Friday is the 10th anniversary of the July 5 riot in Urumqi, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. China Daily writer Li Yang comments:

An opinion piece on Xinjiang published by The Washington Post one day before the commemoration of the incident makes interesting reading, but only because of how far it stretches the truth.

In this one-sided harangue, Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, exposes his lack of knowledge of the region as well as his prejudice toward China's Xinjiang policy.

Gershman called the July 5 riot a "protest march" in "the struggle of the Uygur people". In fact, the violence by some extremists claimed 197 lives, including Uygurs, and injured more than 1,700.

Tapping into most Western readers' lack of understanding of Xinjiang's history, Gershman intentionally mystifies the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps as enforcers of military rule established by Mao Zedong in Xinjiang in 1954.

Almost every dynasty has carried out a frontier garrison system in Xinjiang since the East Han Dynasty (23-220), which is also testimony to Xinjiang being an integral part of China, not "East Turkestan" as Gershman called it, which is an effective way of protecting borders and boosting local economic growth, as the garrisons bring with them not only weapons but more importantly technology and means of production. And local ethnic groups have prospered and lived in harmony with the garrisons for about 2,000 years.

The Corps cultivate only 4 percent of Xinjiang's land, most of which are in the border region or claimed by themselves from the harsh wilderness.

The Unite as One Family Program that Gershman mentions is an activity for normal people-to-people exchanges carried out on voluntary basis, which deepens understanding among different ethnic peoples. Gershman obviously feels no qualms about telling lies by fabricating the story that 1 million civilians, mostly Han people, occupy Uygur's homes through the program, which is totally fake.

If that's not enough, Gershman slyly compares China's Xinjiang policy to the Nazi Holocaust of 6 million Jews, by claiming there, although it doesn't use "bullets and gas", its purpose is the same.

Gershman, who used to work as US human rights representative to the UN's Committee on Human Rights, from which his country has withdrawn, should first know about the facts before airing his opinions.

No violent incidents have happened in Xinjiang in more than three years; more than 150 million tourist trips from home and abroad were made to Xinjiang last year; Xinjiang's economy has grown by 40 percent over the past five years; and the Uygur population has increased from about 9.8 million to over 12 million in over a decade with their religious rights and activities strictly protected by law. The region is in its best development stage in history, not the worst as Gershman hints.

The NED has repeatedly been accused in the US and elsewhere of being a tool of government foreign policy because of its meddling in the affairs of other countries, and Gershman's groundless points of view are in keeping with Washington's pressure tactics against China.