> They should probably be building more factories in the west, but I’m guessing water resources might limit that.

There are also other reasons. The name of western province is Xinjiang. They did have a plan to turn it into manufacturing hub, and it's one of the reasons why you see stuff you see.

I actually went to changji before, and visited my friend’s brother furniture factory, so they have manufacturing in Xinjiang. They have more potential for it than any other western province if we go by culture since Uighurs are just as industrious and educated as Han (economic competition is where a lot of the conflict stems from, if they could fix that the autonomous region would boom).