Nur Bekri

Nur Bekri was appointed Chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People's Government, replacing Ismail Tiliwaldi, who resigned as Chairman in December 2007. At age 46, Bekri became one of the youngest provincial governors (or equivalents) in China. As Chairman, Bekri was nominally Xinjiang's top government official, but in practice was subordinate to the Communist Party Secretary for the region, Wang Lequan (term 1994–2010), then Zhang Chunxian (2010 onwards).

After the 2009 Ürümqi riots, Bekri delivered the televised address in which he explained the situation that has led up to the violence and then condemned who he deemed to be coordinators of the attack.[3] Bekri has been subject to criticism by Uyghur economist and scholar Ilham Tohti, founder of Uyghur Online, a website that criticized the Chairman and his policies.[4] Tohti said that Bekri was "unqualified" for his position and that he "does not care about Uyghurs". Tohti was later jailed on charges of "separatism". The World Uyghur Congress and some in the overseas Uyghur community also considered Bekri to be a "puppet of the Chinese government." Bekri was the highest-ranked government official to deliver a televised speech on this issue.[5]

As the highest ranked ethnic Uyghur official in the Xinjiang government, Bekri toed the party line on issues related to Xinjiang independence, often issuing official denunciations of what the government saw as religious extremism or terrorism. He was sometimes called "Nol Bekri", an Uyghur language pun on his name which roughly meant "nil Bekri" or "zero Bekri", referring to his being seen as having little to no power.[5]

Bekri was transferred to the National Energy Administration (NEA) under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, a body with wide jurisdiction over economic development, in December 2014. He was replaced as Xinjiang Chairman by Shohrat Zakir. By taking on the top job at the National Energy Administration, Nur Bekri broke the mold of Uyghur government leaders, taking on a substantive post completely unrelated to ethnic affairs. His first act as leader of the NEA was to crack down on corruption; one of his predecessors Liu Tienan went to jail for corruption in a high-profile case. Under Bekri's leadership, the NEA pledged massive investment into renewable energy, and closed down over 100 coal-fired power plants. He became an outspoken proponent of renewable energy, meeting global industry executives and touting that China was contributing "strength and wisdom" to the transformation of the global energy production.[6]

Bekri was an alternate member of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and a member of the 18th Central Committee. He was the only ethnic Uyghur with full membership on the 18th Central Committee. He did not gain a seat on the 19th Central Committee despite not having reached retirement age, raising speculation in 2017 that he had fallen out of favor.