Another form of central control: All government services, including trains and buses, run on “Beijing time,” even though the sun rises two hours later out here in the west; as if Washington, D.C., time were imposed on Colorado. The ethnic Uighurs, though, open their shops and make plans to meet friends on “local time.” After September 11, 2001, China suggested that its Uighur-speaking minority, which dominates cities such as Kashgar and the provincial capital of Urumqi, might harbor Islamist terrorists and appealed for Western “understanding” as it sought to crack down on separatist aspirations. Today, Beijing encourages Han Chinese from the crowded eastern areas to head west and repopulate this region so as to undermine Muslim control. In turn, the government offers economic and other incentives for the best and brightest residents of its westernmost province to pursue advanced degrees and economic opportunities in the capital or on the coasts. “The best jobs and the best schools aren’t here,” one local Uighur, who has plans to emigrate, told me. “The government wants you to leave. Ultimately, they’d want a Han Chinese to replace you.”

If Kashgar demonstrates the strong cultural legacy bestowed by the Islamic world on China, the impact of India is best captured at another oasis that sprouts improbably
from the desert along the Silk Road: the enormous complex of caves carved into the sandstone hills outside Dunhuang. The Mogao Grottoes, or “Caves of a Thousand Buddhas,” rise up inconspicuously from a narrow streambed surrounded by poplar trees, like terraced apartments built by some enterprising developer of the 4th century. The waters of this modest stream were a lifeline for those trekking through the Gobi Desert, and the caves were repositories for travelers’ prayers of divine providence. The grottoes are thought to have been inspired by the vision of a local monk, Yue Zhung, who woke one day with a fevered vision of a thousand Buddhas holding court.

Today the network of 492 temples has been unearthed, catalogued, and opened on a limited basis to the public. These mysterious caves, often visible only by flashlight, display enormous and powerfully evocative Buddhas, many sheathed in gold leaf, the largest more than 100 feet tall. Other temples resemble Chinese-style pavilions with gilded roofs, statuaries of powerful horses, and Buddhist frescoes. Some caves are filled with thousands of tiny, individual Buddhas painted on the walls, each surrounded by a nimbus of gold. It is staggering to calculate how many years it took to complete such reverent paintings.

Guides here are quick to remind foreign visitors of the systematic looting of these treasures that took place early in the 20th century. The most notable thief was probably the Hungarian-born linguist Sir Aurel Stein, who uncovered tens of thousands of ancient documents that he later described as a “solid mass of manuscript bundles rising to the height of nearly ten feet.” Many of these canonical texts, written in Sanskrit, Sogdian, Brahmi, and Tibetan, among other ancient languages, were ferreted off to the British Museum,
along with precious frescoes and carvings. Naturally, the Chinese would like their treasures back.

Persia’s deep influence on the Chinese personality sneaks up on us only days later as we wander through the strikingly modern new Shanghai Museum. Despite its sleek interiors and sophisticated displays, the museum was designed to resemble a traditionally Chinese cooking tripod, or ding, with a round top and a square base. Amid an impressive array of ancient bronzes and yet more Buddhist sculptures, I was brought up short in the ceramics gallery by a tall white-and-blue pitcher with a robust spout from Jingdezhen, the capital of porcelain in the Ming period of the 15th century. This stunning design displays a series of interlaced flowers and delicately imagined long, circular stems that might as well have been lifted directly from a Persian carpet. Clearly its provenance is Chinese—yet it remains stubbornly un-Chinese as well.

Likewise, the modern Silk Road is now a part of China, but one that stubbornly reminds us that the forces shaping history and civilizations are complex and more subtle than we sometimes care to recognize. These ancient forces may not be readily visible in the shopping districts of coastal Shanghai, but they remain an essential part of the distinctive character of this diverse and complex nation.

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