Would China be more powerful without the Muslim provinces?

In China, 1855, there were several Muslim rebellions in southwestern China during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng. The rebellions were eventually put down, but I had a thought. Might China be better off without these Muslim dominated provinces? They were not like the rest of China, and large diversity makes it hard to run an empire. So what if Xianfeng, or whoever was making the decision decided to just let those Muslim dominated provinces go. Would China be better or worse off?
 
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In China, 1855, there were several Muslim rebellions in southwestern China during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng. The rebellions were eventually put down, but I had a thought. Might China be better off without these Muslim dominated provinces? They were not like the rest of China, and large diversity makes it hard to run an empire. So what if Xianfeng, or whoever was making the decision decided to just let those Muslim dominated provinces go. Would China be better or worse off?

Are you sure you're getting the year and place right?

The only Rebellion in China in 1855 was the Taiping Rebellion, which was itself Christian, not Muslim.

The major Muslim provinces are in the Far West (IE Xinjiang) and the center of the country.


Anyways, as per the question, no, they would'nt be more powerful, they could lose some Muslim terriory and remain the same, but if they lost all the parts where Muslims were in the majority, plurality or made up large minorities they'd end up weaker.
 
Are you sure you're getting the year and place right?

The only Rebellion in China in 1855 was the Taiping Rebellion, which was itself Christian, not Muslim.

The major Muslim provinces are in the Far West (IE Xinjiang) and the center of the country.


Anyways, as per the question, no, they would'nt be more powerful, they could lose some Muslim terriory and remain the same, but if they lost all the parts where Muslims were in the majority, plurality or made up large minorities they'd end up weaker.

I found out about this Muslim rebellion from Wikipedia, so it could be completely wrong. But I think it actually would make China more powerful in the long run. With a more heterogeneous populace the liklihood of rebellion is greatly reduced. This is one of the reasons China was so weak in the 19th century was lack of unity against the Europeans. So that is where I get the idea.
 
I found out about this Muslim rebellion from Wikipedia, so it could be completely wrong. But I think it actually would make China more powerful in the long run. With a more heterogeneous populace the liklihood of rebellion is greatly reduced. This is one of the reasons China was so weak in the 19th century was lack of unity against the Europeans. So that is where I get the idea.

The problem China had in the 19th century was the Central government itself, which refused to modernize until it was to late, not the demography of the country.

Muslims have lived in China for over a thousand years and live in every province, and really religion, with the exception of the Christians (who more times than not were backed by Europe) has'nt really been something that's caused issues, this of course can be seen by the fact that alot of Muslims fought on the side of both the RoC and Communists during the Civil War.

In other words the Buddhists, Taoists and Muslims of China have traditionally been Chinese first and whatever their religion is second.

Oh, and another thing to add, even if you got rid of the Muslim Provinces China still would'nt be Heterogenous, it would still have alot of languages and dialects and several large non-Han ethnic groups.
 

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I found out about this Muslim rebellion from Wikipedia, so it could be completely wrong. But I think it actually would make China more powerful in the long run. With a more heterogeneous populace the liklihood of rebellion is greatly reduced. This is one of the reasons China was so weak in the 19th century was lack of unity against the Europeans. So that is where I get the idea.
The Muslim provinces of the country were functionally colonies of China, and did do more to disrupt the unity of the country, the lack of unity come from within the Han population itself. You are projecting European style ethnic-religious strife onto China.
 
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