Side track a bit - China banned all religion from Mao Zedong days, not just Islam. Everyone lost their freedoms of religion - so it’s not China being mean to Muslims. It’s China being mean to any Chinese with a religion.

During the phase when communism took over the Qing dynasty, they wiped out all religion. Mao though went on this “influencing” route eg the little red book, driving the peasants to fight and kill all the rich royals and elites and remove religion. He forced Mandarin as common language to unite everyone and rule over them. That’s how he gained supreme powers

They are so many ways to rule over people - religion, democracy, communism. Common language is a powerful tool.

Mao had a better time as there was no Internet and what he said was the Gospel truth. That little red books beats any marketing book you will ever read. Xi on the other hand rode the digital wave, continued suppressing outside information.

I think what China needs to be prepared for is the access of information and outside world which is leading to the Chinese people gaining freedom of information and wanting liberation.

They can’t stop this, nobody would be ok with govt doing mass massacre now and so they need to find a way to balance out. I think this is how international leaders would want to lean in and meet China in the middle