Restive Chinese region offers rewards to recruit more police

FILE - In this July 17, 2014 file photo, armed Chinese paramilitary policemen stand on duty near wanted posters at a check point in Aksu in western China's Xinjiang province. A notice Tuesday, March 7, 2017 on the website of the government of Kashgar city in Xinjiang offered high salaries and other benefits to recruit police in the restive region that has seen bloody attacks blamed on separatists. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) (The Associated Press)

BEIJING – Authorities in China's western region of Xinjiang are offering high salaries and other benefits to recruit police in the restive area, which has seen bloody attacks blamed on separatists.

A notice Tuesday on the website of the government of Kashgar city in Xinjiang said 3,000 male officers are being offered monthly salaries beginning at 5,000 yuan ($724), well above the regional average.

The recruitment drive is the latest step to ramp up security in the area, where members of the native Uighur (WEE-gur) ethnic group have been blamed for deadly attacks on government targets and migrants from other parts of China.

In the latest reported incident, eight people were killed last month, including three knife-wielding assailants, in Pishan county in southern Xinjiang. Like in Kashgar, Uighurs form the majority in Pishan.