Uygur student receives letters from Premier

A Uygur student at a senior high school in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, received a letter on Aug 15 from Premier Li Keqiang, who encouraged her and her classmates to make the best of their youth, dream big and contribute to society with the knowledge they acquire.

Staff members of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission in Beijing carried the letter to the home of the student, Gulimire Mitwula, in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, where she is spending the summer vacation.

Gulimire wrote a letter to the premier on March 8, several days after a terrorist attack in a railway station in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan province.

In her letter, she expressed gratitude to those who helped finance her education and she also spoke of her abhorrence of terrorism, vowing she would never disappoint the Party and the government which provided good conditions for her studies.

She also said in the letter that she would like to attend the national flag-raising ceremony in Tian'anmen Square.

Premier Li Keqiang informed the State Ethnic Affairs Commission of her wish and arranged for Gulimire and other four students to tour Beijing, and they thus attended the national flag-raising ceremony, and visited the Palace Museum and the Great Wall.

After the tour, Gulimire wrote another letter to the premier, telling him that she was picked as the first person to carry the torch for the Asian Youth Games in Nanjing, and that she was applying to become a torchbearer for the Youth Olympic Games in the city. Li replied to her second letter, saying that every ethnic group is a member of the big family called China, and it is very meaningful that Gulimire and her fellow students treasure and help maintain solidarity between different ethnic groups just like they treasure their own eyes.

Li also said that China will become more harmonious if everyone takes action - and this starts from small things.

Gulimire, who is about to turn 18, said the letter from the premier - which she received shortly before her birthday - is the most precious birthday gift she has ever received.