Like today’s China, the Qing Dynasty that ruled for nearly three centuries from 1644 was a multi-ethnic empire but the underlying assumption was that the state should determine orthodoxy and heterodoxy. For those who assimilated, the state was generous. But for those whose beliefs didn’t fit the mold, magnanimity turned to suppression. It would be tempting to say that this is typical Communist excess, something in the party’s DNA that forces it to turn to repression and violence to solve problems. But its approach to Muslim presence in China is part of an older, deeper problem.
Source : The Uighurs and China’s Long History of Trouble with Islam
