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BEIJING: Resource rich and a buffer with Central Asia, Xinjiang is vital to China's economic and geopolitical interests.
With an economy based on mining, agriculture and energy, the vast area has developed rapidly since the 1980s, attracting a wave of Han Chinese migrants but leaving many local Muslim Uighurs on the sidelines.
Last week's violence in the region's capital Urumqi -- the worst ethnic unrest in China in decades that left at least 184 people dead -- will change little about the government's policies there, according to analysts.
Wenran Jiang, a China expert at the University of Alberta, said the strategic importance of Xinjiang -- it takes up one sixth of China's land mass and borders Central Asia -- meant any long-term unrest would not be tolerated.
"It is China's northwest frontier, and like Tibet, is absolutely vital to the country's security. Beijing will not compromise in any way on these regions," he told AFP.
Xinjiang has been China's nuclear test ground for decades and hosts China's strategic missile base.
Several crucial oil and gas pipelines also cross from Central Asia through the region, helping meet the huge demand for energy in the much more developed and populated eastern coastal cities.
In addition, Xinjiang last year overtook Shandong province to became China's second largest producer of oil (27.4 millions tonnes) after Heilongjiang (north east, 40.2 million tonnes).
"With the decrease in reserves in Heilongjiang and Shandong, the strategic importance of Xinjiang and its untapped reserves grows every year," said Ren Xianfang, an analyst at IHS Global Insight.
This importance has been reflected in Beijing's increased investment in the region since 2000 as part of its "Go West" campaign, which has tried to rebalance the country's economic growth.
But analysts -- and many Uighurs -- believe this investment has largely benefited the Han, China's main ethnic group.
Around 70 per cent of any extra investment is gobbled up by the oil and petrochemical industries, dominated by state-owned enterprises, said Ren.
"There are very few Uighurs in the oil industry," said Jean-François Huchet, director of the Centre of French Studies on Contemporary China in Hong Kong.
"The Uighur population has been stuck in the countryside in an agricultural system that has little added value," he said.
But even there -- the region is a major grower of cotton -- Uighurs struggle to gain economic power.
A regional quasi-military group, "the bingtuan", control huge tracts of farmland, employing more than 2.2 million people there, the vast majority of whom are Han Chinese.
In commerce, the region's Sinification is also evident, often because of the Uighurs' lack of education.
"There is not direct discrimination, but the level of language and education of the Uighurs prevents them progressing up the social ladder," said Yi Xianrong, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"It is a vicious circle," added Huchet.
The region's importance is underscored by its geographical position, bordering eight countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are battling major terrorist threats.
"If China does not control the region, radical Muslims could come in," said David Zweig, a political scientist at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
"It is also a huge buffer between Iran, troubles in Afghanistan and that part of the world, and Beijing and the Han regions of China."
- AFP/yt
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