China has admitted to the alleged use of internment camps for Muslim minorities in its far west Xinjiang region amid a global outcry, with a regional official insisting that the authorities are preventing terrorism through 'vocational education' centres.

In a rare interview with China's official Xinhua news service published Tuesday, the chairman of Xinjiang's government, Shohrat Zakir, issued an ardent defence of the use of the centres, saying that the region was now 'safe and stable'.

The official did not say how many people were being held in the centres.

China has admitted to the alleged use of internment camps for Muslim minorities in Xinjiang

Entrance to a jail which locals say is used to hold those undergoing political indoctrination program in Korla, Xinjiang. Local laws have now been revised to allow such establishments

The chairman of Xinjiang's government, Shohrat Zakir, issued an ardent defence of the use of the centres on Tuesday, saying that the region of Xinjiang was now 'safe and stable'

'Xinjiang has established a training model with professional vocational training institutions as the platform, learning the country's common language, legal knowledge, vocational skills, along with de-extremisation education,' Zakir said.

'Through vocational training, most trainees have been able to reflect on their mistakes and see clearly the essence and harm of terrorism and religious extremism,' he said.

In the interview, Zakir did not mention detention, but he said the institutions provided free programs such as 'collective courses, boarding schools and hands-on training'.

Beijing has sought to counter a global outcry against the facilities with a series of op-eds and interviews and a roll out of new regulations that retroactively codify the use of a system of extra-judicial 'reeducation' camps in Xinjiang.

A UN panel says up to one million ethnic Uighurs may be held in Chinese internment camps

A Muslim ethnic Uighur woman and her daughter try to cross the road as Chinese paramilitary police drive past near the closed Grand Bazaar in the ethnic Uighur area of Urumqi, Xinjiang

Up to one million ethnic Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic minorities are believed to be held in such centres, according to estimates cited by a United Nations panel.

Former inmates have said they found themselves incarcerated for transgressions such as wearing long beards and face veils or sharing Islamic holiday greetings on social media, a process that echoes the decades of brutal thought reform under Mao Zedong.

Other former detainees have said they were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, as well as denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

The programme has come under increasing fire from the international community, receiving particular censure from the United States and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Chinese authorities initially denied the existence of the facilities. But they have changed their tune as satellite imagery and documents issued by their own government have made that position untenable.

Beijing had rolled out an 'intensifying government campaign of mass internment'

A propaganda billboard shows Chinese President Xi Jinping with ethnic minority children and the words 'sincerely thank the passionate care of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core'

In recent weeks the story has shifted from outright dismissal to acknowledgement that the camps exist, with the caveat that they are being used primarily for 'vocational education' in a bid to halt separatist sentiments and religious extremism.

Zakir said the facilities were intended to improve job skills and Mandarin abilities among minorities with 'a limited command of the country's common language and a limited sense and knowledge of the law'.

Those who struggled to find work as a result, he added, were 'vulnerable to the instigation and coercion of terrorism and extremism.'

He said that the 'free' programmes were limited in duration, 'trainees' signed a contract with the centres that laid out a clear plan of study and included a stipend.

Asked about the future of the programmes, Zakir said 'some trainees' were 'expected to complete their courses successfully by the end of this year.'

Police are seen across Xinjiang as they ramped up their presence in cities and villages

China's treatment of its Uighur minority has sparked protests in countries like Turkey

He reiterated: 'Today's Xinjiang is not only beautiful but also safe and stable. No matter where they are or at what time of the day, people are no longer afraid of going out, shopping, dining and travelling.'

The comments follow weeks of efforts by Chinese officials and state media to defend China's actions in Xinjiang, where riots and attacks led to hundreds of deaths in recent years.

Op-eds by Chinese diplomats have appeared in newspapers around the world, arguing that the programme is an effective means of eliminating the threat posed to the region by religious extremism.

An editorial in the nationalist tabloid the Global Times warned foreign governments on Tuesday not to meddle in Xinjiang's affairs.

'Obviously vocational education is a periodic and temporary plan aimed at eradicating extremism,' it said, adding that criticism was 'just messing up the whole thing and creating a narrative against China.'

Children play outside the entrance to a school ringed with barbed wire, security cameras and barricades near a sign which reads 'Please use the nation's common language' indicating the use of Mandarin in Peyzawat, western China's Xinjiang region

A Uighur man looks on as a truck carrying policemen travel along a street during an anti-terrorism oath-taking rally in Urumqi. The characters on the banner read, 'Willingness to spill blood for the people. Countering terrorism and fighting the enemies is part of the police spirit'

Taking to Twitter - a social media platform that is blocked in China - the paper's editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said officials had told him the official figures for the number of people in 'vocational education' were 'much fewer than the 'one million or so' speculated by the outside world.'

'Chinese officials didn't reveal the true number to avoid falling into the stats trap, giving Western media another excuse to hype up the issue,' he added.

The positive image of the centres portrayed in the PR drive is belied by testimonies from former detainees who describe harsh treatment in the facilities.

Large numbers of families outside of China say their relatives in Xinjiang were spirited away by police never to be heard from again.

Critics have warned that mass incarcerations and forced cultural assimilation of China's western Muslim minorities risk further inflaming and perpetuating separatist anger.