beijing the ruling chinese communist party cpc headed by president xi jinping has abruptly replaced its chief in the volatile xinjiang province chen quanguo who was sanctioned by the united states over alleged human rights abuses against uighur muslims in the regionchen no longer serves as secretary of the xinjiang uyghur autonomous regional committee of the cpc staterun xinhua news agency reported on saturday ma xingrui who was the governor of guangdong province has been appointed as new party chief for xinjiangthe cpc central committee has decided to give chen another appointment xinhua reported chen has been accused by the us the uk and the european union of widespread human rights abuses against uighurs but he is tipped for a promotion hong kongbased south china morning post reportedlast year the us government had slapped sanctions against chen and several other chinese officials incharge of xinjiang stating they were believed to be responsible for or complicit in the unjust detention or abuse of uighurs ethnic kazakhs and members of other minority groups in xinjiang the three officials banned by the us were chen quanguo ccp party secretary of xinjiang zhu hailun the then party secretary of the xinjiang political and legal committee and wang mingshan the party secretary of the xinjiang public security bureau