Pivot or Periphery? Xinjiang's Regional Development

Abstract

Owen Lattimore once depicted Xinjiang as the "pivot of Asia." As the nexus of the Silk Road, Xinjiang played a critical role in East-West exchanges. Subsequently, Xinjiang's pivotalness was amplified by great power rivalry. The emergence of new Central Asian states and China's economic reforms lead to greater interactions between Xinjiang and Central Asia. The author argues that Lattimore's depiction of Xinjiang is borne out not only in terms of politics and security, but also in terms of economics and trade. At the dawn of the new millennium, Xinjiang is sitting at the crossroads of a spatial and temporal pivot. As the forces of regional development, geoculture, and geopolitics converge in Inner Asia, Xinjiang's future can go either way: move away from the periphery and become a positive pivot in the economy, or fall prey to ethno-religious and geopolitical struggle and turn into a negative pivot.