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The long-awaited UN report on the Uyghurs in Xinjiang accuses the Chinese government of committing crimes against humanity against this community. The Xinjiang region has an economic and strategic dimension for China, as a large border region with the West through Central Asia.
With information from Dominique Baillard and Nerea Hernández, our correspondent in Beijing.
Xinjiang is a vital area for China. Three times the size of France, it is a vast desert region in northwest China and one of the poorest regions in the People’s Republic.
Also read: The UN denounces possible crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in Xinjiang
Its GDP continues to be nourished by 30% of transfers from the central government. Beijing is doing everything possible to develop this region, which is considered strategic due to its geography.
An important transit route
This ancient stage of the Silk Road has regained its function with the New Silk Road initiated by Xi Jinping. According to official media terminology, it is the “bridgehead of China’s opening to the West.” With its immediate neighbors in Central Asia on the one hand, which number eight, including Russia. And with more distant neighbors on the other hand, like the Europeans: thousands of freight trains leave each year for Europe from a port in Xinjiang.
The Belt and Road Initiative launched by Beijing in 2013 highlights Xinjiang as one of the pivots of the Initiative, and an unavoidable transit area on trade and logistics routes. Some of the relevant infrastructures that reflect the importance of this area is the railway to Kazakhstan.
New communication routes do not stop emerging: just in the last few months a new airport, a new section of motorway and a section of railway around the desert have been inaugurated.
Agricultural and mining raw materials
The subsoil is rich in oil, with the largest reserves in China, and coal is also abundant. Local coke production continues to grow while it declines in other producing regions. Xinjiang is also crucial for the photovoltaic industry. About half of the world’s production of polysilicon, a key material for solar panels, is made here.
The autonomous region also grows rice, wheat and corn. A quarter of the tomatoes consumed in the world and a fifth of the world’s supply of cotton are produced there. It is therefore a priority economic zone for China, developed in part thanks to the forced labor imposed on the Uyghurs.
The US embargo on products from the region has had little impact on exports, as Xinjiang trades mainly with its immediate neighbors (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan). Xinjiang is a transit route but not a major player in international trade, since it only accounts for 8% of its GDP, compared to 20% for China as a whole.
Therefore, Western decisions do not necessarily have a strong economic impact on the region. But if Europe follows the example of the United States, tomato sales to Italy would be seriously compromised. This represents 20% of the region’s exports.
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