Chinese Communist Party officials harden rhetoric on Islam

- China's ruling Communist Party is hardening its rhetoric about Islam, with top officials making repeated warnings this past week about the specter of global religious extremism seeping into the country.

Shaerheti Ahan, a top political and legal affairs party official in Xinjiang, became the latest official from a predominantly Muslim region to warn political leaders gathered in Beijing about China becoming destabilized by the "international anti-terror situation."

Over the past year, President Xi Jinping has directed the party to "Sinicize" the country's ethnic and religious minorities, while regional leaders in Xinjiang, home to the Uighur (WEE-gur) ethnic minority, have ramped up policing amid an uptick in violence.

The government's hardening rhetoric has coincided with new security measures that activists say exacerbate a cycle of repression, radicalization and violence.

I wish to G-d the Uighurs were not predominately Muslim. I wish the world had supported their autonomy, before fundamentalist Islamists became their greatest champions.

In 1949, when the Communists declared their government of all of China, the Uighurs were 70-80+ % of the population of Xijiang provice. The Han used slow cultural genocide, in the name of “national development” to move millions of Han Chinese into the province, reducing the proportion of the Uighur population in the province to 50% or less. A major Uighur complaint has been that “national development” using the Han as migrants to the region also gave the best positions and job opportunities to the Han.

I have understood all that for a long time.

However, in recent study I learned that the Han once before dominated the province. Then a local rebellion in the region, seeking just succession from rule by Chinese emperors, not conquest of Han China, during the Qing dynasty, resulted in a pyrrhic victory for the Qing emperor, with millions, mostly Han, having died, leaving them a remnant, and a minority but still in control. Most of the deaths did not occur from battles and massacres, but from natural disasters, communicable diseases and starvation in a region that was totally destabilized and in constant conflict.

In the Tarim basin, the southern and largest part of Xijiang province, the oldest known inhabitants were Indo-Europeans associated with peoples of Central Asia, long before either the Mongols or the later Muslim Turkomen entered the area.

In 1949, when the Communists declared their government of all of China, the Uighurs were 70-80+ % of the population of Xijiang provice. The Han used slow cultural genocide,

Hmmm. Seems I've seen that strategy elsewhere. Where was it? Oh yes, western Europe.

BTW: I appreciate the sheer number of FReepers who are walking encyclopedias on just about any topic you could imagine.

Hey, they're Communists. They can do anything and get away with it.

It's only the "west" that is supposed to destroy itself. Communist countries not only get to oppress moslems, they get to oppress homosexuals and even practice extreme nationalism and militarism. Good thing they aren't "right wing," isn't it?

Many of us Freepers do our own due diligence on topics, instead of just repeating what is already “accepted” on the topic. Becoming informed, instead of just repeating things gives us knowledge foundations for the Conservative views we share. There is nothing I personally hate worse than when someone is making what we all believe is a good argument, and their version of the argument is being made with a lie or lies. Lies hurt. They give the opposition ammunition with which to argue that our position is wrong. Thus the NEED for our due diligence. Thus the more we learn.

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