Old minority policy based off Soviet oblast model of autonomous regions and harmonious "salad bowl" relationship between discreet minorities groups failed in frontier regions that poor PRC did not have resources to comprehensively tame. In Tibet this opened up CIA infiltration, in XJ this was decades of extremist attacks influenced by imported Salafism that eventually affected interior provinces. Both naturally also linked to separatism. So reality is these fringe regions were left alone out economic and geographic practicality (East of HeiheTengChong line) while rest of country became harmonized over the last 70 years. But now there is resources to finally harmonize restive frontier regions, using newer methods - CCP didn't spend trillions building infra connections and surveillance in Tibet or XJ (or HK) for nothing.

In XJ, trillions of RMB spread over large per capita cost is being poured into of securitization with combination of carrots and sticks. Sharp sticks because fundamentally, many people cannot be bribed to secularize/sinicize/integrate. Condensing multigeneration cultural wars via mass social engineering and indoctrination is something PRC has done, bloodily, but successfully, several times before. And there's also simple fact that CCP cracking down on less than 1% of population on backwater province to eliminate terrorist attacks is no shit political decision that's worth some over reaction just to be thorough. Public sentiment does not forgive being soft on terrorists anywhere. The carrots is vocational training and development, regional GDP increasing, Ürümqi is well on it's way to becoming modern city. None of this restorative, slow wheel of justice, reconciliation platitude designed to drawn out social friction in the west where 20 years from now, I wager many indigenous reserves still won't have plumbing while minorities still going to be disproportionately interned. By all reports the mass arbitrary, internment step in XJ is over, the most problematic cohorts have been identified and being transferred to penal system, prosecuted under convenient charges designed to removed their influence from society undergoing Sinicization. It's a relatively peaceful colonization, roughly the "best" of a terrible situation. If this process started 10 years earlier when west was busy maximum pressure bombing middle east while sino-US geopolitical climate was still cooperative, PRC would have gotten away with an aggressive colonization under guise to destroying ETIM without the PR hit. Keep in mind not colonizing is not an option - excess autonomy is what caused this shit show in first place.

>Tahir Izgil
...
>why not let them simply leave

From memory accused by state of transporting sensitive documents relating to separatist attacks in the 90s. Though like many Uyghur intelligentsia, probably use their influence to undermine PRC Sinicization campaigns. Why not let them leave? Because exiled Tibetans, Uyghurs, democracy dissidents, FLG practitioners, HKers etc. get recruited and weaponized by western NED funded organizations to spearhead campaigns against PRC interest. See the crazy groups anti-PRC activists align themselves with and kind of misinformation they're comfortable peddling. One lesson CCP has learned well in last 20 years is how US peddles influence either domestically in PRC via NGOs (which subsequently got crushed) and internationally via state funded but reportedly "independent" organizations, as seen in last few years. Another ugly scenario is something like FLG developing a well resourced empire... imagine Uyghur diaspora beyond PRC scrutiny with a powerful media wing that could properly fund ETIM. There's less blowback of just keeping dissidents in country or harassing them into silence if they make it abroad.