The hidden agenda behind Xinjiang violence

After the tragic events of July 5 in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, it would be useful to look closely into the actual role of the US government's "independent" NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). All indications are that the US, once more acting through the NED, is interfering in China's internal affairs.

The US interference seems to have little to do with alleged human rights abuses against Uygurs. Instead, it seems to have a lot to do with the strategic geopolitical location of Xinjiang and its importance for China's economic and energy cooperation with Russia, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries, which are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The major group organizing protests in front of Chinese embassies around the world is the Washington-based World Uygur Congress (WUC). The WUC has very close relations with the NED. Published NED reports show it gives the WUC $215,000 a year for "human rights research and advocacy projects". The WUC president is a Uygur exile who also serves as president of the Washington-based Uygur American Association (UAA), another so-called Uygur human rights organization that gets significant funds from NED.

The NED was intimately involved in financial support to various organizations behind the Lhasa violence in March 2008. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation to set up NED, said in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

The NED gets a yearly fund from the US Congressthrough four "core foundations": the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, linked to the Democratic Party; the International Republican Institute, tied to the Republican Party; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, linked to the AFL-CIO US labor federation, as well as the US State Department; and the Center for International Private Enterprise, linked to the US Chamber of Commerce.

The salient question is what has the NED been doing that might have fanned the unrest in Xinjiang, and what is the Barack Obama administration's policy on supporting or denouncing such NED-financed interference in countries that the US sees as a target for pressure? One major step to help clarify the US administration's policy would be a full disclosure by the NED, the State Department and the NGO's linked to the US government of their involvement, if at all, in encouraging Uygur separatism or unrest. Is it mere coincidence that the Urumqi riots took place just days after the historic SCO meeting?

On May 18 this year, the NED, according to the WUC website, hosted a seminal human rights conference on "East Turkestan: 60 Years under Communist Chinese Rule", along with an NGO with a curious name, Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).

The honorary president and founder of the UNPO is Erkin Alptekin, an Uygur exile who founded the organization while working for the US Information Agency's (USIA) official propaganda organization, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as director of their Uygur division and assistant director of the Nationalities Services.

Alptekin founded the WUCtoo, while he was with the USIA in 1991, and was its first president. And according to the official WUC website, Alptekin is a "close friend of the Dalai Lama".

Among the UNPO principles is the right to "self-determination" for 57 diverse groups who have been admitted as official members of the organization with their own flags and a combined population of about 150 million. Their headquarters is in the Hague, the Netherlands. And its select UNPO members include Tibet, listed as a founding member, and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (in Russia).

According to the WUC website, the "trigger" for the Urumqi riots was the alleged killing of two Uygur workers by Han Chinese in a toy factory in Guangdong province on June 26.

On July 1, the WUC's Munich arm gave a call to its members across the world to demonstrate in front of Chinese embassies and consulates against the alleged killings, even though it conceded the details of the incident were not substantiated. According to a WUC press release, Han Chinese soldiers were detaining any Uygur they saw on the streets.

On July 5, the Chinese media reported widespread riots had broken out in Urumqi. Xinhua News Agency said Uygur protesters were attacking Han Chinese, burning vehicles and attacking buses with batons and rocks.

But the French AFP news agency quoted Alim Seytoff, UAA general secretary as saying that police had begun shooting "indiscriminately" at protestors.

There were two different versions of the same event because the AFP report relied on the UAA for its information.

The increasingly hostile and incalculable US foreign policy of the past few years have prompted China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to try through the SCO to find direct and more effective ways to cooperate in economic security fields. Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia have been given formal observer status in the SCO.

Peace and order in Xinjiang is vital for the SCO countries' security. Some of China's most important oil and gas pipelines pass through Xinjiang, and energy relations between Kazakhstan and China are of great strategic importance to the two countries, and would allow Beijing to become less dependent on oil imports that could be cut off by possible US interference should ties deteriorate to such a point.

According to the US Energy Information Administration, Kazakhstan's Kashagan oil field off the northern shore of the Caspian Sea is the largest outside the Middle East and the fifth largest in the world in terms of reserves.

China has built a 986-km-long pipeline from Atasu in northwestern Kazakhstan to Alashankou near its border to carry crude from Kashagan. It carried about 85,000 barrels of oil a day in 2007.

The pipelines for China's other major energy projects with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan pass through Xinjiang, too.

Besides, Russia and China are in talks to build major natural gas pipelines that will start from eastern Siberia and pass through Xinjiang. Supply from the Kovykta natural gas field alone could provide China with enough natural gas for the next decade.

The cooperation among Russia, China and Central Asian countries is the geopolitical cohesion the US most fears.

While it will never say so, growing instability in Xinjiang would be ideal for Washington to weaken the cohesion among SCO member countries.

The author is an American-German freelance journalist, historian and economic researcher.

(China Daily 07/16/2009 page9)