As war engulfs the Middle East, China’s Xinjiang is thriving with future tech

As the war in Iran disrupts global oil and chemical supplies, China’s coal-heavy energy sector is seizing an unprecedented opportunity. Dannie Peng visits the Changji Hui autonomous prefecture in Xinjiang – one of the country’s four major bases for large-scale, modern coal-chemical production – to see first-hand how a vast industrial ecosystem is rapidly taking shape on the ground.A four-hour drive northeast of Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, leads to a colossal open-pit mine. There, a fleet of electric, autonomous mining trucks moves with silent, clockwork precision, self-navigating the terrain and hauling mountains of overburden to distant stockpiles.This is one scene in a larger transformation unfolding across the Gobi Desert. In China’s far west, futuristic and green technologies are modernising coal mining and maximising the resource’s potential through chemical processing.