From a reader:
Derb has written lots about the Uighurs of Sinkiang, always with the conclusion that they are resistant to al-Qaeda-type nihilism. This is from a September 5, 2001 article, straight out of NRO:
“America’s war on terror, and the anti-Muslim feeling generated in the U.S. by last September’s attacks, have been a godsend to the Chinese. The Uighurs are Muslims, you see. Very few of them are Muslims of the fundamentalist kind: the Turkish/Turkic peoples seem to carry some cultural gene that immunizes them against religious fanaticism. Islam is their faith, though, and it follows that if the Chinese tag the East Turkestan independence movements as ‘terrorist,’ in the present climate of opinion, nobody will much mind.”
And remember, “The capital city is Urumqi”!