The head of the Communist Party in the Xinjiang region of China has been replaced.

The previous incumbent Chen Quanguo is considered to be the central figure behind the system of re-education camps in southern Xinjiang, where it is estimated that more than a million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minorities have been interned.

As a member of the Politburo, Chen is the highest-ranking Chinese official on the US Treasury Department's sanctions list.

Washington justified the punitive measure last year with Chen's responsibility for "serious human rights violations".

Friederike Böge

Political correspondent for China, North Korea and Mongolia.

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The state-run Xinhua News Agency announced on Saturday that 66-year-old Chen would be transferred to another, undisclosed position.

No reason was given.

It is not likely, however, that the transfer is a sign of the central government's dissatisfaction with the repressive minority policies in Xinjiang.

On the contrary: only in October the security chief of Xinjiang, against whom the European Union and the USA imposed sanctions, was promoted to party chief of Tibet.

In the Chinese system, the party leader of a province takes precedence over the governor.

Successor Ma could be promoted to the Politburo

Chen held the position for five years. A few months after he was transferred to Xinjiang, the campaign to systematically set up internment camps began in 2017. Before that, Chen had already massively expanded the police apparatus as party leader in Tibet and made a name for himself as an advocate of a harsh assimilation policy towards minorities. The new appointment is probably part of the post rotation before the party congress next autumn, at which a new Politburo will be named.

The new party leader of Xinjiang, Ma Xingrui, is seen as a promising candidate for promotion to the Politburo of the Communist Party.

The appointment of Mas, the former head of the Chinese space agency, former party leader of the city of Shenzhen and governor of the wealthy Guangdong province, could indicate that Beijing wants to set new accents in economic policy in Xinjiang.

Last week, the US imposed an import ban on all goods from Xinjiang that importers cannot prove that they were manufactured without forced labor.