Connecting the news

The news that “China [is] to fund [the] education of ex-nationals in Gilgit-Baltistan“, in Pakistan, made me think of a “A New Shenzhen: Beijing aims to turn the remote western city of Kashgar into the country’s next big boomtown“, a story that ran a while ago in Newsweek.

If the Chinese government is sincere in its efforts to develop the Kasghar metropolitan area economically; if the government aims to create broad local, national, even international support for such socio-economic development in its Central Asian border region; and if the government hopes to create such support by this latest move to provide education for Uyghur ex-nationals in Pakistan, then I believe this move might prove to be genius.

Big ifs

Off course these are very big ifs – more so in a country like China, where economic and socio-economic development is rarely broadly carried, especially in rural areas.

These ifs will be further compounded by Uyghur suspicions of government intentions in developing the Kasghar economy. Such suspicion will be greater still across the boarder, where the Uyghur community is largely descendant from Uyghur nationalists that left China in the wake of the Kuomintang’s defeat in the mainland and the CCP’s “Liberation of the West”.

The Chinese government may find that there’s even less affinity with Chinese sovereignty over Xinjiang in neighboring diasporic communities then there is in the Uyghur community in Xinjiang, in other words.

Not cynical

But it will do no good to be cynical about these development. I truly hope that the Chinese government is sincere in its effort. For if Kasghar and the broader Central Asian region develops, this area will be all the more interesting for it.

Hualing is Ürümqi’s largest international trade plaza. It’s a beehive of activity, everything is on sale. There are always Russians, Kazakhs, Pakistani, people from every corner of the Caucasus and Central Asia, all of them small entrepreneurs, buying and selling cheap commodities between China and their home town. It’s an exciting place, full of life.

It’s the only place where you can buy decent coffee in Ürümqi. You need to go to Hualing, plaza number two. The access floor has two or three coffee joints, but mister Sun’s the best.

孙先生 is a friend of mine, he’s always sold me coffee, and I always stuck around his shop to chat, sipping a variety of coffees and teas. He’d have me sample new roasts from South America, or from nearer to home, from Yunnan, in the south of China. Starbucks has also just discovered Chinese coffee beans, and now has a Yunnan blend on the menu.

But mister Sun got there first.

In Sun’s shop there’s always a tea brewing; lovely, fruity blends from India and Pakistan, or teas from the east of China.

So I wasn’t just a little worried when I read that an international trade plaza in Ürümqi was on fire. After a few days, calling around, sending out some e-mail, I learned that his shop that was not caught up in the fire. He and his family, he’s got a daughter who’s studying English at my competitor, are fine.

In fact, they’re more than fine. When I enquired after his family, his business, his health, he had this to say to me:

来新疆找工作吧，这里的机会多。

“[Are you looking for a job?] Why don’t you come back to Xinjiang? There are plenty of opportunities here.“

— Mister Sun

It’s why China will probably survive the economic crisis just fine. Its people are so positive, so upbeat, so full of vigour.

Off course there’s a thing or two to say about mister Sun’s claim. I’ll be saying a thing or two about it very soon.

But he is right all the same. No matter how many plaza’s are razed by fire, or by economic crises, Hualing, with it’s buzz, in dozens of exotic languages, will still be there, a hundred years from now. And it will still have its people, the entrepreneurial Cental Asians, carving out opportunities for themselves.