USA—China and the Uighur Question

The secret plotting of American civilian agencies and military forces in the name of democracy and freedom has deep roots in U.S. history. It may be pointless to hark back to the Spanish-American war, the defeat of the Spanish in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898, the suppression of "the Philippine insurrection" and the rise of an American colonial government in Manila. We might begin with the two world wars of the 20^th century in which the United States, at first hesitantly, turned the balance in Europe in the First World War and then, again somewhat belatedly, entered the Second World War mainly against Germany and Japan. 

The end of the World War II opened an era of U.S. involvement in quite different, low-level struggles. It was relatively simple to justify the U.S. role in the two world wars as waged for the sake of democracy, but the rationale got murkier in the ensuing era of limited war, of subversion and of U.S. support for dictators who talked about democracy in order to win American sympathy while fiercely repressing dissent. The bogeyman for two generations after World War II was communism, Soviet and Chinese, and the fear was that between them communist forces would overrun much of Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Against this background, the United States has participated in the overthrow of governments on every continent. U.S. support for the Shah of Iran and the protracted war in Indochina, mostly in Vietnam, but also in neighboring Cambodia and Laos, come to mind in any review of the history of "limited war" in Asia. And then there's Korea, where U.S. forces supported South Korea against North Korea and then Chinese "volunteers," many of them dragooned from the remnants of the Nationalist Chinese whom Mao Zedong's forces had finally defeated in 1949. The U.S. rushed to defend South Korea after having armed and advised Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's forces on the Chinese mainland before their flight to Formosa, where the U.S. promises to defend them against frequent Chinese claims to sovereignty over the island province of Taiwan.  Similarly, while a truce in the Korean War was formally declared in 1953, the struggle simmers along the demilitarized zone that continues to divide the Korean peninsula.

These days, Americans are very uncertain how to view China. Signs of dissidence inevitably draw sympathy from Washington despite the huge amount of trade that has built up since the U.S. government under President Jimmy Carter transferred formal diplomatic recognition from the Nationalist regime on Taiwan. News of Chinese violations of human rights appears frequently in the American media. Reports of inhumane Chinese bosses, of disasters in mines and construction projects, of environmental pollution, of smog over Beijing and other large cities are staples in the foreign media. Nothing arouses American indignation more, however, than news of bloody suppression of minority groups. Thus it is that Washington has almost unwittingly stumbled into the middle of ethnic conflict in western China from which there's no chance of coming out a winner.

Official American sympathy lies with the Uighurs, seen as the victims of the long tentacles of Chinese power, exploited, impoverished and persecuted by Han Chinese. While the Uighur cause is no doubt deserving, one thing is certain: the U.S. is not going to go to war for them and is not going to finance militants among them to stage a revolt in the name of Uighur freedom. All the U.S. can do on a formal level is to issue statements calling for restraint, deploring acts of violence, and talking about the democratic rights of oppressed minorities. Those words carry no threat, no suggestion that the U.S. government can or will do anything to aid the Uighur people, most of whom are confined to their own "Xinjiang autonomous region" spanning a vast and mountainous region in the northwest, far from Beijing, but next to Tibet and northeastern India.

Historically, eight, nine, 10 or so centuries ago, the Uighur Empire may have existed as an amorphous entity. Some Uighur people undoubtedly dream of the establishment of a nation to be known as Uighurstan - another in the "stan" countries and regions and ethnic groupings that run across the middle and southern edges of Asia and the Middle East. The fact is, however, there is no way the U.S. can contemplate any form of intervention that would immediately be seen in Beijing as gross interference in China's internal affairs and have a ruinous effect on U.S.-Chinese relations. Chinese authorities are already upset by the sympathy expressed in the United States for the rights of Tibetans. At least Americans have heard of Tibet. You would have great difficulty finding anyone on the streets of any American city who had a clue about the Uighurs.

 If the United States is not openly on the side of the Uighurs, there are plenty of signs of substantive support. One that's getting some publicity in Washington is the role of the National Endowment for Democracy, which calls itself a private non-governmental organization but dispenses grants with money appropriated by the U.S. Congress. As the Uighur rioting simmered on, the NED was revealed to be dispensing more than $200,000 a year to support the World Uighur Congress, blamed for triggering the unrest. A Uighur woman, Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Uighur Congress, now living in suburban Washington after having made it to the U.S. with a powerful assist from the State Department several years ago, has been the recipient of much of the largesse.

The money, by any standards, is extremely small. The Chinese, however, find it easy to blame Kadeer, and her organization, for outbreaks that may have more to do with heavy-handed tactics of local authorities. As Kadeer put it, "The Chinese government is well-known for encouraging a nationalistic streak among Han Chinese as it seeks to replace the bankrupt communist ideology it used to promote." The Chinese tend to view Uighur activists overseas as "terrorists" and demanded, unsuccessfully, that the U.S. extradite to China four Uighurs held in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo along with others implicated in support for Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Uighur activists overseas call for freedom of expression and freedom to organize democratically and politically - words that appeal to Americans who equate American-style democracy with all that is good and right in an often hostile world.

Whether the Uighurs, if they ever gained control over their own country, would abide by such high-sounding principles is another matter. Regimes and movements supported enthusiastically by Americans have a long history of falling back on tried-and-true dictatorial techniques after gaining power. The demise of Soviet rule undoubtedly brought about democracy, to varying degrees, in Eastern Europe, but some of the former Soviet republics are as repressive as any other regimes on earth. Any number of Latin American dictators rose to power with the backing of Washington. Communists and socialists and leftists may be no better, but the American record is so uneven, to say the least, as to discourage much enthusiasm for overseas personalities with access to money and the media.

 Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, notes that the NED grant to Kadeer, and others to recipients around the world, including a number in South Korea, are far too small to be responsible for a popular uprising. He also makes much of the "transparency" of the NED, arguing that all that it does is announced and out in the open. The last thing he wants is for the NED to give the impression that it's a front for the CIA or any other U.S. government agency. Those who receive grants from the NED make no secret about them either. At least two groups in Seoul, one that aids North Korean refugees, another that broadcasts two hours a day of news and views into North Korea, have said that the NED is the source of some of their funding. The NED lists more than a dozen Korean groups that it plies with money, most of them involved with aiding North Korean defectors or getting information into North Korea mainly via the airwaves.

  As NED grants in Korea indicate, their role is that of a defender of democratic principles, an influence in the spread of freedom as interpreted by Americans. "In western China, we support minority rights," Gershman remarked when questioned after a talk that focused mainly on North Korea. "The work is always peaceful. It has to do with the rights of people." Gershman spoke with conviction, but nice words can hardly cover up the sense that he and his colleagues are engaged in a high-risk, controversial mission in a world in which anti-Americanism can flare up anywhere, often unexpectedly. Unknown to most Americans, the NED plays an extraordinary role as an agent for democracy and freedom, American-style.

It's very easy to accuse the NED, and the government whose money it is dispensing, of having a destabilizing influence, of exercising undue pressure, of intervening in the politics of sovereign nations. If the causes that the NED espouses seem worthy, imagine how terrible they might become if the NED falls into the wrong hands, if unscrupulous people take it over and try to manipulate it for their own purposes. It's easy to imagine the U.S., in a showdown almost anywhere, seeing the NED as an arm for policymakers to spread their own views on a much broader scale. For that matter, what's to stop some future American government from turning the NED into an intelligence-gathering organization? For now, however, the question is how is China likely to view NED support for a Uighur organization that actively opposes Chinese policies and Chinese control. Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute in Washington sees officials in Beijing as responding by lack of cooperation with the U.S. on restraining North Korea.  Bandow's view is in keeping with the libertarian outlook of the Cato Institute, which calls for a hands-off approach in American commitments overseas.

Upset that the United States might play a role, however small, on behalf of Uighurs, the Chinese already see North Korea as a buffer against the United States and Japan. Although China may not want North Korea to test missiles or explode nuclear devices, the Chinese may also be asking themselves what's the point of pressuring North Korea to stop what it's doing when the United States seems to be the enemy. U.S. support of the Uighur cause, on top of support of Tibetan dissidents, may be all the more disturbing to China in view of the large ethnic Korean minority across the Tumen River in Manchuria. Might ethnic Koreans some day rebel against rule from Beijing? And would the United States stand by them, possibly extending them funds? Probably one of the worst mistakes the NED could make would be to provide funds for ethnic Koreans for a much greater voice in their own region of northeastern China.

China already is under heavy pressure to view defectors from North Korea as true refugees rather than round them up periodically and send them back to face torture, beatings, imprisonment or even execution in the North. Chinese sensitivity on this issue is easy to understand. If North Korea collapses, hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of North Koreans would flee across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers into China, creating a restive underclass that would be very difficult to control. Any sign of U.S. intervention in Manchuria is sure to drive China closer to North Korea. The result could be a Chinese refusal to enforce the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council after North Korea's nuclear test on May 25. China could ignore, or partly ignore, sanctions imposed against North Korean firms that stop them from exporting missiles, nukes and their components. The gulf between China and the United States would deepen with the Korean peninsula caught between these lumbering national giants.

 Gershman pooh-poohs the suggestion that the National Endownment for Democracy might be responsible for China's hardening of its policy on North Korea. "China is not going to be influenced by a few grants that NED makes," he remarked. "China needs to be a player" - playing the role of influencing North Korea to abandon an increasingly confrontational policy. It might seem unfair to suggest maybe the U.S. Congress should stop funding the NED just because China objects to some of its activities. The problem remains, however, that the U.S. response to Uighur protests may have an adverse impact on U.S.-Chinese relations. Under the circumstances, China may be all the more reluctant to talk some sense into the North Koreans at a time when Chinese pressure is needed. Ultimately, the Uighur cause could be another issue in deepening differences between the United States and China, in hardening the lines and turning back the progress in recent years that has opened up China to a degree that was unimaginable in the first couple of decades after Mao's victory.

In fact, the NED may have vastly more influence than the size of its grants. The money it dispenses really may make a difference.  NED grants might well be seen as seed money - relatively small allocations of wealth that make an explosive difference. So Gershman seems uncertain whether to deny such an outlandish notion - or to take a bow. Either way, he's sticking to his guns. "You have to support human rights and democracy," he said. "You wait for the moment." As for the Uighurs, "We're close to our Uighur friends." Did none of them give a clue as to the unrest that was about to erupt, the inspiration financed, in a small but significant part, by the NED? "I did not, said Gershman, "have any sense of what was developing."

It would not be fair to blame Gershman, or his organization, for lack of perception. They do not gather intelligence. They do not have field offices or their own people reporting in detail on the organizations that are the beneficiaries of their generosity. It would be interesting to know, though, how the NED selects or approves applications for grants. Do organizations file forms with letters of reference requesting funds? Or does the NED seek out worthy recipients? And what kind of debate goes on in the American Congress over the NED? What are the relationships between the NED and the U.S. Start Department and the White House and other influential U.S. agencies?

These questions arise in the aftermath of bloody incidents in Xinjiang, a Chinese name to which many Uighurs object. They also are relevant in South Korea, considering the divisions in Korean society. Still, it's hard to dispute the desire for groups or individuals to help North Korean refugees in their long and dangerous escapes from North Korea through China and to the South, and in their difficult adjustments to South Korean society. And it's also hard to question the need to get information into North Korea, which may be the world's most tightly sealed society. Those small radio stations that broadcast news and views from South to North Korea every day are undoubtedly helping to break down the barriers. The American role, via the National Endowment for Democracy, raises issues that are sure to arouse controversy while the United States is bogged down in far worse turmoil from Israel and Palestine, through Iraq and Iran to Afghanistan and Pakistan.