KASHGAR, China — Not too long ago, Kashgar was a sleepy town with mud houses, largely unchanged since Marco Polo trekked through in the 13th century.
But now this frontier town and other outposts in China's far west are booming with oil, cotton, coal and trade. Trains, new highways and an international airport are bringing thousands of people from neighboring Pakistan who want to take in the tourist sites and buy inexpensive Chinese goods.
A few months ago, oil from Kazakhstan arrived in the region by way of a new 600-mile pipeline financed by energy-hungry China. Trade with neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is breaking records.
China's soaring economy is most often illustrated by gleaming skyscrapers in coastal cities. But the nation's economic growth is also evident in other ways: Like America's Westward Ho of the 1800s, Beijing's Go West campaign of the last decade is transforming vast swaths of Central Asia by opening up the western hinterlands, populated by millions of ethnic minorities.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese have flocked here, hoping to cash in on construction jobs and business ventures.
The Chinese government, analysts say, is pushing west with two clear motives: to spread economic development, and to keep in check Tibetans and, here in the Xinjiang region, the Uighurs, Muslims of Turkic descent. About 9 million Uighurs live in Xinjiang, and over the years separatist groups have clashed with Chinese forces, demanding independence and religious freedom.
For now, Beijing seems to have strengthened its economic and political grip on the region. Although China has been a caldron of unrest, with 87,000 protests nationwide last year, there has been no large-scale rioting in Xinjiang in two years, experts who track such activity say.
Human rights groups have accused the Chinese government of taking advantage of the U.S.-declared war on terrorism to increase its repression of Uighurs. Beijing has denied the claim, even as it has cracked down on Uighur activists and successfully lobbied the United States to label as terrorists a group of militant Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Although Beijing has used guns and force to restrain Uighurs, its arsenal of late has included people such as Wong So Nok, a merchant from Shenzhen in southeastern China.
Marco Polo is said to have found Kashgar an oasis when he arrived in 1275 on his journey along the Silk Road.
