‘The foundations of Xinjiang’s transformation (1949–1990)’

This is apropos four letters to the Editor titled ‘The foundations of Xinjiang’s transformation (1949–1990)’ carried by the newspaper from the last Thursday till yesterday.

The second track focused on physical transformation. Surveys of coal, oil, and mineral deposits were conducted; irrigation systems were rebuilt and expanded; and model farms introduced scientific methods to improve yields. Roads and later railways linked Urumqi to Gansu and Kazakhstan, ending centuries of isolation.

Pilot industries in textiles, food processing, and energy emerged, while healthcare and housing programs improved living standards. These modest beginnings carried profound significance: they gave Xinjiang its first modern infrastructure, a foundation on which later waves of reform in the 1980s and 1990s would build.

Governance played a crucial role in this transformation. Beijing recognized that success required not only resources but moral discipline and administrative competence. Local cadres were trained to balance ethnic diversity with unity, ensuring that modernization did not erode cultural identity. Governance, in the Chinese conception, was not domination but service — an act of moral stewardship aligning with the Confucian ideal that good government begins with self-cultivation and ends in social harmony.

By the late 1980s, the transformation of Xinjiang was no longer a vision — it was a living reality written across its deserts, valleys, and cities. In 1949, the region had barely 4.3 million people, most living in poverty, with life expectancy below 30 years and illiteracy above 90 percent. By 1980, its population had doubled to 8.3 million; life expectancy had climbed to 58 years; and literacy had risen beyond 65 percent. Primary schools had multiplied from barely 1,300 to over 6,000, and secondary and higher institutions — once nonexistent — were training a new generation of engineers, doctors, and teachers.

Infant mortality, which exceeded 200 per 1,000 births at liberation, had fallen below 70, while hundreds of hospitals and rural clinics now reached even the remotest oases.

The region’s per-capita income, once less than 150 yuan, had increased nearly threefold by 1980, powered by new industries in energy, textiles, and food processing. Roads expanded from less than 3,000 kilometers of crude tracks to over 20,000 kilometers of paved highways, and the first rail lines linked Urumqi with Lanzhou and Kazakhstan, ending centuries of geographic isolation.

Irrigation networks reclaimed tens of thousands of hectares of arid land, transforming wastelands into fertile cotton and grain fields. Urumqi, once a frontier garrison, had become a bustling city of half a million people — the commercial and administrative heart of the northwest.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025