I recently read in the World Atlas that before the region now known as China, it was the Qing dynasty (1636 to 1912) in power and they constantly used military strength to expand over lands around them with a dream of unification, just as the British Empire (1607 – 1997) and Ottoman Empire (1299 – 1922) were doing.
The Qing found the Dzungar, a nomadic tribe who roamed the land between Kazakhstan and southern Siberia, troublesome. The Qinglong emperor described these people as ‘barbarians’, just as the Romans had described the Visigoths.
They were of Mongol Oirat tribes who formed and maintained the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th and 18th centuries. They adopted Buddhism in the 17th century.
They refused to become a vassal of Qing.
So the emperor planned the pre-mediated genocide that sought to eradicate the Dzungars clearing the way for greater Han and Manuch migration into these coveted territories.
The Qing military and Uyghur troops combined attacked and butchered 80% of this, the last greatest tribe in the region.
The Uyghurs were motivated to fight with the Qing since they had been pushed off their land by the Dzungars. Here is an extract about these people which covers their history to the present day:
From the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated: Dec 27, 2023 • Article HistoryTable of Contents
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Dec. 27, 2023, 4:04 AM ET (AP)
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Summary
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Uyghur, a Turkic-speaking people of interior Asia. Uyghurs live for the most part in northwestern China, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; a small number live in the Central Asian republics. There were some 10,000,000 Uyghurs in China and a combined total of at least 300,000 in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan in the early 21st century.
Category: Geography & TravelChinese (Pinyin): Weiwu’erAlso spelled: Uygur or Uighur
The Uyghur language is part of the Turkic group of Altaic languages, and the Uyghurs are among the oldest Turkic-speaking peoples of Central Asia. They are mentioned in Chinese records from the 3rd century CE. They first rose to prominence in the 8th century, when they established a kingdom along the Orhon River in what is now north-central Mongolia. In 840 this state was overrun by the Kyrgyz, however, and the Uyghurs migrated southwestward to the area around the Tien (Tian) Shan (“Celestial Mountains”). There the Uyghurs formed another independent kingdom in the Turfan Depression region, but this was overthrown by the expanding Mongols in the 13th century.
Until recent years the Uyghur have remained a presence, unlike the obliterated Dzungar.
Now their existence is receding as they fought and failed to retain independence, fighting like many vulnerable minorities globally, in the face of would be genocidal aggressors.
The Uyghurs have lacked political unity in recent centuries, except for a brief period during the 19th century when they were in revolt against Beijing. Their social organization is centred on the village. The Uyghurs of Xinjiang are Sunni Muslims.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Gradually, as Chinese Han became the majority living and working on what was their land, matters worsened:
Over time economic disparities and ethnic tensions grew between the Uyghur and Han populations that eventually resulted in protests and other disturbances. A particularly violent outbreak occurred in July 2009, mainly in Ürümqi, in which it was reported that nearly 200 people (mostly Han) were killed and some 1,700 were injured. Violent incidents increased after that and included attacks by knife-wielding assailants and by suicide bombers. Chinese authorities responded by cracking down on Uyghurs suspected of being dissidents and separatists. The authorities’ actions included shootings, arrests, and long jail sentences until 2017, when the Chinese government initiated a thorough crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Encyclopedia Brittanica
And to bring us up to date, read this recent article about how China pushes fleeing Uyghurs as they try to find safety in other parts of the world:
Over history, various national leaders have formed alliances to strike against those they label as enemies to their own way of life. This has often resulted in historical genocides:
https://www.worldatlas.com/disasters/the-10-worst-genocides-in-history.html
But ‘he who is not guilty, let him throw the first stone’.
We repeat these horrific slaughters continually. Each death is of a human being who came into this world with hope to grow and contribute to humanity. Yet as they die amongst thousands, even millions of others, they become a statistic, and their life is exterminated like so many other life forms which have inhabited this earth.
Genocide, the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.
And if we didn’t kill animals and other creatures with such ease and thoughtlessness maybe we wouldn’t have killed each other so extensively.
borderslynn 
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