Xinjiang – Securing China’s Second Shore 3-D GIS Geovisual

Michael Patrick, UW Dept. of Geography The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region is arguably the remotest province of China, sparsely populated, landlocked in the center of the Asian landmass, and ringed by some of the highest mountains in the world. Past the mountains to the north lays the Siberian Steppe, to the west the deserts of Kazakhstan, and to the south lies the world’s ‘Third Pole’, the Tibetan Plateau. The centers of China’s vast population and teeming economy lie three thousand kilometers to the east. Xinjiang also borders on eight countries, India, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.1 However remote it seems, Xinjiang is emerging as the pivotal location concentrating the strategic aspects of China’s future energy supply, security, economic growth, and sovereignty claims. Western attention has primarily focused the heavily populated Eastern maritime regions of China, but major trends are evolving that will require the development of a ‘Second Shore’ for China in Xinjiang, opening the path to Central Asia and Europe beyond, with consequences from Siberia to the Strait of Taiwan.

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Google Video | May 12, 2006

Tags:. .past. .central. .asian. .regions. .mountains