Uighur Issues May Become Factor in China-Kazakhstan Relations

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.