The well-worn and historic trade routes that once traversed the land today known as Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are no longer continuously carved into the terrain by heavily-laden camel caravans. Instead, multilane pristine highways and serpentine pipelines feed bustling market towns with legendary names like Turpan, Kashgar and Yarkand. And while these places of charm and commerce increasingly cater to foreign tourists and upwardly mobile traders from neighboring regions, the border region is now also pivotal to China’s future energy independence.
Geographical Strength
Situated in the heartland of the Eurasian continent, in the past century Xinjiang was no stranger to international trade. And still further back in time the region was a vital link along the famed Silk Route, crisscrossed by thousands of kilometers of mercantile arteries facilitating the omnidirectional flow of goods, thoughts and cultural identities.
Today a different sort of commodity flows through less natural arteries. China’s energy plans for the early 21st century were unveiled at the 2000 National People’s Congress. The focus was on construction of a now functional 4,200-km east-west network of gas and oil pipelines running all the way from Xinjiang to Shanghai. In May 2006 oil was pumped directly into Xinjiang from Kazakhstan for the first time, along a recently completed 960-km cross-border pipeline. When fully functional this pipeline will carry 20 million tons of Kazakh oil a year, accounting for 15 percent of China’s imports for 2005.
China’s ever expanding pipeline network has the potential to bring about a significant strategic realignment of Xinjiang and adjacent regions. Oil and gas pipelines to China from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan could easily be extended to link into the pipeline networks of both Russia and Iran. This model has been dubbed the “PanAsianGlobalEnergyBridge” - a Eurasian network of pipelines linking energy resources in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia through to China’s PacificCoast. A major part of the old Silk Route is inexorably forming the “Black Gold Route” of this new millennium.
Xinjiang is experiencing rapid growth in cross border trade, and the region has become a bridgehead promoting China’s economic and trade ties with Central Asia and Russia. Trade between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan in 2005 was valued at more than $6 billion, accounting for 73 percent of the total trade between the two countries, and it is predicted that the value of all Xinjiang’s foreign trade will top $9 billion this year.
China and Kazakhstan are in the process of establishing a free trade zone, uniting 13 square kilometers of north-west Xinjiang (Port Korgas) with a smaller area of Kazakhstan near Alma-ata. With new railway lines, highways and an international trade centre under construction, the aim is to create an industrial hub which will further stimulate the multilateral flow of goods and services. A second border trade zone was opened in March 2006 at Jeminay. And Xinjiang now has 16 “land ports” open to foreign traders and businesspeople.
With Xinjiang bordering eight countries, the Chinese government is also working to encourage international trade in a south-westerly direction. A new highway is currently under construction across the TaklamakanDesert from Alar to Khotan, and China and Pakistan have recently agreed to open four new road links through the KhunjerabPass, doubling the number of overland routes between the two countries.
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Thriving trade-night market, Urumqi. |
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Lucrative Landscape
The huge Chinese infrastructure investment in Xinjiang has been accompanied by a boom in tourism. The increasingly accessible Taklamakan dunes, snow-covered mountains, clear glacial lakes, fabled oasis towns and distinctive Uygur culture are proving to be a major drawcard for both foreign and Chinese tourists.
Back in 1978, the region received only 88 tourists and earned just $46,000, according to the Xinjiang Tourism Bureau. In 2004 the region hosted more than 310,000 overseas travelers and recorded a foreign exchange income of about $91 million. Tourism-related turnover exceeded 11.6 billion RMB ($1.4 billion), accounting for 5.3 percent of the autonomous region’s gross domestic product. One-day travel packages, especially from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, have become increasingly popular, and a growing number of visitors from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are also being attracted to Xinjiang’s scenic landscapes.
In the next five years, to consolidate tourism as one of its pillar industries, Xinjiang will step up efforts to promote a range of activities, such as mountain hiking, resort skiing and desert trekking, as well as further developing tourist-related infrastructure. It is hoped that international air routes between the regional capital, Urumqi, and Japan and Europe can be opened to increase accessibility.
Ways of life are changing across the region, and changing fast. Under a long-term program announced in 1999 to develop the west, the central government poured $30.7 billion into Xinjiang, with the current five-year plan calling for an additional $51 billion. The nation’s managers are aware that only intelligent investment coupled with enlightened social policies and a genuine concern for the environment will support Xinjiang’s multiple roles as a thriving trade axis, as a centre for tourism, and as a crucial energy gateway.
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Desert pipeline, near Korla. |
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Tian Chi (Heavenly Lake). |
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