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UIGHUR ISSUES MAY BECOME FACTOR IN CHINA-KAZAKHSTAN
RELATIONS
Ibragim Alibekov: 1/02/03
As Kazakhstan and China confront difficult border
issues, Kazakhstan’s strategic planners may soon
invoke the notion that Uighur separatists on
Kazakhstani soil threaten China’s stability. China has
cracked down on Uighur separatists, who want to make a
semi-autonomous region of eastern China into an
independent country. But despite some dramatic
comments in recent weeks, it is unclear whether
Kazakhstan can exploit Chinese anxiety to its own
advantage.
A November 29 article in Karavan discussed the idea of
the "Uighur trump card." The piece, an interview with
retired intelligence official Vladimir Suvorov,
reported that two Uighur separatist organizations have
operated in Kazakhstan for years. It quoted Suvorov as
claiming that the Uighurstan Liberation Organization
had been in the country since "the early 1990s" and
that the United Revolutionary Front of East Turkestan
had originated in Almaty in 1975 – with help from the
Soviet Union’s Politburo. "We were at odds with China
then and it was of use to us," he said in the article.
The article hints at Kazakhstani concerns over
potential Chinese geopolitical moves in Central Asia.
Suvorov speculated that in "20 or 30 years’ time,"
China will "suddenly" want to claim part of Kazakhstan
for its own. If that happens, he suggested,
Kazakhstan’s ability to find and squelch Uighur
agitators would serve as a "trump card" to keep
Chinese ambitions at bay. "We are unlikely to find any
other levers for bringing pressure to bear on China.
And the presence of the [Uighur] diaspora, who are
hostages in a way, will provide grounds for Uighur
extremists’ having no interest in destabilizing the
situation in Kazakhstan," Suvorov said. "Moreover, our
country really is one of the few places on Earth where
they can feel relatively calm." Uighur factions have
been blamed for violence in Kyrgyzstan in 2002. [For
background, see the Eurasia Insight archives.]
Some analysts consider Suvorov’s idea flawed. "In
reality, authorities are unlikely to see the Uighur
issue as a lever to press China," says a political
analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. This
expert argued that Chinese strategists have done the
reverse, artificially inflating the danger that Uighur
separatists posed to Astana, and urging authorities to
crack down on them. Chinese efforts in this vein, says
the analyst, aim to snuff out Kazakhstani sympathy for
the Uighur cause by daring authorities to make it
explicit. As the two countries try to delimit their
borders and hammer out agreement on use of
trans-border rivers, China may be gambling that
Kazakhstan would be loath to anger Beijing by
tolerating Uighur dissent. "We know that there are
people in President Nazarbaev`s team who support the
idea of an independent [Uighur nation in] Xinjiang,"
said a Chinese diplomat in Almaty. "It would be a
buffer between Kazakhstan and China."
The Uighur Information Center has reported that a
confidential Chinese newspaper for public security
officials dated September 24 reported that 210
separatists were arrested in the month of September
alone. Experts believe that China arrests dozens of
Uighurs, sometimes on dubious grounds, each month.
Kazakhstan could try to use these reports to muster
sympathy for its own grievances against China, say
political observers.
The Kazakhstani political analyst says that Uighur
movements are trying to form alliances with Tibetan
movements, pro-democracy Chinese expatriates abroad
and Taiwan authorities to wage a common campaign
against the Communist government in China. In this
context, Kazakhstan’s potential role as a home to
Uighur separatists figures to influence
Kazakhstani-Chinese relations in the years to come.
Editor’s Note: Ibragim Alibekov is a pseudonym for an
independent Kazakhstani journalist.
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