University in southern Xinjiang establishes school of Chinese traditional culture
Global Times
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A university in southern Xinjiang is establishing an academy on traditional Chinese culture to stimulate patriotism among its students. 

Kashgar University in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region unveiled its newly-built statue of Confucius on Tuesday. 

The Kuntian School of Traditional Chinese Culture under Kashgar University will be established in cooperation with Qufu Normal University in Qufu, hometown of the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius in East China's Shandong Province, Kashgar University said on its official website on Wednesday. 

The new academy will focus on traditional Chinese culture including ancient poems and classic literature, aiming at arousing students' patriotic enthusiasm and strengthening their sense of national pride and cohesion, reads the website. 

Kashgar University might be the first university in Xinjiang to establish a school to promote  traditional Chinese culture, but learning traditional culture has already become the norm in the region from kindergartens to universities, analysts said. 

Promoting Chinese culture could prevent local students from being influenced by extremism in Kashgar, a region in southern Xinjiang which borders with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Xu Jianying, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Research Center for Chinese Borderland History and Geography, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Learning Chinese culture from childhood could  help local students in their future career, according to Xu. 

However, Xinjiang should not be treated differently as schools in other provinces and cities across China have been promoting Chinese culture, analysts said.

"It's pretty normal that students learn ancient Chinese poems, literature, calligraphy and other forms of Chinese culture in Xinjiang, and about one third of the curriculum of my daughter, a Xinjiang primary school student, is about traditional Chinese culture," a professor at Xinjiang Normal University's School of Marxism who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Thursday. 

She said that many schools in the region hang a portrait of Confucius in their classrooms and that Chinese culture is included in the syllabus. 

Regarding opinions that learning Chinese culture may result in the disappearance of the region's ethnic minority culture, Xu said that such concerns were unnecessary as minority culture is also part of Chinese culture.