Parts of China’s troubled north-west region of Xinjiang have begun offering cash to interethnic couples as part of a drive to assimilate the culturally distinct Uighur minority.
The package includes annual cash payments of 10,000 yuan (£980) for interethnic couples during the first five years of their marriage, as well as housing, healthcare and education subsidies, according to a statement on the Qiemo county government’s website.
Qiemo county’s interethnic marriage policy “seems of a piece with general assumptions about Chinese policy in the region, in the sense that the party appears to believe that material incentives can overcome or mediate most political, economic and social problems”, said Michael Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at Griffith University in Australia.
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