In Kashgar, in the far west of China, the sun comes up around ten in the morning in winter. Latitude is not the reason: Kashgar lies about as far north as Rome. The reason is that the city keeps the same clock as Beijing, some 3,000 kilometres to the east.
China spans roughly 60 degrees of longitude. Geographically that would make five time zones. Officially the country has exactly one: Beijing time, UTC+8, from the east coast to the border with Central Asia.
Five zones, then one
It was not always so. Between 1918 and 1949 China really was divided into five time zones, from UTC+5:30 in the far west to UTC+8:30 in the northeast. In 1949 that division was abolished and the whole country was put on Beijing time, as a sign of national unity.
The arithmetic works in the east and fails in the west. In Kashgar the official clock runs about two and a half hours ahead of solar time. A working day that starts at nine by the clock starts at half past six by the sun. In winter people travel to work before daylight. In summer the sun is still high when the clock has long since called it evening.
The clock says mid-morning. Outside it is still dark.
— TerraTally · History desk
Daily life has adapted without falling into line. In Xinjiang part of the population unofficially keeps its own time, two hours behind Beijing. It appears in no law and on no official form. It still decides when shops open and when people agree to meet. Anyone arranging an appointment there often has to say which of the two clocks they mean.
Two clocks in one city are not a nuisance but a workable arrangement. Official time governs everything the state schedules: timetables, offices, the news. Unofficial time governs everything the day schedules: getting up, the market, meals. The two run side by side, and people in Kashgar convert between them without making much of it.
This looks like a technical matter, yet it is one of the oldest ways of making the reach of a state visible. Whoever sets the clock sets the rhythm of school, work and administration, even where the sun says otherwise. In Kashgar the clock is not a measuring instrument. It is a statement.
China is not alone in this. India runs a single time zone across an entire subcontinent. Spain sits at the longitude of London and keeps central European time. Russia has reorganised its eleven zones more than once, and every shift also said something about how close a region was meant to be to the capital.
What sets China apart is the size of the gap. Two and a half hours are not a rounding error but a noticeable part of the day. People in Kashgar live by two clocks: the official one, printed on timetables and forms, and the unofficial one they actually meet by. Both are right. Just not at the same time.