Shanghai-based freelancer Scott Brauer has been photographing the Old Town section of Kashgar.

One of the world’s oldest cities, Kashgar serves as both the spiritual and political capital of traditional Uighur culture. Since 1949, the modern People’s Republic of China has exerted strong control over the region, and Kashgar has be Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a province covering 1/6th of China’s territory holds a majority of the country’s oil and gas reserves. Long at odds with the Uighurs’ sometimes bloody quest for indepdence, the Chinese government has insituted a program of subsidized migration and settlement in the area by Han majority Chinese. In so doing, the government hopes to develop a stable and robust economy whose purpose is the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and to overwhelm the local ethnicities. Whereas the Uighur population of Kashgar was previously as high as 90%, government settlement efforts have changed the city’s demographics and the percentage of Uighurs is plummeting. Now, government plans have been unveiled that would level as much as 85% of the old city, replacing the twisting alleyways and organically-developed residential buildings with modern Chinese-style highrises.

Continue reading and see more photos on Scott’s Website.