Xinjiang, Xizang's development, progress undeniable: spokesman

China

Xinjiang, Xizang's development, progress undeniable: spokesman

2026-01-23 16:39 Last Updated At：21:47

The development and progress of China's Xinjiang and Xizang are obvious to all and cannot be slandered, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press briefing in Beijing on Friday.

Guo made the statements in response to a media inquiry regarding certain United Nations experts' allegation of "forced labor" in the two regions. "The Chinese government is always committed to promoting and protecting human rights. The development and progress of Xinjiang and Xizang are evident to all and brook no slander. Certain experts so-called 'concerns' are entirely fabricated, conjectural and totally baseless. We urge the relevant experts of special procedures to respect basic facts, adhere to the Code of Conduct for Special Procedures Mandate-holders of the Human Rights Council, fulfill their mandate in a just and objective manner, not to be reduced to instruments and accomplice of anti-China forces," he said.

Japan's core consumer prices rise by 3.1 pct in 2025

Japan's core consumer prices rose 3.1 percent on average in 2025, marking the fourth straight annual increase, government data showed Friday.

For the whole of 2025, rice prices soared 67.5 percent, the biggest rise since 1971 when comparable data became available, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

In December 2025 alone, the nationwide consumer price index, which strips out prices of fresh food, rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier, slowing for the first time in four months from three percent in November, helped by government subsidies for gasoline, the data showed.

Energy prices fell 3.1 percent in the reported month from the prior year, reversing from a rise of 2.5 percent in November, while prices for food, excluding fresh items, increased 6.7 percent, decelerating from a 7 percent gain in November.

The core-core consumer price index (Core-core CPI), which strips away both energy and fresh food to reflect underlying price trends, eased to 2.9 percent in December from 3 percent a month earlier.