Xinjiang is modern from roads to cotton fields

It is said that you won't know how vast China is until you visit the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Spread across nearly 1.67 million square kilometers, it is the size of three Frances or more than four Japans.

After spending several days in Urumqi, the capital of the autonomous region, enjoying its vibrant atmosphere and meeting friends, my wife and I embarked on a road trip along the legendary Duku Highway.

This 561-km winding mountain road cuts through the Tianshan Mountains, the natural boundary between northern and southern Xinjiang. Due to heavy snowfall and extreme weather conditions, the road is open only from June to October during the year.

The scenery along the Duku Highway is breathtaking and changes dramatically.

We saw many snow-capped mountains, red canyons, vast grasslands and dense forest. Herdsmen were busy with the seasonal migration of livestock, primarily sheep.

While Duku's pristine beauty remains as it is, the highway has become more a sightseeing road than for transportation purposes.

Crossing the Tianshan Mountains now takes just a little over 20 minutes, thanks to the opening of the 22.13-km Tianshan Shengli Tunnel last December. Regarded as the longest expressway tunnel in the world, it is an engineering marvel given the complex geology of the region.

Constructors overcame 16 major fault zones under intense ground stress, temperatures dropping to minus 40 degrees Celsius and an altitude of over 3,600 meters.

The tunnel has significantly benefited not just the local economy and the 26 million residents of the autonomous region, but also tourists like myself. My return journey from Korla to Urumqi via the Shengli Tunnel and several other tunnels was an easy drive at 100 kilometers per hour.

As my road trips through the mountainous Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and Xizang autonomous region in the past year show, China deserves the title of infrastructure powerhouse.

The country's infrastructure development is truly unparalleled. Newly built highways, bridges and tunnels now link areas that were once inaccessible or took a long time to reach.

We returned to northern Xinjiang because it's the right time to see its beautiful golden autumn, which arrives earlier than in southern Xinjiang, where it is expected in October. The drive from Urumqi to Altay on the S21 Expressway was another testament to modern engineering.

The 343-km Desert Highway, as it is better known, passes the Gurbantunggut Desert, the second largest desert in China.

Along the way, we saw Gobi Desert landscapes, sand dunes, Altai mountain peaks in the distance, lakes, and wild camels and horses.

That tourism is booming in Xinjiang is reflected in the hundreds of mini tour buses heading to popular destinations such as Kanas, Hemu and Koktokay.

The region is even more crowded in winter, transforming into a ski wonderland as more Chinese people fall in love with the sport, partly inspired by the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

While planning the Xinjiang road trip, I was initially concerned because some roads were marked as under construction, including portions of the G219 highway, which runs along the borders with several neighboring countries.

The good news is that the Ministry of Transport announced in July a blueprint for the country's Golden Outer Ring highway during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30).

This 27,000-km super Outer Ring Road will connect the border-hugging strategic trunk corridors of G331 highway in the north and G219 highway in the west, together with the coastal trunk corridor of G228 highway in the south and east.

While the Golden Outer Ring highway will be significant for national defense and economic development, it will also be a boon for tourists like me. I look forward to embarking on multiple road trips along the Golden Outer Ring when it is completed in a couple of years.

During my travels across Xinjiang, I also came across vast cotton fields, some of them freshly harvested.

Xinjiang produces about one-fifth of the world's cotton, utilizing modern harvesters guided by the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. The baseless claims by some Western politicians and news outlets about forced labor in Xinjiang are nothing but a vicious smear campaign.

The author is a China Daily columnist.