China has a problem with its Western Xingjiang province. The population is about 60% Muslim, has a history of on-and-off independence,  speaks a Turkic language unrelated to Chinese, and is separatist. They are violently resisting China's centrally planned migration of Han Chinese into the region, whom they see as colonial invaders to be expelled.

The present overall population of Xingjiang is about 46% Uyghur, 6½% Kazakh, and 4½% Hui, all Muslims. The Uyghur and Kazakh speak Turkic languages, and both have considerable European DNA. In the 1930s, sections of Xingjiang became independent, calling themselves the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan.

While today the Han Chinese are presently 40% of Xingjiang's population, many are recent arrivals, despised by the locals who know full well that Beijing is sending in these Han Chinese in order to garrison the area. The Han are not indigenous. A low-grade guerrilla war has ensued.

The Uyghurs -- the primary indigenous group -- are not even a true East Asian people. Genetic testing shows them to be closer to Indo-European.

...results showed that UIG was formed by two-way admixture, with 60% European ancestry and 40% East Asian ancestry. -- Analysis of Genomic Admixture in Uyghur and Its Implication in Mapping Strategy

Real history goes a bit deeper than the genetic mapping might indicate. Were one to go back thousands of years ago, one would find an Indo-European (IE) people who controlled the Silk Road. They were called Tocharians, noted for having some members with the occasional red hair or blue eyes. In fact, comparisons with the Celts have been made.

A meeting of civilisations: The mystery of China's celtic mummies -- The Independent

While politically correct history likes to play down the contributions of "dead white men," this is one area where propaganda runs into hard fact. Indo-Europeans (IEs) once roamed further east than present historians care to admit. Even the people we call Mongols may originally have had a higher proportion of Indo-European (IE) ancestry. In fact, Genghis Khan reputedly had red hair.

[The] Persian chronicler Rashid al-Din, who claimed Genghis had red hair and green eyes. Al-Din’s account is questionable -- he never met the Khan in person -- but these striking features were not unheard of among the ethnically diverse Mongols. -- History

The embarrassing admission of "ethnically diverse Mongols," indicates they were not all pure Asian -- which in that part of the world could only mean they were part "white," as no adjacent Africans, Dalits, or Melanesians, were locally available for intermarriage. How much Asian, and how much white the ancient Mongols were may be debatable. Whether the ruling classes of the Mongols were once white or Asian may be debatable. That they were part-white is not debatable, if one be honest.

Xingjiang, home of the Uyghurs, is closer to Europe than Mongolia, and the Uyghurs certainly have retained more of their Indo-European (IE) genes and traits. Given that recent studies fix the Uyghurs at 60% IE today, after generations of Turkic and Chinese interference, we can safely assume that the ancient Uyghurs were even "whiter" than the present demographic. Yet, even today, the odd recessive IE trait will re-emerge occasionally in individuals.

Lest anyone think this is regurgitated neo-Nazi racial ideology, it is not. We may despise Nazi claims of racial hierarchy and superiority, but the 19th century discoveries of Aryan/IE tribal migrations are reliable history, which predated Nazism and which should not be totally discounted merely because Hitler and his thugs misused good anthropology to an evil end.

After WW II, such history has been ignored for politically correct reasons, which has resulted in deceitful historical claims, among the more famously ridiculous of which is that Carthage's Hannibal Barca was black, when all reliable historical accounts of Hannibal are of him being white, or at least Mediterranean Semitic: Carthaginians were a mix of Phoenician and European Sea Peoples,  not African stock.

In reality, it looks like Indo-Europeans (IEs) were once widely established in Central to Eastern Asia, and many were driven West into Europe. The IEs were the original victims of imperialism, not the other way around.

The Chinese have found archeological ruins in Xingjiang's Tarim Basin where mummies of Celtic-looking Tocharians were discovered. The authorities tried to suppress the stories at first. It would not do to ponder whether civilization had been brought to China by the hated white man. Might upset the anti-imperialist party line.

The Uyghurs, however, see the mummies as proof of their independent origin.

Most of the people who dwell in China's westernmost regions do not look especially Chinese. Many of these people known as Uyghurs don't think of themselves as Chinese either. In recent years, some have called for autonomy from China, and to them the mummies are proof that their ancestors were an ethnically distinct group, here long before the arrival of Chinese conquerors. As a result, the question of the mummies' ethnic identity is a sensitive matter. -- PBS NOVA, "Mysterious Mummies of China," (1998)

To this day, the Tocharian mummies are deceptively displayed in Chinese museums next to Han Chinese mummies, as if they were contemporaneous peoples, which they were not. The Tocharians were there first. Their IE DNA courses the veins of the present-day Uyghurs and that is a major part of the tension.

The new finds are also forcing a reexamination of old Chinese books that describe historical or legendary figures of great height, with deep-set blue or green eyes, long noses, full beards, and red or blond hair. Scholars have traditionally scoffed at these accounts, but it now seems that they may be accurate. -- Mummies of the Tarim Basin, as quoted in Wikipedia

The evidence is even more solid.

Of all the finds here, the woolen textiles are the most impressive. Woven into twill and tartan patterns... Strikingly similar to Celtic tartans from Northwest Europe... Are they evidence that the mummy people shared common origins with the people of Western Europe? -- PBS NOVA (1998)

To put it bluntly, in the Uyghurs, we are looking at a people who historically have no genuine connection to China, and might be able to claim a closer connection to Europe. That the Uyghurs have embraced the folly of al-Islam in the intervening centuries is a tragedy of horrendous proportions; but they are not Chinese. They are a primarily IE people, with some Central Asian admixture, who now speak a Turkic language. Were they Christian, instead of Muslim, their historical claims would be immediately obvious; but their Islamic practices conjure up images of ancient Arab imperialism coming to haunt China. In reality, the ancient Mongols invited in the Muslims, which is a warning lesson all Western countries should heed.

Muslim traders began to arrive in China during the Tang Empire, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Muslims were brought to the Mongol Yuan Empire by the Mongols who used them to govern and administrate China... [Islam] spread quickly in Central Asia by Muslim conquest of the nomadic tribes... In this way, many small ethnic groups that are in western, northern, and southeastern China such as the Uighurs, Kazakhs, and Tajiks became Muslim. -- China Highlights

The pre-Islamic ancient Turks may themselves also have been "whiter" before they started converting to Islam around the 10th century. In fact, much of the local "Turkic" populations were actually pre-Islamic Iranians, the ancient Iranians being another Indo-European people. A few centuries earlier some of these pre-Islamic "Iranians" migrated into the Balkans and blended with other Indo-Europeans to become the Croats of the former Yugoslavia.

In addition to the future Croats, other groups who later became Bosnians, Serbs, Armenians and South Ossetians moved from Iran to Asia Minor and later to the Balkans circa 300-500 AD. -- London Progressive Journal

Central Asia was originally quite "white." Over the centuries, thanks to Islam, Arabian, North African, along with African slave, DNA was brought into the region and mixed into the Turks and other people, who became complected a bit swarthier as a result, and who lost their real history to  absorb the lies of Islam.

After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area. -- The Encyclopedia of Islam -- as quoted in Wikipedia.

Only Islam so benights a people as to have them willingly disown their own historical achievements, to exchange a silk purse for a sow's ear. It gets worse. Rather than proudly embrace that many of their ancestors were Indo-Europeans, the Uyghurs often try to claim the mummies of their ancestors are of a Turkic people, projecting a Turkic origin back on to their original ancestors, in order to redefine their own history.  It would be like a Welshman claiming to be pure Saxon merely because he speaks English.

The "Turks" obviously mixed with the IE Tocharians, and we end up today with a semi-white, Turkic-speaking Uyghur people; yet who have still retained an astounding 60% European DNA over the millennia, in spite of invasions and conquests. So befogged by Islam are they that they view Islam as a treasure rather than the destroyer of the rich culture that was once theirs, ultimately weakening them. The Uyghurs were not fully Islamicized until the 17th century; but act as if they rode with Mohammed. Rather than seeing themselves as Europeans with a Turkic and Asian mixture, they declare themselves to be Turks from the beginning.

China is presently trying, by social policy, by anti-Islamic regulation, and by subsidized Han Chinese immigration into the region, to crush any Uyghur dreams of independence.

China bans Ramadan fasting in mainly Muslim [Uyghur] region -- Al Jazeera

While we might applaud any diminishing of Islam, the core ethnic differences remain. Even were the Uyghurs de-Islamicized, the problems would not totally evaporate.

Presently, China is trying to incorporate into its polity this people whose historical, religious, linguistic, and genetic connections are tenuous at best -- and violently hostile at worst; and who, from all accounts, reproduce considerably faster than the Han Chinese, a predicament that is only now starting to scare the Chinese with their one-child policy.

China official calls for reduced birth rates in Xinjiang -- The Uyghur-American Association

Incorporating Xingjiang will be to introduce millions of rapidly reproducing, hostile Muslims into a China with whom they have little identification. Do the Chinese really want an Asian version of the "West Bank?"

For China's sake, I have to wonder if it would be wiser to abandon the Uyghur areas, and leave them to free fall into the pit of wretched Islamic poverty which is the inevitable fate of all who follow the murderous pedophile prophet of Islam. Unlike the Jews, who do indeed have a historical connection to Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], the Chinese have no true patrimony in Xingjiang/East Turkestan to defend. Xingjiang was nothing more than an imperial region in vassalage to China, even sometimes independent. It may be more trouble than it is worth. Maybe China should release the area, and hire some Israeli engineers to help them build a wall, to keep any Uyghurs from sneaking back in.

Make no mistake about it, I am no fan of separatist Muslims; but the Uyghur claims have more on their side than religious differences with the Chinese. Were these people Christian, their ethic separatism would immediately be sympathetic, being well grounded in history. That they presently rally around Islam only diminishes what might be otherwise a legitimate cause; and frankly may sink it. Some Uyghurs have identified with world jihad, which moves them out of the realm of a sympathetic Western hearing. 

Some 300 Chinese [Uyghur] nationals are believed to have packed up and joined the jihad in Iraq and Syria on behalf of the Islamic State terror group, according to a report in China’s state-media. -- Breitbart

Turkey has fêted Uyghur separatists as related Turks, and lionized them as heroes, part of a wider resurgent Turkish caliphate. Ironically, the Uyghur are possibly more Indo-European (IE) than Turkic, but linguistics and Islam seems to unite them.

Turkey embraces Muslim Uighurs who made perilous escape from China -- LA Times

In a way, the Uyghurs are to be pitied. Within them, they carry a history of former ancient IE glories. However, the present menace of Islam precludes the West from giving them heed or assistance.

What we discover are a people whose history has been distorted by Islam. What we see are a people who a defending an Islam that is not theirs to begin with. What we see is that this struggle is more than just Islam. There are layers to this debate. It is not that simple; and were it not for Islam, I could root for the Uyghurs against Chinese imperialism.

The U.S. government should avoid the mistake of the Serbian intervention -- where we intervened to save Islamic Kosovars, against all historical truth -- and we should ignore any Uyghurs pleas. Their affiliation with Islam is toxic to their cause, and to the world. Were they Christian or Buddhist we might ask the Chinese to ease up (not that the Chinese would listen) but the Uyghurs' Islamic culture places them beyond the pale of Western pity.

While the Chinese are not innocent in this dance, they may be the better party. What should make the Chinese wary is that the Uyghurs may not be assimilable in any degree. What should make the West wary is how our politically-correct elites have erased the history of Indo-European whites from our schools, to replace it with politically-correct lies like a Black Hannibal. It is this ignorance which prevents us from reaching out to a related Uyghur people to tell them... "Brother, you got to leave Islam, now."

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is not Jewish, Latin, nor Arab. He runs a website,http://latinarabia.com, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.