[jaxbot]

Right. There's no enforcement of visa itineraries so long as your first one has valid flights & hotel. After that, you get 10 years of multiple entry with no required itineraries. I just brought it up as a point, that Xinjiang is not a place you would normally be going. People seem to assume that Xinjiang is just a normal crossing into China that has heightened security. That's not the case at all. You would never accidentally end up there on a trip to China.

[lmm]

Xinjiang province is 1.6 million km^2. It's larger than France and Germany put together. There are plenty of reasons to want to go there.

[yorwba]

Most of that area is covered by mountains or desert, and there are only about 22 million people living there. The economy also isn't terribly developed (although IIRC it's the fastest-growing among all Chinese provinces) and it's not exactly popular as a tourist destination.

That doesn't mean there's no reason to ever visit, just that there aren't very many more reasons than for e.g. visiting the neighboring Kazakhstan. Most people crossing the border and getting subjected to the surveillance are probably ethnic Kazakhs living on either side, visiting relatives on the other.