US Secretary of State, launched a series of lies concerning Xinjiang, unprovokedly attacking and deliberately discrediting the Chinese government’s policy on Xinjiang. With sinister intention of sabotaging national solidarity, undermining Xinjiang’s stability and containing China’s development, he spread numerous false information about Xinjiang, which is ridiculous, despicable and disdained by people.

I was born in an ordinary family in Yining City. With the kindness of the Party and the support of the national compulsory education policy, like many other children, without being bothered by the family’s financial problem, I completed the compulsory education in primary school, junior high school and senior high school, and was admitted to Xinjiang Art Institute to become an undergraduate majoring in fine arts education. After graduation, with the support of the National Program for Training the Backbone of Ethnic Minority Talents, I went to the Central University for Nationalities to study as a graduate student in oil painting, and finally returned to work in Xinjiang. I once created an oil painting with the name of “Education Changes Fate”, which is the best summary of my 25-year life course. Thanks to the equal education policy of all ethnic groups, I came from a remote and small city to study and work in a big city, engaged in the career I pursued all my life, realized my dream, and became a painter and university teacher.

In response to the “Pre-school Bilingual Education in Southern Xinjiang” initiated by the Party Committee and People’s Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, I went to a remote village kindergarten in Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County under the Kunlun Mountains to teach from 2016 to 2018. Here, I saw innocent children, heard their resounding reading sound and happy laughter, and I seemed to see myself as a child. There is a kindergarten in every village here. Preschool children enjoy free early childhood education, free breakfast, lunch and nutritious meals between classes. The study and living environment in kindergarten is far better than the conditions when I was in school, and the villagers rushed to send school-age children to the kindergarten.

In recent years, children’s kindergartens, primary and secondary schools have taken on a new look, and the equipment, school buildings, environment and teachers are also modernized like those in cities. It is noteworthy that the 15-year free education in southern Xinjiang has made children change their fates, stay away from religious extremes, get rid of ignorance and poverty, grow up healthily and vigorously, and gradually adapt to modern civilized life and participate in the construction of our motherland.

National Compulsory Education is the greatest respect and the most effective guarantee for the basic cultural rights and development rights of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, and it has effectively safeguarded the right to education of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. During my two-year teaching life, I witnessed huge transformation in towns and villages under the Kunlun Mountains. The Party and the state helped the people in Tashkurgan Plateau eliminate poverty in 2020 through employment, industry, education and various policies.

Today’s Xinjiang enjoys sustained economic development, social stability, a better standard of living, unprecedented cultural prosperity, a harmonious coexistence of all religions, and solidarity among all ethnic groups, which are exactly what Pompeo does not want to see. He didn’t want to see China with national unity and prosperity, so he ignored the facts and smeared China and Xinjiang grossly. All his words and deeds ultimately are derided, disdained and discarded by people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang! The truth is irrefutable. No matter how wantonly Pompeo slandered Xinjiang, under the leadership of the Party and the state, the happy life of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang will only get better and better.