A Slate Magazine reporter travels from Kyrgyzstan to Kashgar in a bus journey exploring Xinjiang:
Kashgar is one of the most heavily Uighur cities in China. According to official figures, just 10 percent of its people are Han, but more and more Chinese people are arriving. Han are heavily overrepresented in government jobs—most policemen, for example, are Chinese, including the ones, posted in the sparkling-clean pedestrian underpasses, who sit in front of back-lit propaganda posters, which declaim, in Chinese and Uighur:
A stable Kashgar is my responsibility,
A friendly and open Kashgar is my responsibility,
A harmonious Kashgar is my responsibility.And in case there is any doubt about who is in charge, a 59-foot statue of Mao Zedong, one of the largest in China, dominates the vast main square.