China investing more in resource-rich Xinjiang

Karamay, China

IN a desolate park on the city outskirts here, oil bubbling from the ground fills small pools next to a wooden walkway. Beside one of the pools is a statue of a bearded ethnic Uighur man sitting on a donkey playing a lute.

The symbolism is telling. China is ramping up energy production here, turning the north-western Xinjiang region into a national hub for oil, gas and coal, while the increasingly marginalised Uighur people are memorialised in what appears to be a bronze homage to a romantic past.