China is cracking down on fasting in East Turkistan, the province where Muslim Uighurs who chafe at Beijing's dictates are now trying to observe the prescribed fasts of the Muslim month of Ramadan. In the name of "public health," schools have arranged mandatory lunches for Uighur students, and businesses are demanding that their Uighur employees not fast.
Beijing, a colleague mordantly comments, has, in its rush to modernize, skipped liberalism and moved directly to secularism.