Chinese Communist Party officials harden rhetoric on Islam

Delegates from Xinjiang meet in the Xinjiang Hall of the Great Hall of the People on the sideline of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China, Sunday, March 12, 2017. China's ruling Communist Party is hardening its rhetoric about Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings this past week about the specter of global religious extremism seeping into the country. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (The Associated Press)

Shaerheti Ahan, a top political and legal affairs party official in Xinjiang, second from left speaks on the sideline of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China, Sunday, March 12, 2017. China's ruling Communist Party is hardening its rhetoric about Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings this past week about the specter of global religious extremism seeping into the country. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (The Associated Press)

Shohrat Zakir, chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, speaks on the sideline of the National People's Congress in Beijing, China, Sunday, March 12, 2017. China's ruling Communist Party is hardening its rhetoric about Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings this past week about the specter of global religious extremism seeping into the country. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (The Associated Press)

China's ruling Communist Party is hardening its rhetoric about Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings this past week about the specter of global religious extremism seeping into the country.

Shaerheti Ahan, a top political and legal affairs party official in Xinjiang, became the latest official from a predominantly Muslim region to warn political leaders gathered in Beijing about China becoming destabilized by the "international anti-terror situation."

Over the past year, President Xi Jinping has directed the party to "Sinicize" the country's ethnic and religious minorities, while regional leaders in Xinjiang, home to the Uighur (WEE-gur) ethnic minority, have ramped up policing amid an uptick in violence.

The government's hardening rhetoric has coincided with new security measures that activists say exacerbate a cycle of repression, radicalization and violence.