I don't believe for a minute that this has anything to do with earthquakes. Some of these buildings have been here for 500 years, and their mud walls are ideally suited to be flexible in, and thereby withstand, earthquakes. (And we saw a year ago how well the Chinese government does at making new buldings earthquake-proof.) I don't think it even has all that much to do with politics, although the Uighurs are a source of Islamic separatist terrorists inside China and I'm sure it makes the Chinese government happy to break up the neighborhood. It's about real estate. It's about money. And above all it's about short-sighted stupidity. The same as the destruction of Beijing's hutong neighborhoods and Shanghai's lanes. If someone could figure a use for the fact that People Never Learn, and bottle it and sell it, they'd get rich, because there's an endless supply.