More than twice the size of Texas, Xinjiang has long occupied the fringes of Chinese domain, its inhospitable deserts once navigated by traders crossing the Silk Road from Europe to Asia. Today, a trip across the province reveals how the benefits of development are being spread unequally, even inside Xinjiang itself.

The great build-out of highways and the expansion of energy production encouraged by Beijing’s largesse have attracted millions of Han, who have come in a Gold Rush-like frenzy to capture some of the spoils of China’s modern-day frontier. The Han are now a slim majority among Xinjiang’s 19 million people. That has exacerbated tensions with the Turkic-speaking Uighurs, who have long regarded the Han as invaders.

Neon-lit shopping malls fill downtown Urumqi, the provincial capital, where Han Chinese merchants opened stores. In Kashgar (known as Kashi in Mandarin Chinese), Xinjiang’s westernmost city — an overgrown oasis that was a key stop on the Silk Road and remains famous for its raucous bazaar —Han entrepreneurs have established trading houses aimed at central Asian countries to the west, selling plumbing supplies to Kyrgyzstan and roofing materials to Tajikistan. The rectangular office buildings of the Han merchants tower over the labyrinthine streets where Uighurs live in ancient brick homes.

Han Chinese road crews from Sichuan province camp in rough canvas tents along the Karakoram Highway, the road through blank desert expanses, past mountain lakes ringed by tents, and finally on to Pakistan, paving the last remaining stretches of dirt in anticipation of more traffic.

... contd.