The Uighurs were never a fundamentalist Muslim group; more secular than religious and mixed with their native beliefs retained from before the meeting with Islam.
The modern Muslim fundamentalists had very little support among the Uighurs UNTIL the rest of the world continued to ignore - for more than 50 years - the ethnic genocide the communists regime had been practicing against the Uighur. Only then did some Uighurs obtain an attraction to Islamic fundamentalists - because no one else was listening. To the extent that is happening, the communists have their own tactics against the Uighurs to blame.
I don't believe the degre of how muslim they are factors into anything here. The point is - these outsiders post a threat to the age old order of business in China. China has had a closed society for nearly 4,000 years. They're not about to open their borders anytime soon.
“I don’t believe the degre of how muslim they are factors into anything here. The point is - these outsiders post a threat to the age old order of business in China.”
More ignorance. The Uighur are not “outsiders’. They have been on that land longer then the Han. The Han are really the outsiders.
China as a culture outlived the Romans, they will outlive us as well....sadly..
Outsiders?