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The Tarim Basin in western China has been receiving continuous marine to lacustrine deposits during the Cenozoic as a foreland basin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Clay mineralogy and geochemical proxy data from these sedimentary archives can shed light on climate and tectonic trends. Here we report on an abrupt mineralogical and weathering shift at 17 Ma +/- A 1 Myr in the Miocene Qimugan section in the northwestern part of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The rapid shift involves decreasing trends of chemical weathering indices, Rb/Sr and Ba/Sr ratios, and of minor and immobile elements with respect to upper crust composition as well as increasing trends of Na/Al and Na/Ti ratios, smectite, chlorite, and calcite contents. We ascribe these trends to changing source rocks due to uplift of the northern part of the QTP leading to exposures of younger intrusive bodies and older gneisses, schists, and carbonate-rich rocks. These uplifts potentially caused regional aridification reducing chemical weathering. The dating is indirect via magnetostratigraphically dated ostracod biostratigraphy and detrital zircon chronology and currently not good enough to compare the shift accurately in time with the onset of the global middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO) at 16.5 Ma. Nevertheless, regional tectonics seem to have dominated over global climate as the warmer MMCO is expected to have increased weathering indices and decreased Na/Al and Na/Ti, rather than the observed reverse trends.