Well you asked it personally, and I can only speak for myself so..
As a capitalist I am for as much liberalization as possible in as many sectors as possible. I think every country should do it like this.
So I for one dont believe in the concept of 'our people live here, have always lived here, and as such this piece of land/territory belongs to us!!'.
I believe land belongs to whoever holds
its ownership paper, acquiered through free-market forces. So in my eyes that territory never even 'belonged' to Uighers in the first place.
Territories' owners change over time as new owners buy those territories. No one is entitled to claim any land for themselves if they dont really own it in its legislative way.
And about the 'freedoms'.. Again as a capitalist I think there is only one freedom and that is the freedom to use your own private property however you want.
That includes the abilities like being able to release newspapers in whatever content you want if you own the newspaper, even if its contents were full lies and fake news.
But expecting such freedoms from China would be too much I guess lol, I mean even here in Turkey we dont have such freedoms.
And that is also why I am calling my government a socialist/communist entity, but this is a different topic.
As to my expectations of Chinese gov to do.. I have none. Your country, your rules. Every country is different and I am mature enough to know that no country in the world will bend down to my personal opinions just because I want them so badly.
No country in the world will change just because we discuss them here in these forums. So yeah we just should not expect 'justice' in our way in any place out there.
It is irrational and waste of time.
The vast majority of Turks defend China's territorial integrity. We openly support territorial integrity not only for China, but also for all countries that have similar problems. Because we have been fighting against the most unprincipled and inferiority terrorist organization for 40 years. As we know the supporters and suppoter's methods of this terrorist organization in the international arena, we can also understand the situation of the countries that about falling to similar trap.
In fact, we support China's multi-polar solution initiative in the global politics. Also we will support it as long as it can offer a solution to US imperialism if with a fair policy.
We are well aware that China is a country trying to be surrounded by the United States. So unprincipled US policies can even make Uighur Turks, if necessary, in their own interests. Our only problem about Uighur Turks is not from China. Another source of sorrow is the use of this issue by the United States as a political instrument.
However, you may accept that in the past we have been subjected to genocides and massacres in many countries such as Crete, Caucasus, Central Asia, Crimea, Cyprus, Bosnia, Azerbaijan and so on. And even in our own homeland, French and Russian-backed terrorist organizations ( Tashnak, Hinchak etc ) murdered hundreds of thousands of people in Anatolia when our former state was in the process of collapse. These traumas are factors that increase national sensitivity.
Everyone is aware of this sociological background. I dont not know how Chinese aware but there is a serious perception engineering work in that sense in Turkey. Breaking this perception depends on the Chinese state and its officials.
Not what I asked. We can't really debate actual policies because we can't affect policies here. So any discussions on that is pretty much useless.
What I was asking was what would you like to see in Xinjiang? China is largely atheist and more so Mandarin speaking. We are also one of the better educated countries in the world with a wealth of talent graduating from thousands of institutions.
Xinjiang is different, it's still backwards, they don't speak the language, and they have beliefs and customs different from us. Not just Han Chinese but the other ethnicity too.
You mentioned that you are a capitalist, if that is what you value the most then what Xinjiang is going through is something that will make a dent. You can't become part of the economic system if you can't speak the language. You can't fix the backwards thinking without breaking their traditions. Turns out China actually has quite a bit of experience with that. Han Chinese is not as well defined as one might think.
Don't think this is just the Uhygurs too. Han Chinese that didn't get an education during the initial phase of the reforms back in the 80s are now almost completely phased out. This numbers in the millions. As China became more developed, education is now a requirement, they too had to ditch their regional dialect for Mandarin Chinese.(a lot of them are not close, it's like learning German while knowing English)
It might be cruel to force change, but if you don't go with the flow you get left in the cold. Now they can stay like that, but then they would be left out in the cold forever.
As a positive note, there are a ton of examples of it working, from the political realm to the business and even academic(in terms of traditional language, history and art). In art it is most telling, traditionally, minority get minority roles, but recently Uhygur actresses are getting Han Chinese roles. You can look at that for what you will, but at 10 million US dollars a series, it's not too bad, if money is what you are after.
It's not going to occur naturally. Being at the bottom of the barrel for so long, we are kind of an expert on what it takes. You need to take these people kicking and screaming to the promise land and they may still step on a mine on the way there. If economics is what you are after, this is it.
Lastly, it's not a terror issue, China can handle that easily, there's no support for that terror in China, they can't succeed. They also have no education, unlike some other terrorists, which makes them essentially crazy guy with knife. Not threatening to stability in the least. However China wants Xinjiang to be a part of China. You can call that cultural genocide or anything you want. However the alternative is for all to see, and we will see what happens in 20 years.
