OK, some of the obvious differences between #Xinjiang and Palestine…
Xinjiang is a province annexed by #China, not occupied; residents of Xinjiang became Chinese citizens. They were not driven out, they were not turned into refugees, or a subject population under military occupation. China did not take over the province as part of an ideological scheme to invent a Chinese homeland, undertaking a massive population transfer in the process. The Uighurs have Chinese nationality documents that enable them to travel. Xinjiang is not subjected to vicious aerial bombings every year or two years that completely demolish the infrastructure and kill hundreds of people. The history of Xinjiang is rife with power struggles and short-lived provincial governments, the last of which agreed for Xinjiang to be absorbed into the People’s Republic of China. Xinjiang was never part of the Ottoman Empire. It has existed as an autonomous state within China, not as an occupied militarized zone. And Xinjiang does not contain the third holiest place in Islam, nor figure into the history of the Prophets.
There is simply no comparison. Say whatever else you wish about the situation in Xinjiang, but please do not suggest it is even remotely like the Palestinian situation.
Now, with regard to the separatist aspirations…my first question would be, why? How exactly do you imagine that the daily lives of the #Uighurs would be improved by the establishment of a third #EastTurkistan Republic? If your answer is “because, Shari’ah”, then this is not a serious discussion. Next, I would say; and this goes for any similar scenario; don’t talk to me about what you perceive to be “historical rights” or even about abstractions like “freedom” or “independence” or what have you. Personally, I am interested in achievable good, not hypothetical good; nor any idealistic concept of “should be”. Practically, realistically speaking, what assets do you bring to your cause? What are the assets possessed by those who oppose you? What, in other words, can be accomplished in the real world to make your life better?
Everyone and his brother can claim “historical rights”; everyone and his brother have a list of demands which they think they deserve. And it doesn’t matter. What actual outcomes can be expected by your pursuit of your ideal situation? Because, very often, those outcomes are actually worse situations than the one you are hoping to improve. An independent East Turkistan would be caught between potentially the first and fifth largest economies in the world, with absolutely no bargaining power. All current development activities by Beijing will be halted, or, if continued, will immediately throw the new country into unpayable debt. One would be wise to wonder what “independence” even means in such a scenario.
Yes, ok, maybe you will say, “But at least the Chinese concentration camps and religious oppression will be ended”; but these things only exist because of the separatist movement. Muslims throughout the rest of China do not experience this. So another option for ending these violations is to simply abandon the very bad idea of separatism altogether. Instead, let the Uighur leaders focus on learning the skills and developing the human capital, that can actually benefit their people.
I know this will be an unpopular view among political Islamists, and that exposes the fundamental fraudulence of modern political Islamism.