Okay, China, help me out here

NYT: China to raze old Kashgar, relocate inhabitants: Doesn't this seem like a terrible idea?

For those who are not China, Kashgar (Kāshí) is an old Silk Road city on the fringe of China's Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xīnjiāng). The Uyghurs are a Turkic, largely Muslim group whom the Chinese government considers "troublesome." To this extent, they used the groundswell of post-9/11 support for antiterrorist efforts [against Muslims] to crack down on the Uyghur Nationalist movement.

Kashgar's old city is, unsurprisingly, full of Uyghurs. In its place, says the Times,

...will rise a new Old City, a mix of midrise apartments, plazas, alleys widened into avenues and reproductions of ancient Islamic architecture “to preserve the Uighur culture,” Kashgar’s vice mayor, Xu Jianrong, said in a phone interview.

This is all being done under the pretense of public safety, in this case an earthquake hazard. But things don't all quite add up.

Mr. Xu calls Kashgar “a prime example of rich cultural history and at the same time a major tourism city in China.” Yet the demolition plan would reduce to rubble Kashgar’s principal tourist attraction, a magnet for many of the million-plus people who visit each year.

China supports an international plan to designate major Silk Road landmarks as United Nations World Heritage sites — a powerful draw for tourists, and a powerful incentive for governments to preserve historical areas.

But Kashgar is missing from China’s list of proposed sites.

So really what's going on is kind of an unholy union between gentrification and ethnic cleansing. The Chinese government has imposed an urban redevelopment plan that would gut the local community while establishing greater control over a troublesome population. We've seen similar plans imposed in the United States, and we've also seen the repercussions. The Chinese government has the political muscle to make a plan like this happen. We'll also see what repercussions come from this.