Amazing Xinjiang: Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway brings China's borderlands closer than ever before

Back in the day, traveling from Hotan, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, to Beijing by train took a week. Driving by car took an entire month.

But more than 60 years later, driving from Xinjiang to Beijing now just takes two days. Of course, this holds true if you take the seventh radial line of China's national expressway network, the Beijing-Xinjiang Expressway, or G7.

It is the longest desert-crossing expressway in the world. Construction began in 2012 and was completed in 2021. In 10 years, the builders crossed the Yellow River, the Great Wall, Gobi terrain, and sandy deserts. Overcoming unimaginable natural and technical challenges, they opened up a "Chinese road" using Chinese wisdom.