Seminar honors martyrs who saved Xinjiang

Sixty-five years after their deaths, five martyrs who foiled an attempt to separate part of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region from China were honored on Wednesday.

Although times change, the goal to firmly safeguard the unity of China never changes in Xinjiang, said Zhang Chunxian, Party chief of the region, during a memorial seminar in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital.

In August 1944, under the influence of the Communist Party of China and the international communist movement, people in northern Xinjiang's Ili, Tacheng and Altay areas fomented a rebellion against Kuomintang rule.