Children practice their language skills by playing games at a bilingual kindergarten in Turpan, a city in the eastern part the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Investment from the central government on bilingual kindergartens in the tension-plagued western region of Xinjiang will more than double from last year's level to reach 830 million yuan ($121 million) in 2009, local officials said over the weekend.
The money will be spent on the construction and renovation of 465 bilingual kindergartens in Kashgar, Hotan and other parts of southern Xinjiang, a hotbed for terrorist activities that led to the July 5 riot in Urumqi, the region's capital city, Xinhua reported.
The riot, bloodiest in the history of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, saw at least 197 people killed and more than 1,600 injured. Police sources say overseas forces that seek Xinjiang's independence through terrorism were behind the brutality.
Authorities hope bilingual education can be an effective cure in bridging communication among all peoples in Xinjiang, where 60 percent of the population is ethnic minorities, including the Uygur, Kazak and Mongolian.
"Terrorists from neighboring countries mainly target Uygurs who are relatively isolated from mainstream society, as they cannot speak Mandarin. They are then tricked into terrorist activities," Xinjiang's chairman Nur Bekri has earlier said.
