Editor's note: Xin Ping is a commentator on international affairs for CGTN. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

I had traveled over 3,000 kilometers to the borders of China from Beijing – first by plane, then four hours by road – to reach Subashi, a village in Kizilsu, the westernmost corner of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region where the Pamir Plateau meets the desert. A few flat-roofed earthen houses sat alone between heaven and earth, with no other sights or sounds for company.

I was still recovering from carsickness, when a small hand gently tapped my back. A little girl who had been quietly watching us pulled two red fruit candies from her pocket and handed them to me. The candy wrappers gleamed faintly in the sunlight – like her eyes, like the gems of the plateau, like the distant Karakul Lake.

She was the daughter of two volunteer border guards. I asked how her family was doing. She told me her father receives a monthly border guard subsidy, her mother works at a village public service post, and her elder brother is employed at a camel farming enterprise in the county town, sending money home each month. As she spoke, I was deeply struck by the quiet, radiant happiness on her face.

That encounter stayed with me as I traveled onward, collecting stories of ordinary people reshaping their lives.

From pack animal to prosperity

In Keping County, on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin, I met Dabitiyi Yisha, a camel herder. Keping was once a nationally designated poverty-stricken county, where locals joked that "light industry" means baking naan bread, and "heavy industry" means shoeing horses. But today, the camel – long a symbol of desert transport – has become a vehicle for prosperity.

In 2023, Dabitiyi was still a registered poor household scraping by on odd jobs. Taking advantage of the county's full-interest subsidy on loans for the camel industry, he borrowed money to purchase new camels, expanding his herd from 70 to 400. The government provides a 3,000-yuan subsidy ($435) for each camel purchased, and local enterprises purchase camel milk at a guaranteed price of 30 yuan ($4.4) per kilogram, leaving farmers free from worries.

Today, Dabitiyi produces about 400 kilograms of camel milk daily, bringing in a stable monthly income of around 100,000 yuan ($14,499.6) from milk sales alone. At the third annual Camel Herders' Congress in February 2026, he received an award for outstanding contribution.

Dabitiyi's story is not unique. By June 2025, Keping County's camel herds had reached 56,000, the largest in Xinjiang. The number of herding households has grown from 570 to nearly 700, with 660 households seeing annual income increases of over 90,000 yuan (around $13,049.6), 80% of formerly impoverished households have achieved stable income growth through the camel industry.

The thread keepers

From the desert, I traveled to the Ili River valley, to Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County. Here, the art of Xibe embroidery – recognized as a national intangible cultural heritage – is being passed down through generations, and reinvented for the future.

In Yang Xiuyu's workshop, two embroidered cloud collars hang side by side. "This was my mother's unfinished work," she said. "I wanted to complete it for her – so I found matching materials and added my own patterns around hers."

But tradition alone cannot sustain a craft. Dong Lan, a woman of Xibe ethnicity who studied computer science and worked overseas in software development, returned to her hometown in 2015 to start a business. She has coded embroidery techniques into digital programs, allowing designers to create patterns with a mouse or stylus instead of a needle. Her company has built a database of over a thousand Xibe motifs.

She has located her company in townships, right at villagers' doorsteps. Today, the company provides stable employment for 55 people and flexible employment for 350 others, enabling women of all ethnicities to "earn money while embroidering," preserving their cultural heritage while improving their lives. In 2025, the "Qapqal Xibe Embroiderers" brand was recognized at the autonomous region level.

Numbers tell

Dabitiyi's 400 camels, the over 300 pairs of nimble hands in Dong Lan's workshops, the little girl's parents receiving monthly subsidies, her brother working at the camel enterprise – behind these stands a more significant set of numbers: The number of employed people lifted out of poverty has remained stable at over 30 million for five consecutive years.

But in the end, poverty alleviation is not merely about numbers. It is about a man who can finally dream beyond survival, a daughter who can complete her mother's unfinished stitch, a little girl with two candies who can now hope for a better life.

The rocks of this frontier have bloomed – not just in paint, but in lives reimagined.

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X, formerly Twitter, to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)