Greater support pledged for Ningxia

The central government will better support the development of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region and make sure that relatively less-developed ethnic areas achieve a moderately prosperous society in all respects together with other regions by 2020, a senior official said on Thursday.

However, people who deliberately instigate ethnic tensions or division will be punished in accordance with the law, regardless of their religion or ethnic group, said Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"We firmly oppose the attempts to divide and contain China by using the excuses of ethnic, religious and human rights issues," he said.