Reporting from Kashgar, China — At the Sunday market in Kashgar, it isn't a wild stretch to imagine commerce as it might have been in the 13th century when Marco Polo passed through this Silk Road oasis: Smooth-faced boys wrangle with horses, sheep and camels. Mounds of melons and grapes are stacked on the bare wooden planks of mule-drawn carts. A wizened man wearing a skullcap sharpens knives on a lathe operated by foot pedals.

But modernity is catching up with a vengeance, as the Chinese government yanks the nation's westernmost city, despite the misgivings of many residents, into the 21st century.

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