East Turkestan was an independent country for a thousand years, at broken intervals from the 6th Century until the 17th. Although occasionally vassals of Chinese Empires, they were independent and culturally versy different. It was only with the conquest by Manchu-led China in the 18th century (completed only in 1884) was it "Chinese"
The Khara-Khanid dynasty converted to Islam. This was not conquest, and this is not Muslims trying to dominate China.
Of course, those Uyghurs who fall in with Al Qaeda deserve everything the ChiComs do to them. But the Uyghurs themselves are colonized and increasingly ethnically cleansed in their homeland.
