It has been revealed that some sixty Uighur "separatists" have been killed in combat ot executed in western China. The separatists are based in neighboring Kazakhstan (which has a large Uigur population.) The Uighurs are a Turkic people who long were the majority population in western China. But since World War II, Chinese have been brought in to the point where half the population is now Chinese. Thus the rise of Uighur separatism.