Let’s get a response from Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar on this interesting development.
I like this Saudi premier.
I strangely find this a rather pleasant thought !
I’ll go check Wikipedia, but my first guess on hearing this is that Uighurs are more likely to be Shia than Sunni.
FWIW, I’d want to see the verbatim quote in its entire context.
The Khashoggi thing didn’t work. This may be another attempt to get at MbS.
IMHO this Prince will be soon crossing his Rubicon and is preparing for a definitive battle in Saudi Arabia with the Wahhabi. Depending on who wins Arabia enters the 21st century or it stays bolted to the 9th and corrodes. Either way it won’t be bloodless or pretty.
Kublai Khan hated the Uighurs and had nothing but problems with them. That was in the 1200s. He even chastised Marco Polo for knowing how to speak their language better than his.
This is wise geopolitics on the part of the prince. Russia is siding with Iran, so the Prince courts China, thus keeping the Russo/Chicoms divided. You learn this when you grow up playing the board game, “Risk”. Nixon/Kissinger were masters at this type of Realpolitik
If you like Uyghur lamb with noodles soup (very warming when it gets cold) check out the numerous you tube vids. They are kinda charming. If I had unlimited money I would be there tomorrow. Far west China that is.
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Outside Xinjiang, the largest community of Uyghurs in China is in Taoyuan County, in south-central Hunan. Outside of China, according to the World Uyghur Congress, the Uyghur population is believed to number 1.0–1.6 million.
Uyghurs - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs
The Uighurs were historically not very fundamentalist Muslims.
If their numbers taking a more radical stance has increased in the last 30 years, it is due to two things:
(1) The continued cultural genocide of the Han Chinese against the Uighur in the lands that were made part of China that had always been dominantly Uighur (now they are near to dropping below 50%).
(2) Who in the world has reached out to support the Uighur? The west? No. Russia? No. India? No. Anyone in Asia? No. So, if Muslim radicals have made headway among the Uighur, you can’t blame the Uighur for taking support where ever they could get it.
You have to have been continuously keeping informed of what is happening in Uighur territory controlled by China since 1949, to know how the situation has gotten to the point it has today.
In my view it has gotten to the point it has largly by the world’s indifference. In terms of their existential existence the Uighurs are far worse off than the Kurdish people. It is not hard to see how if the U.S. had never cared the little bit it has about the Kurds, they would not have the little bit of autonomy they do today. From the rest of the world the Uighur people have meant zip, zilch, nada. Now even some in the world ignorantly want to blame radical Islam for their problems.