Page 2 of 3 The Xinjiang factor in the
new Silk Road By David Gosset
and New Delhi fought a war in 1962
and the Aksai Chin became a part of Xinjiang - the
Uygur autonomous region has accelerated its
modernization.
In spite of very harsh
natural conditions, roads, highways, railways and
airports have been built to connect the major
cities. Prior to the founding of the People's
Republic of China, animals were the principal
means of transport across the Western Region. The
Lanzhou (in Gansu province)-Xinjiang railway
(known in
Mandarin as Lanxin Tielu, or
the Lanxin Railway) reached Xinjiang's capital,
Urumqi, in 1962. By 2001, 3,000km of railway lines
were operating across the region. In 1949,
Xinjiang had a road system of little more than
3,000km; by 2006; the region's highways had been
extended to 143,000km, including more than 500km
of expressways. Currently, the autonomous region
has 11 airports with international routes
connecting Urumqi with Almaty, Tashkent, Moscow,
Islamabad and Jeddah, and Kashgar with Bishkek and
Tashkent. Last month the third phase of Urumqi
International Airport's extension began with an
estimated investment of 2.8 billion yuan (more
than US$364 million).
By the end of this
year a second desert highway will link the north
and south of the Taklamakan desert - the 424km
Alar-Hotian Highway. The first desert highway,
522km long and to the east of the second, opened
to traffic in 1995. Sven Hedin (1865-1952), a
Swedish geographer who explored this desert in the
first half of the 20th century (this year marks
the 80th anniversary of the 1927 Sino-Swedish
Northwest Scientific Survey) and described its
dangers and some of its hidden archeological
marvels, would have difficulty to recognize the
region where "you can enter but cannot leave", as
the locals like to say in reference to a possible
origin of the name Taklamakan. Such gigantic
infrastructure realizations would have been
impossible without the Production and Construction
Corps (Bing Tuan), originally made up of military
personnel spread all over the autonomous region,
and Beijing's massive investments that are now a
component of the western-development policy
initiated in 1999.
Relying on a convenient
transportation network, trade is growing not only
inside the autonomous region but also between
Xinjiang and neighboring countries. In Urumqi's
international trade zones one can even meet
merchants coming from the Caucasus. With a per
capita gross regional product of 11,199 yuan in
2004, the region ranked 13th among China's
province-level administrative entities (among 31
municipalities, autonomous regions and provinces).
Thirty percent of China's land-based oil
resources are in the autonomous region - second to
Heilongjiang province in the country's northeast.
Its deposits of natural gas represent 35% of
China's land-based total - the first among the 31
administrative entities. Gold also attracts many
mining enterprises that have engaged in a Chinese
version of the gold rush. With Shandong province,
the autonomous region leads China's gold
production (with a total of 224 tons in 2005,
China is currently the fourth world producer and
is set to become No 1 within the next decade).
Xinjiang is also the corridor through
which energy supplies from Central Asia can
transit to serve the needs of fast-growing coastal
China. In December 2005, China's first
cross-border crude-oil pipeline was opened,
pumping oil from Kazakhstan. The Sino-Kazakh
pipeline carries 10 million tons of crude oil a
year from Atasu to Xinjiang's Alashankou
(according to the National Development and Reform
Commission, China consumed 318 million tons of oil
in 2005). Constructed under a 50-50 joint venture
between China National Petroleum Corp and
KazMunaiGaz, it is a strong symbol of Central
Asia's integration by transnational projects.
A rich agricultural sector - Xinjiang's
tomatoes, grapefruits from Turpan and melons from
Hami can be found all across China and beyond -
and activities linked with tourism can be an
important source of revenue for the local
population and for more populous Chinese
provinces. In 2006, 750,000 temporary workers came
from inland provinces such as Gansu, Sichuan,
Henan and Shaanxi for Xinjiang's 2.18-million-ton
cotton harvest - half of China's total production.
The central government allocated almost $100
million in a five-year plan to expand the region's
cotton output. In his Travels - whose
section on Central Asia is of the greatest
interest - the Venetian Marco Polo (1254-1324)
noticed the abundance of cotton in Kashgar and
Hotian.
Xinjiang's challenges Despite its significant achievements, the
autonomous region still faces difficult
challenges. To establish and sustain a modern
economy it needs to nurture talent, attract more
foreign investments and consolidate its general
education system, but above all, it must build a
more positive image. Both inside and outside the
Chinese world, Xinjiang is still largely unknown
and the object of serious misconceptions.
For the majority of the population in
Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, the autonomous
region is just a remote desert. They simply
ignore, for example, the Altay Mountains or the
Ili River's green lands, jewels cherished by the
Kazakh minority whose traditional culture meets
the concerns of contemporary ecology - of the 55
official minorities of the People's Republic of
China, 12 can be found in Xinjiang. Urbanites from
coastal areas imagine long and slow camel caravans
crossing the dunes of the Taklamakan desert, and
do not realize that even an oasis such as Hotian
in southern Xinjiang is a modern city connected
with the
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