Xinjiang – a place we should all see

Editor's note: Jerry Grey, a special commentator for CGTN, is a British-born Australian who resides in Guangdong and travels extensively throughout China. Much of his travel is by bicycle. He was recently awarded the title of "Fourth Silk Road Friendship Ambassador." The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

I first visited Xinjiang with my father in 2005 and we went there by the old green trains. Traveling from Guangzhou in the south, it took over 22 hours to reach Xi'an in the northwest, where we stopped for a couple of nights before boarding a late-night train for another 25-hour journey to Xinjiang's capital Urumqi.

I spent a long time looking out of the train window, seeing a dry, dusty environment with patches of what looked like tumbleweeds for mile after mile until we came to the first of the wind turbines. I'd seen wind turbines, of course, but I'd never seen so many.

My father had a different feeling. He was a master mariner, a sea captain, and this was the farthest he'd been from the ocean in his life. As we approached the end of the journey, we saw snowcapped mountains in the distance and were accompanied all the way into the city by this magnificent view.

To say that Xinjiang is remote would be an understatement, to say that it's difficult to get to would be true. But to use that difficulty as an excuse not to go would be a travesty.

It is difficult to get to – even with high-speed trains. To go into the region, it will take a day – full day from the east coast; a flight takes several hours, but that is the extent of the difficulty. There are no restrictions and anyone who is in China legally can enter, travel around and freely leave Xinjiang wherever and whenever they want.

I know this for a fact as in 2014, I cycled there on a journey across China and spent the next several weeks exploring the region. In 2019, I flew there and spent three weeks, leaving the region, once again, on a bike I'd had sent up there for the purpose.

It's perhaps the most important inland region of China now, we cross it to reach the massive Eurasian sub-continent and trains cross Xinjiang day and night. Trucks traverse the roads to leave China and enter Kazakhstan or one of the other seven countries which border the massive region.

Because of the size, because of its remoteness and because it's landlocked, it was previously underdeveloped, like many other parts of the world. Despite being a civilizational region since well before the Qin Dynasty (221 BC-207 BC), it was relatively unknown until it was first incorporated into China by Zhang Qian, an ambassador of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in 119 BC.

There was no maritime intercontinental transportation during that era. Ships traversed coastal routes in the region but didn't enter the water, so land transportation was the only form of long-distance communication and trade. Horses, camels and ponies entered the region we now know as Xinjiang and it thrived because it was a staging post for goods coming into and leaving China for places where ships could not reach. Ships began plying many hundreds of years later, when Admiral Zheng He began his seven naval expeditions, starting in 1405, and charted courses for the rest of the world.

The Industrial Revolution brought sailing vessels and then steam ships able to span the globe, increasing in size and carrying greater loads, moving faster across open seas than camels did across the deserts. It meant that over a few hundred years, the region declined and succumbed to poverty.

Being so remote and governed by a weakened monarchy, Xinjiang fell economically. The Republic of China era (1912-1949) didn't change it much; local warlords emerged. However, since 1949, when Uyghur militia teamed up with the Communist Party of China, the region started to normalize. It was given the status of autonomous region shortly after the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and now is an economic miracle. 

The differences between my first visit, and my most recent, just a month ago, are stark. Today schools provide a great education, the language of the region is spoken widely, but at the same time, Mandarin as well as other languages are widely spoken. Modern and efficient public transportation has replaced outdated trucks, horse and carts and even camels. There are highways and even trains across the deserts linking population centers.

Most importantly, there are advanced industries, rare earths, fossil fuel resources and solar panel industries. Massive automation of industry and agriculture has replaced backbreaking and unskilled labor, so people attend vocational training to learn new skills.

A huge tourism industry has been built around the breathtaking scenery of a region so diverse that snow-capped mountains lead to deserts and then to grasslands, all in the space of a day's journey.

Culture is evident in songs, food, dance, music which are present everywhere, and of course, languages. Wherever we travel in Xinjiang, there may be Uygur script in one region and Mongolian in another, there is the Xibe script from China's northeast in a region far to the northwest. All this comes about because Xinjiang is an autonomous region where the minorities manage their own affairs.

In short, Xinjiang, a place every ancient traveler passed through, is now a place every modern traveler should see; even my seafaring dad agreed with me on that.

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