Quotes of the Day

When describing Xinjiang, silk road clichés never grow old. China's westernmost region is a vast territory of deserts and mountains, where peaks of black sand descend toward ancient oasis towns. In many of its cities, men still haggle over livestock in dusty markets and purchase blades from blacksmiths whose families have stayed in the craft for centuries. The faces of its Uighur inhabitants, a Turkic Muslim ethnic group, tell of Xinjiang's history as a crossroads for caravans and civilizations: an astonishing array of gray, hazel and blue eyes, fringed by brown or black or even blond hair. Marco Polo journeyed through these parts and noted, along with generations of other travelers, not just the stark beauty of the land, but the diverse cultures that thrived here.

But for Xinjiang's Chinese rulers, the region's deep history matters far less than its political future. The name Xinjiang itself in Mandarin means "new frontier" — a sign both of its remoteness from Beijing and the difficulty of governing it. That challenge centers on the Uighurs, who comprise the region's majority population and claim a linguistic and cultural heritage that is markedly different from that of the rest of China. And while six decades of communist Chinese rule have brought tremendous prosperity to some, modernization has also raised a profound disconnect between the region's old inhabitants and newer arrivals. Encouraged by Beijing, millions of Han Chinese have migrated west, imbued with a state-sanctioned spirit of manifest destiny. As skyscrapers loom where bazaars once stood, many Uighurs see themselves crowded out of their own homeland.

Q. Sakamaki, a Japanese photojournalist, traveled around Xinjiang in mid-August, not long after the worst bout of interethnic violence in years had rocked the regional capital of Urumqi. Sakamaki, a veteran of conflict zones from Liberia to Sri Lanka, was struck by the air of tension. In Xinjiang, he says, there is an almost irreconcilable divide between the Uighurs and the Han. "They don't live with each other, they don't communicate to each other and they don't understand each other."

As Sakamaki notes, it's the Uighurs who will be the ultimate losers. Beijing's vision of a harmonious and unified China offers little space for a people as culturally different as the Uighurs. State media often raise the specter of fundamentalist terrorism, despite the peaceful and tolerant nature of the Uighurs' brand of Islam. Young people are being weaned off the Uighur tongue and blocked from attending prayers at mosques. Historic districts in storied Silk Road cities like Kashgar and Khotan are being torn down and replaced with drab housing blocks. "In the face of China's modernity project," says Sakamaki, "Uighur culture is being diluted more and more."

His photographs tell a tale of what is being lost. Sakamaki wandered through old mud-brick quarters destined to be bulldozed and glimpsed the steel-and-glass materialist world that Chinese planners see rising above the rubble. Much of his work is suffused with a melancholy he allows to be dubbed "poetic." It is the picture, in many instances, of a people resigned to defeat.

Journalists traveling in Xinjiang are dogged by government minders and face a suspicious and fearful populace. Local Han warned Sakamaki of straying into Uighur areas. But he was touched by the unflinching hospitality he received from Uighurs once he made the simple gesture of greeting them as a Muslim would: Salaam aleikum — "Peace be with you." "After that," Sakamaki says, "the barriers all came down."

• Ishaan Tharoor
• In the wake of bloody ethnic clashes in China's stark Xinjiang region in July, photographer Q. Sakamaki captures how minority Uighur life is changing — and dying