China targets Uyghur Islam to erase their land claims for Belt and Road.

Evidence

Islam serves as the spiritual lifeline connecting the Uyghur people to their land, their history, and one another, and the Chinese state has zeroed in on it. If it can destroy Islam, Beijing believes, it can destroy the Uyghurs. If it can destroy both, then it can erase the Uyghur claim to land that Beijing so desperately covets. Land that is integral to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global economic campaign that spreads China’s economic might throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and beyond. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 564