Tourism trumps terrorism in Xinjiang

[Photo/China Daily]

Guests at the China-Kazakhstan international border cooperation center's namesake countries from Xinjiang's border city of Horgos can enter the center, built half in China and half in Kazakhstan, with just their national IDs. Chinese and Kazaks previously had to apply for permits from their hometowns' border police.

While citizens of the two countries can enter the transnational free-trade center, which officially opened in 2012, without visas, others may need passports.

Visitor volumes soared after the policy was introduced.

Besides shopping and trading goods, many guests snap selfies while standing on either side of－or, better yet, straddling－the blue line beneath a gateway that marks the border.

The Chinese side is a hive of shipping containers and dealers adding to, and subtracting from, heaps of wholesale goods in the shadows of modern multistory buildings.

It's trade at about its rawest.

Kazakhstan's side is a humbler huddle of tents, largely yurts, vending snacks, beverages and handicrafts from the country to Chinese tourists.

For now.

It aspires to optimize upon the growing inflow of Chinese.

Tourism's slowdown was the main contributor to Xinjiang's failure to reach its 2014 GDP growth target of 11 percent, the regional development and reform committee says. But it still reached 10 percent, exceeding the 7.4 percent national average, it says.