Word: xinjiang
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When describing Xinjiang, silk road clichés never grow old. China's westernmost region is a vast territory of deserts and mountains, where peaks of black sand descend toward ancient oasis towns. In many of its cities, men still haggle over livestock in dusty markets and purchase blades from blacksmiths whose families have stayed in the craft for centuries. The faces of its Uighur inhabitants, a Turkic Muslim ethnic group, tell of Xinjiang's history as a crossroads for caravans and civilizations: an astonishing array of gray, hazel and blue eyes, fringed by brown or black or even blond...
...Xinjiang's Chinese rulers, the region's deep history matters far less than its political future. The name Xinjiang itself in Mandarin means "new frontier" - a sign both of its remoteness from Beijing and the difficulty of governing it. That challenge centers on the Uighurs, who comprise the region's majority population and claim a linguistic and cultural heritage that is markedly different from that of the rest of China. And while six decades of communist Chinese rule have brought tremendous prosperity to some, modernization has also raised a profound disconnect between the region's old inhabitants and newer arrivals...
...Sakamaki, a Japanese photojournalist, traveled around Xinjiang in mid-August, not long after the worst bout of interethnic violence in years had rocked the regional capital of Urumqi. Sakamaki, a veteran of conflict zones from Liberia to Sri Lanka, was struck by the air of tension. In Xinjiang, he says, there is an almost irreconcilable divide between the Uighurs and the Han. "They don't live with each other, they don't communicate to each other and they don't understand each other...
...Journalists traveling in Xinjiang are dogged by government minders and face a suspicious and fearful populace. Local Han warned Sakamaki of straying into Uighur areas. But he was touched by the unflinching hospitality he received from Uighurs once he made the simple gesture of greeting them as a Muslim would: Salaam aleikum - "Peace be with you." "After that," Sakamaki says, "the barriers all came down...
...western and eastern Siberia to the China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC). In 2006 the two companies signed a memorandum of understanding to develop two pipelines, one that would link Sakhalin Island with northeast China and a second that would join the Siberian Kovykta gas field with China's northwestern Xinjiang region. Completion of that deal stalled on disagreements over several issues, including price. (See pictures of China's electronic-waste village...