[full article at http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/MON/IN/han.2.html ] Paris, Monday, September 18, 2000 In China's Wild West, a Face-Off Between Development and Unrest Beijing's High-Stakes Gamble /Who Will Reap Gains? By John Pomfret Washington Post Service URUMQI, China - It is boom time here in China's Wild West. Planes packed with officials roll into this once sleepy Central Asian capital. Bureaucrats and businessmen make deals over lunches of abalone and shrimp flown in from the ports around Guangzhou, 4,000 kilometers to the south. ''We're booked up,'' said Abulait Abuderexit, governor of the Xinjiang autonomous region, referring to the delegations jetting in to this far-northwestern corner of China to discuss investment plans. ''We are busy day and night and afternoon. Xinjiang is stable and developing well.'' With a huge propaganda campaign and millions of dollars, Beijing has launched a high-stakes gamble to develop Xinjiang and the rest of the Chinese west. Faced with persistent and sometimes violent ethnic unrest and a widening gap between the booming east coast and the poverty-stricken hinterland, China's leaders are pouring cash and expertise into an area largely left behind by two decades of economic reforms that have transformed such cities as Shanghai and Beijing. The goal is to poultice the growing fissures between China's rich and poor regions, and in the process halt any idea that the remote, poor areas could one day spin off into independent states. Odds for success are unknown; China's rulers have been promising to develop the western regions for decades, and many people in Xinjiang ask whether this time will be different. A weeklong trip through a large part of Xinjiang - from its capital, Urumqi, to the verdant but rebellious Yili Valley, rocked by an anti-Chinese revolt three years ago - revealed a region that is desperate for capital, ideas and people. It also showed a region simmering with muffled discontent. In town after town, government officials pointed to a development model that seemed written to aid Han Chinese, the country's dominant ethnic group but a still minority here, and to encourage their immigration into the region. The plans often did not seem aimed at Xinjiang's 8 million Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group some of whose members have conducted a campaign of bombings, demonstrations and killings for independence from China. Uighurs outnumber Han Chinese in the region by 1.2 million despite huge Han population gains. China's ''Western Big Development'' project encompasses 5.2 million square kilometers (2 million square miles) and 300 million people spread across nine provinces and autonomous regions - Gansu, Guizhou, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Ningxia, Tibet and Xinjiang. Together, they occupy well over half of China's area and account for most of its oil and mineral reserves, borderlands and strategic military installations - and almost all of its restive minority regions. The project includes construction of roads, airports, railroads and a $14 billion pipeline linking Xinjiang's natural gas fields to Shanghai, 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) to the southeast. President Jiang Zemin recently declared the project crucial to China's stability, the Communist Party's hold on power and the ''revitalization of the Chinese people.'' Xinjiang and Tibet, home to China's two most restive ethnic minorities, the Uighurs and the Tibetans, are the linchpins. If the program fails here, analysts contend, Beijing's hold on these regions could weaken
