Investment in Xinjiang's education needed

Employment makes stability; by providing young people with jobs the government can prevent them from seeking trouble. That is the guiding logic of the recent official move to invest 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) in the textile industry in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, in the hope of creating 1 million jobs for the local people and maintaining social stability.

It is a good idea theoretically, but the actual effect might be limited considering the actual situation in Xinjiang. With its rich agricultural, mineral and energy resources, as well as funding support from the central government, Xinjiang is never short of job opportunities, in fact, it has quite a large labor shortage. The region has attracted 5 million migrant workers, or one-fifth of its total population, making it the biggest importer of labor in western China; every August there are special trains that transport millions of workers into the region to harvest cotton.

As a result, unemployment is not a problem for Xinjiang. Data show that its registered unemployment rate was around 3.2 percent in 2012, the lowest for over 20 years. The actual unemployment rate might be higher, but obviously it is far from threatening social stability; it is impossible that unemployment has caused the social turmoil in Xinjiang, as was the case in Egypt where the unemployment rate soared as high as 30 percent.