The Information War over the Urumqi Riots and the “Netizens” of China: Are we witnessing the dawn of a new era in Han Chinese nationalism?

Anybody who has recently attended an event where the policies of the Chinese government towards minorities are being criticized has encountered the propaganda shock troops of the new China. They protest nearly every public event involving the Dali Lama in the United States, they established counter-protests against Tibet during the Olympic torch relay last summer, and they were at my talk about the post-9/11 plight of the Uyghurs at Georgetown two years ago. At public events, they protest, hand out pro-China information, and defend China’s minority policies, but they have an even larger presence on the web where they more easily push their agenda using the free speech forum of new media. Look at any article about the events in Urumqi from the last week, and you will see scores of comments from them, noting that these events are purely an unprovoked act of violence by savage Uyghurs. They overwhelm the #urumqi and #xinjiang discussions on twitter. And, they have been diligently attacking any youtube videos of Rabiya Kadeer with deriding comments about her for several years now. Their message is that China is doing everything right for its minorities, and anybody saying otherwise is part of an externally masterminded conspiracy to undermine China’s sovereignty and growing prosperity.

These people are not like the shadowy commentators you see placing incendiary comments on Central Asian or Russian sites most likely at the bequest of the successor organs of the KGB. If this phenomenon was just a conspiracy that emanates from the Chinese state, it would not be so disturbing. Rather, the propaganda shock troops about whom I am talking are regular Chinese citizens. They are also not the most reactionary ones. They are often studying abroad in the west and have been exposed to the world. Still, their commentary suggests that they are extremely patriotic about China, feel misunderstood and wronged by the west, and do not harbor any sympathy for the plight of minorities in China. This is particularly disturbing for the many who have hoped that China would embrace democracy as a new generation of Chinese encountered the outside world. These propaganda shock troops appear to be the new generation, and they do not look like the pro-western liberals that western policies of engagement had foreseen. Instead, they are more like a new Red Guard, reminiscent of student groups during the Cultural Revolution, who want to demonstrate their grassroots support of the state through their computer keyboards instead of waving Mao’s little red book in the air.

I am sure many of my China studies colleagues would cringe to hear me writing about this, feeling that it adds to a growing western “China-bashing” phenomenon. But, please do not misunderstand my point. I am not trying to “essentialize” the Chinese people as narrow-minded, aggressive, and dangerously nationalistic. I do think that there are intelligent and progressive young Han Chinese who are struggling with these issues and are questioning the appropriateness of their state’s policies towards minorities, but such people appear to be in the minority at the moment. Furthermore, I do not blame the people of China for this phenomenon. They have been spoon-fed this growing nationalism by the state ever since Tiananmen.

What may be most worrisome about this trend today, however, is that the PRC itself is starting to recognize these grassroots propagandists for their service to the state. In two recent articles, the China Daily applauded Chinese “netizens” for criticizing western media coverage of the Urumqi riots and for calling for the closure of Facebook in China respectively. Such articles certainly encourage this phenomenon and suggest that the Chinese government supports even its most racist manifestations. It also suggests that the Chinese state refuses to recognize that there might be socio-economic and political reasons for the dissatisfaction that most Uyghurs and Tibetans share with regards to their lives in the PRC.

To put things in perspective, I will agree that these radical Han “netizens” are little different from the American isolationists, racists, and anti-immigrant crusaders we know so well in the United States. Take, for example, the following from an email that one of China’s “netizens” sent me after I had participated in a live Q&A chat on washingtonpost.com –

The reason for the riot and deep resentment among Uighurs toward Han
Chinese is _NOT_ oppression by Chinese government, quite on the
contrary, it is the over pampering national policies to make Uighurs
happy. Small crimes made by Uighurs are often overlooked by Chinese
police, Uighurs get ridiculous advantage in college entrance exams.
Maybe it is hard to believe, but when you have state policies that
treat a small minority group so unfairly _well_, it only makes them
weak. They lose the competitive edge in the business world, there is
little incentive for them to get better. Ignoring the small crimes
like thievery is only going to foster the bigger criminals, like
rapists and murderers.

And this is not only my opinion, it is also shared by many "thoughtful
Chinese" who had lived in XinJiang. I don't use "Chinese
intellectuals" because the true intellectuals are often oppressed and
shut off by the government.

Sound familiar? Replace “Uighur” with “black” or “Mexican” and “Han Chinese” with “white American,” and this statement will look almost indistinguishable from the rhetoric of American opponents of immigrants and affirmative action. Fortunately in the United States, our political system has a degree of self-correction. After eight years of conservatism where such rhetoric was gradually becoming acceptable, we now have our first African-American president and the tide is turning the other way. The Chinese political system does not have quite the same ability to correct its radicalization, and it will likely be a long time until we see a Uyghur leader of the PRC running the country from Beijing. What worries me is that instead of correcting itself, this trend is becoming more pronounced in China. This is also apparent in the emerging debate among Chinese intellectuals about the Urumqi riots, which suggests that China has been too soft on minorities and must be more forceful in its control of restless populations such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans. The populist manifestation of these sentiments is even more frightening as we saw in the Han vigilante groups on the streets of Urumqi this last week.

This alarming trend does not bode well for China’s on-going attempt to ingratiate itself to the international community, and it will only likely exacerbate the problems in Xinjiang as Chinese citizens show an unwillingness to re-evaluate why Uyghurs are so dissatisfied with Chinese rule. There are certainly several different lessons China can learn from this week’s violence in Urumqi. It might choose to view the situation as a state of war in the way that the Israelis have done with the Palestinians (at least one Israeli commentator has drawn this parallel in his empathy for the Chinese), and – as with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the tension in Xinjiang will continue to fester and become even more violent with time. Alternatively, it could heed these events as a sign that things must change in terms of minority rights as the U.S. realized after African-American led riots destroyed cities throughout the country in the late 1960s.

The path China chooses will have important ramifications for the country’s future. I do believe that China can change. I believe that China could empower Uyghurs to have a greater voice in how development proceeds in Xinjiang, including the prospect of real ethnic autonomy. But, as I look at the commentary of Han “netizens” that floods the internet these days, I am worried that such changes are not likely in the near future. Instead, the near future will probably only bring deeper ethnic divides, more frustration among minorities, and – most unfortunately – more bloodshed.

The Guantanamo Uyghurs, The Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement, and the Future of the Global War on Terror

The following is a piece, which Steve Levine requested I write for his blog, "The Oil and the Glory" on an important issue to the future of the U.S. Global War on Terror. It is posted on his blog as well.

In the last two weeks, the issue of the 17 Uyghur detainees who have been in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay for the last seven years has come to the forefront of American politics. As somebody who has been studying the Uyghur people for almost 20 years, I am happy to see U.S. congressmen finally discussing Uyghurs and the complexity of their political predicaments. But I have also found the present debate disheartening in many ways. I support releasing all of the Guantanamo Uyghurs into the U.S. But I also believe that there needs to be a wholesale re-evaluation of the goals and tactics of the war on terror that brought them to Guantanamo in the first place.

According to Newsweek, the sudden interest in the Guantanamo Uyghurs began in April, when President Obama considered quietly releasing up to seven of them into the United States, presumably to be settled in Northern Virginia. Several congressmen, led by Virginia’s Frank Wolf, sought to block the release. With the issue still unresolved, congressmen from both major parties have begun debating whether Uyghurs are in fact a threat to the United States, and whether the particular men are dangerous terrorists.

As one might expect, the loudest voices in this debate belong to those who oppose the settlement of the Uyghurs in the United States. Newt Gingrich, perpetually in search of a soapbox, suggested in a recent newspaper column that they could suddenly turn against us.

Particularly discouraging is how little U.S. politicians actually know about the Uyghurs despite the fact that it has been seven years since we essentially identified them as enemies in the war on terror. Before I make the case why they should be released into the U.S., here is some background on how these Uyghurs came to be detained by the U.S. and what has happened to them since.

In June 2002, the U.S. military transported 22 Uyghurs from detention in Pakistan to Guantanamo. These men, who appear to be Uyghur nationalists opposed to Chinese rule in their homeland (referred to as Eastern Turkestan by most Uyghurs and Xinjiang by the Chinese state), had fled China, primarily to Central Asia, eventually seeking refuge in Afghanistan on their way through Iran to Turkey.

In Afghanistan, they presumably interacted with other Uyghur nationalists, and some allegedly underwent minimal military training by a Uyghur group referred to as the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

During the initial U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan, these Uyghurs apparently fled to Pakistan and sought refuge with villagers who eventually gave them over to the U.S. military as alleged terrorists in exchange for a bounty (reportedly $5,000 each). According to declassified U.S. government documents (see the PDFs at the end of this page), the original accusations were based on their alleged relationship with ETIM.

All the men denied knowledge of the little-known ETIM, whose 2002 designation by the U.S. as a terrorist group with links to Al-Qaeda was regarded by skeptics as a politically motivated effort to win China’s support for larger U.S. goals in the war on terror.

Since 2002, a series of reviews of the Uygurs’ cases has led to the clearing of all of any charges. But the U.S. government has also recognized that if they are extradited to China, they would inevitably be held or executed by Chinese authorities without a fair trial. Other countries have been reluctant to offer any of them refuge in fear that problems would result in their relations with China.

In 2006, Albania did agree to take five of the detainees, who had been determined to have the most tenuous connections with ETIM, leaving 17 in Guantanamo. In October 2008, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ordered that all 17 be freed into the United States immediately on the grounds that there was no evidence to justify their continued detention. Within days, however, the Justice Department was granted a stay on this ruling, arguing that the men posed too much of a danger to the United States to allow them refuge in America. It is apparently on the grounds of this October 2008 court decision that the Obama administration is now considering their release.

So what is ETIM? Is it a terrorist organization?

The most disturbing aspect of the seven-year odyssey experienced by the Guantanamo Uyghurs is that little if any evidence has emerged showing ties between ETIM and Al-Qaeda, or even that it is a terrorist organization.

During my many years working in the Uyghur community of Central Asia, I never heard of ETIM. And most Uyghurs I know never encountered it or heard of it prior to 2001. If it was an active group, it was obviously marginal in the constellation of Uyghur diaspora political organizations.

Although the organization itself does appear to at least have existed (under the name of the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Party) when it was classified as a terrorist group, its alleged leader at that time, the late Hasan Mahsum, told one journalist that it was not anti-American and never received financial assistance from the Taliban or Al-Qaeda.

Generally, Mahsum’s assertions make sense. Uyghur organizations have never been anti-American in character, and have little reason to be, given that their political goals are exclusively related to their relationship with the Chinese state. Furthermore, as early as 1999 Indian sources reported on Chinese agreements with the Taliban that ensured that the Taliban and its allies in Afghanistan would not support Uyghur separatists.

Since Mahsum’s assassination by the Pakistani army in October 2003, nothing has been heard from ETIM or specifically about its activities. Furthermore, reliable contacts of mine in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier who follow these issues have told me that they have not heard of any active Uyghur groups in the country’s tribal belt.

Even more interesting, there is no conclusive evidence that ETIM has ever perpetrated a terrorist attack. While the Chinese government has claimed that various acts of violence in Xinjiang and Central Asia over the last decade were the work of ETIM, this has never been proven; and the acts of violence to which they are referring also may not even have been terrorism. Moreover, no Uyghur group has ever been tied to well-known methods of terrorism such as car-bombings or suicide bombings, acts that could confirm links to sophisticated transnational organizations such as Al-Qaeda. Instead, they have been accused of organizing disturbances and assassinations, which could be alternatively explained by a variety of other motives from popular political dissatisfaction to personal vendetta and crime-related violence.

The incidents of violence in the run-up to last summer’s Olympic games are a prime example of the lack of clarity surrounding alleged ETIM terrorist attacks. The most publicized of the supposed terrorist attacks in China last summer allegedly involved two Uyghur men driving a truck into a group of Chinese soldiers in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, and then attacking them with knives and throwing homemade grenades. While a video on YouTube allegedly made by a group called the Turkestan Islamic Party or TIP (which “terrorist experts” tell us, with no supporting evidence, is another name for ETIM) claimed responsibility for this attack, the lack of sophistication demonstrated by its perpetrators invites skepticism. Furthermore, nobody in the international Uyghur community knows who has produced this video or others bearing the TIP brand. In all likelihood, these videos, which only recently began appearing, are disinformation prepared by either Uyghur nationalists or the Chinese state for the purpose of exaggerating the Uyghurs’ capacity to undertake terrorist attacks in the name of their political goals.

When one looks at all of this evidence (or lack there of), it is difficult to understand how the United States decided to place ETIM on a list of dangerous terrorist groups to begin with. Was this, in fact, a political act of appeasement to the Chinese government? Are there other groups on this list from elsewhere in the world that were likewise included among our enemies in the war on terror under dubious circumstances?

Undoubtedly, it is time to release the Guantanamo Uyghurs. In doing so, however, it may also be time to review our intelligence on ETIM and other alleged terrorist groups we are targeting in the war on terror, even indirectly through such methods as financial sanctions.

In all likelihood, such a review will find that much of our intelligence on alleged terrorist groups like ETIM comes from foreign intelligence organizations in countries with a conflict of interest. It has not been a secret that we have increasingly relied on collaboration with intelligence services of tenuous allies in the war on terror, such as China, Russia, the Central Asian states, and Pakistan. Can such intelligence be trusted to help the United States decide who is our enemy?

In the case of ETIM, Chinese intelligence has good reason to suggest that there is a Uyghur terrorist threat. Beijing does not tolerate Uyghur political dissent, and international recognition of a Uyghur terrorist threat gives the government a freer hand in cracking down on internal political dissent in Xinjiang.

The Central Asian states and Pakistan likewise have reason to exaggerate the Uyghur terrorist threat in order to win favor with China. Furthermore, for the Central Asian states, a local threat of Uyghur terrorism provides a way to engage the U.S. in the war on terror without implicating their own people. And for Pakistan, it is yet another means of deflecting attention away from that country’s own indigenous terrorism problem.

If the debate over the Guantanamo Uyghurs facilitates a closer look at how groups like ETIM are being classified as terrorist organizations, it may play a critical role in helping the Obama administration to re-define the war on terror in a way that more clearly defines our enemies and that is ultimately more rational and winnable.

In the meantime, the 17 Uyghurs who remain in Guantanamo should be released into the U.S. now as a matter of preserving America’s image as a country that upholds the rule of law and human rights.

I would gladly attend their welcoming party in Fairfax, Va.

Fearing the Amero: The Kazakh Economic Crisis, Common Currency, and Information Deprivation in Almaty

Visiting Almaty the week before last reminded me that it is a resilient city. Its people have lived through many crises, and their will is not easily broken. As a commenter to my previous post on the economic crisis in the country suggested, the people of Kazakhstan will likely be able to muddle through their present hardships as they have many before them. Nonetheless, the signs of economic crisis were definitely visible on my recent quick trip to the country.
The streets of Almaty these days look more like 1999 than 2005. There are still more Porsche Cayennes and Bentleys on the streets than in Washington, DC, but many of the restaurants, bars, and clubs that were once filled with the city’s emerging middle class have been closed, and those that remain have a much sparser clientele than just two years ago. If consumer spending in the United States has slowed substantially, in Almaty, it is closer to a grinding halt. The Mega Mall on Rozybakiyev Street was desolate for a late Saturday morning when I visited it the weekend before last, and the Nike, Reebok, and Clark’s stores were pushing sale prices that rivaled those in the U.S. The arcade, indoor amusement park, and skating rink only attracted a handful of children.

While much of the construction planned for the city’s large financial district off of Al-Farabi Street has been completed, further building in this new ultra-modern part of the city seems to have slowed. Even those glass towers that have been completely finished appear to be housing few clients, making the area feel appropriately like a financial ghost town. Meanwhile, large swaths of Al-Farabi Street remain lined by steel corrugated fences that hide the demolition of old houses while new construction awaits.

Much of the increasingly grim feeling one feels on the streets of Almaty is to be expected given that the global economic crisis and the housing bubble hit Kazakhstan even earlier than it did the US and has yet to hit bottom. Furthermore, the recent “de-valuation” of the Kazakh currency was an act that was immediately felt by the average person in Almaty, causing an abrupt stop to what conspicuous consumerism remained. While the situation on the streets in Almaty feels more desparate than on the streets of DC, sitting with friends in Almaty is much like sitting with friends in Washington. Almost every gathering ends up in a discussion of the economy and, ultimately, with jokes that play on various meanings of “stimulus.” There was one topic of conversation in Almaty, however, that I have never heard in Washington. Ironically, it is a topic that focuses on the United States and the fate of the US dollar.

Numerous people I ran into in Almaty were anxious to ask me about the state of the Amero. If you do not what the Amero is, don’t worry – neither did I. According to people in Almaty, the United States is in the process of scraping the dollar as its currency and converting to a new unified monetary system with Mexico and Canada. Get it? Euro….Amero. This rumor has struck fear into many people who worry about what to do with their dollar savings. Should they sell them to the bank? Into which other currency should they convert these dollars?

While I had not heard of the Amero previously, a quick google search did unearth a plethora of conspiracy theories about the currency emanating from questionable quarters in the American punditry. First, there is a conservative radio talk show host named Hal Turner, who has found a following by fueling anti-immigrant fears of a North American Union and the creation of the common Amero currency (even claiming that we are already shipping this money to China in the video below).


Then, there is the ever-reliable Lou Dobbs, who has brought the conspiracy to prime time via CNN to fuel his peculiar brand of populist American xenophobia. In case you don’t watch Lou Dobbs (which is probably a wise move), you can view his tirades on the Brave New World of the Amero below courtesy of YouTube.


You might still be asking why, if you don’t know about the Amero, is it such a popular theme of discussion in Almaty. First, one must remember that the discontinuation of the Soviet Rubl’ was a watershed in the lives of the people of Kazakhstan who lived through the transition from the USSR to independent Kazakhstan. People still recount how fortunes were made and lost in that currency transition, and everybody wants to be on the winning side if it happens again. Secondly, the people of Kazakhstan and much of the world outside the US, always feel understandably vulnerable in their dependence on American currency. Finally, there is another important thing to mention – Russian television has jumped on the bandwagon, albeit with different motivations than those of Hal Turner and Lou Dobbs (see below).


For the Russians, this is a perfect example of the decline of the American empire. According to their argument, like the great European empires in decline evolving into the European Union, a faltering America is now seeking to join its neighbors in a global financial block that can salvage its worldwide influence. This narrative also opens the door for the Russians to suggest that perhaps the only way for the states of the former Soviet Union to prevent being engulfed by the joint power of the Euro and the Amero (as well as the EU and the mythical North American Union) is to return to the common Rubl’ and a more powerful version of the always fledging CIS.

At the same time, the other big players in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Kazakhstan and China, are floating other ideas, besides a Russian-dominated Rubl’ for common currencies that can replace the dollar. Nazerbayev, for example, is promoting the idea of establishing a Eura currency for The Eurasian Economic Community that joins Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, Tadjikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, China is suggesting that the global community should consider an entirely new “super currency” against which all states can convert their money. Thus, while the Amero rumors may seem extreme, they also feed into a general agenda of Russia, China, and Kazakhstan to place the blame for global economic woes on the dollar (an argument that is understandable given the way the Bush administration manipulated and mismanaged the dollar over the previous six years). Furthermore, the Amero scare serves other interests in Kazakhstan and Russia, whether or not intentionally. If people fear the disappearance of the dollar, they may avoid hoarding dollars during the crisis, bringing the currency back into the fledging banking systems of Russia and Kazakhstan.

Thus, while we might see the Amero rumors of Almaty as ridiculous, they make a lot of sense to people living in Kazakhstan. That being said, if you still think the people of Kazakhstan are gullible for fearing the Amero, you must remember the peculiarities of the country’s information terrain. The people of Kazakhstan have little trust in standard information sources, and those sources they tend to believe are sensationalist mouthpieces from Russia. This situation has gotten worse in the last several years as the information arena of Kazakhstan has shrunk. A combination of the consolidation of presidential power, the Rakhat Aliyev scandal, and the economic crisis has driven the government to control information more forcefully than anytime since the arrests of the DVK leaders in 2002.

The once locally produced alternative source of information on television – Channel 31 – has been bought by a Russian media holding and has become an entertainment channel. The monster party of Nur-Otan has co-opted most of the former moderate reformists in the country, including Armandzhan Baitasov, who once ran Channel 31, Nurzhan Subkhanberdin, whose KazKommertz Bank once funded much of the moderate reformist mouthpieces in the country, and Yerlan Karin who was one of those mouthpieces. While opposition newspapers continue to publish, they can be difficult to find and are obscured by new print organs intended to pose as oppositionist. Furthermore, fear of Rakhat Aliyev’s attempts to spread Kompromat about his former in-laws has led to increased cyber attacks on local websites. Sites like kub.kz and geo.kz have all but disappeared, and those alternative sites that remain, such as zona.kz, have become less bold in their publication of information. In short, it is difficult to find anything but “good news” in Kazakhstan these days. In fact, numerous people told me that when the crisis first hit last summer, the local media was told to refrain from using the word “crisis,” a tendency that was in place until very recently.

This is nothing new to Kazakhstan – the restrictions in the flow of information tend to be cyclical in the country, but the present moment is one of “ebb” rather than “flow.” The same, of course, could be said for Russia, but people in Kazakhstan are more likely to believe the slick presentation of information from Russia than they are the increasingly bland local reporting. This makes it quite easy to create a stir about something as tenuous as the rumor of the Amero replacing the dollar.

Like the rumors that spread through Almaty like wildfire in 2005-06 that “The Big Earthquake” was imminent, the rumors of the Amero will likely fade into forgetfulness with time, and few people will have been hurt by the false rumors. The important question, however, is how Kazakhstan will weather its present economic crisis. It has been much harder hit than in 1997-98 when Russia underwent such turbulence. A youthful middle-class once known for ponti (cockiness) has been humbled, and a general uncertainty about the future has returned to the people of the country who were feeling increasingly stable and in control of their destiny.

In all likelihood, Kazakhstan will recover with time given its rich natural resources and its relatively talented business class, but uncertainty about the future may take even more time to disappear. To me the most interesting question is how the present crisis will influence the succession of President Nazarbayev, an event which will determine the country’s future. Although Nazarbayev remains extremely popular, I was told that one poll (not for public consumption) saw his approval ratings drop from the low 90s to the lower 60s. Anything above 60% would be considered fantastic for an American president, but in Kazakhstan it shows a weakness. Given his generally positive influence on the development of independent Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev will inevitably remain in power as long as he decides. Still, he is not immortal, and there will one day be a succession. In Russia, public dissatisfaction with the 1997-98 crisis is often credited with giving Putin the huge mandate he has had for his particular brand of anti-American nationalist populism. If today’s crisis remains strong in the memory of people in Kazakhstan when Nazarbayev leaves the stage, would it lead to the country’s own version of Putinism, or might it lead to increased liberalization? Only time will tell.

US Foreign Assistance in Central Asia and the Supply Route to Afghanistan: Will Obama Repeat Bush’s Mistakes in the Region?

Yesterday, the Century Foundation posted a white paper I wrote on U.S. democracy assistance policy in Central Asia. One of my major points in the paper is that the U.S. lacks a long-term strategy for the region, and, as a result, democracy assistance has been dictated too often by the ebbs and flows of America’s immediate needs from the Central Asian states. In the context of America’s present desire to engage the region as part of its increased involvement in Afghanistan, this paper offers some important warnings for the Obama administration. At present, the U.S. appears to be undertaking a strategy in Central Asia that is beginning to look like a repeat performance of mistakes made in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 tragedy. While the short-term memory of Americans may easily lead us down a path already taken, Central Asians’ memories are a bit better. They remember too well American policy in the region following September 11th, and Kyrgyzstan’s recent decision to close the U.S. airbase on its territory is very much related to some of the past mistakes in that policy. The policy in the region following September 11th, however, was merely indicative of larger problems in the U.S. approach to Central Asia, which as I outline in my paper, includes remaining inconsistent in its policy in the region and tying its development assistance too closely to the ever changing short-term goals that govern this policy. While I encourage people to read the actual paper, let me summarize some of USAID’s past history in Central Asia, which are covered in the manuscript, since it is pertinent to the argument I want to make about the proposed overland supply route to Afghanistan and the new US engagement of Central Asia.

During the early 1990s, USAID’s strategy in Central Asia was similar to those in all of the former Communist states assumed to be “in transition” at this time. Projects aimed to make quick changes that could help transform Soviet institutions into democratic and capitalist models. While there were some successes in some countries, overall the projects faced a major obstacle in the form of people’s attitudes. In short, Central Asians (and most former Soviet citizens outside the Baltics) were not prepared to interact with a new system that was based on citizen participation in governance and a transparent merit-based economy. While it took USAID some time to recognize that local attitudes were rendering interventions ineffective, they finally did so in the later 1990s as they shifted their focus.

In the late 1990s, USAID adopted a long-term gradual strategy for its development objectives in Central Asia. This was not only true of democracy programs, but it reflected a general understanding that all forms of development in the region would take time and concerted effort from the international community and must be focused on attitudinal change. While this strategy was slated to inform U.S. assistance policy in the region from 2001 to 2005, it was never really implemented. September 11th happened, and our military mission in Afghanistan needed Central Asia’s immediate assistance and buy-in. Suddenly, USAID budgets increased by leaps and bounds, and the Agency was forced to quickly think of how the money should be spent. While the Central Asian USAID mission did come up with some innovative ways to put these resources to use, such as an expansive community development project, many resources went to revitalize defunct projects and approaches that had previously failed. In Uzbekistan, for example, USAID went back to the business of paying consultants to promote economic liberalization on the policy level with government only a couple years after it had ceased such work due to a lack of political will. By 2003, therefore, many of the same banking, macro-economic, and trade projects that had been abandoned in 1999, were back in business in Tashkent, and the Uzbek government was about as receptive to what the projects were promoting as they had been in 1999.

More importantly, the U.S. Defense Department came to the region in full force at this time. Not only did it sign agreements with the Kyrgyz and Uzbek governments to establish air bases serving Afghanistan, but it also offered substantial military aid and training to these countries and others in the region. Likewise, other U.S. government agencies provided security assistance to the Central Asian states on everything from border security to preventing terrorist financing from passing through the region’s financial institutions. While some of these programs were important in the context of the Global War on Terror, they also brought the US precariously close to propping up the region’s continuum of authoritarian rule and strengthening the foot soldiers of this authoritarianism in the security and military sectors.

The answer to this quandary that U.S. policy makers offered was to simultaneously provide increased democracy assistance to the region. While democracy assistance programs were in dire need of resources, the sudden desire to counter-balance America’s new military and security relationships with less-than-democratic governments in the region meant that these resources couldn’t only serve the long-term democracy strategy that was in place. Instead, USAID and the State Department needed to show that the U.S. cared about democracy; in other words, they needed to focus on visible symbols of democracy understood by Capitol Hill such as political parties, elections, and human rights. Unfortunately, the region was not ready for such aggressive programs, and they essentially backfired.

The result of these policies became quite obvious by 2006 as the Central Asian states began to push back against U.S. democracy assistance. In Uzbekistan, the government methodically ejected virtually every U.S. NGO working in the democracy field from the country. In Kazakhstan, the government prevented foreign assistance to political parties. In Tajikistan, people working for U.S.-funded democracy projects were subjected to various forms of harassment. More generally, the Central Asian states became increasingly suspicious of U.S. intentions in their countries, especially in the aftermath of the so-called “color revolutions,” which the Russian media portrayed as USAID-led conspiracies aimed at installing pro-American leaders throughout the former Soviet Union. In Uzbekistan, the government levied thinly veiled accusations of U.S. involvement in the Andijan protests turned massacre, and the Uzbek state subsequently closed the U.S. airbase on its territory. Now, the Kyrgyz government is taking a similar step. Through all of this Russia, which has been extremely concerned about the U.S. military presence in Central Asia, has been fanning local fears about American intentions.

This history is particularly relevant now because the evolving U.S. plans for Central Asia now appear to be replicating these past mistakes. In hopes of establishing a large overland route for bringing supplies to Afghanistan, the U.S. is already increasing its assistance and is contemplating a return to strong military and security assistance programs. Most recently, there have been suggestions that the US military may try to regain access to an airbase in Uzbekistan due to the closure of the base in Kyrgyzstan. As an article in Slate last week noted, such a renewal of close military relations with Uzbekistan could create a serious human rights quandary for the Obama administration. It could also increase tensions between the U.S. and the Central Asian states once again, hindering rather than fostering the engagement we desire.

In my opinion, the key to avoiding past mistakes depends on the question of US military involvement in the region. Unfortunately, current trends suggest that this involvement will be substantial once again as we ramp up efforts in Afghanistan. The defense department already appears to be at the forefront of the new US engagement in Central Asia. General Petraeus was the person sent to Central Asia to negotiate the overland route, and – as already mentioned – there is talk of a new base in Uzbekistan. There is also evidence that plans for military assistance are being folded into all of the agreements that seem to be hastily put together for the region. If these trends continue, we can expect a similar scenario that played out in the years following 2001. There will be a need for the USG to demonstrate measurable and visible political reforms in order to justify its increasingly close military relationship, leading to aggressive democracy policies that will likely backfire. Russia will be once again disturbed at the U.S. military presence and will attempt to subvert it. And, the assumptions of many Central Asians that the primary US interest in the region is aggressive and militant will be reconfirmed.

Fortunately, it is not too late to prevent a repeat of history, but avoiding past mistakes will require some thoughtful planning. USAID presently has several solicitations for assistance programs to the region, especially in Tajikistan which will be a critical country to America’s plans for Afghanistan. To date, the majority of these projects focus on resolving critical, yet mostly uncontroversial problems in the region such as maternal and child health, community development, agricultural development, and local economic development (see, for example, these solicitations: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). All of these interventions reflect attempts to establish gradual long-term development in the region, and one would hope that similarly focused democracy programs would also be designed and funded in the near future. To be truly effective, however, the US needs to ensure that all of these interventions are part of a coherent long-term strategy of engagement and development and not just carrots to get short-term concessions in the service of objectives in Afghanistan.

The overland supply route through Central Asia could be a critical part of such a strategy if the U.S. develops it with Central Asia in mind as well as Afghanistan. If this supply line does not carry weapons and munitions and is driven by commercial carriers, as already promised, it could be a force for development in the region, engaging Central Asian vendors and labor and offering opportunities for the development of local economic activity along the route. This requires a concerted effort to find development opportunities in the establishment of the supply line and ensuring that these opportunities do not only serve corrupt elites, but translate into better livelihoods for regular citizens. It also requires, therefore, efforts to bolster citizen participation in these local development projects and to support local media and civil society activities that hold local officials and the central government accountable and prevent state corruption in connection with the supply line.

In order to realize such a coherent long-term strategy, however, the U.S. government needs to take several steps uncharacteristic of its bureaucracy. First, it needs to make a clear decision to limit the involvement of the Pentagon in Central Asia outside Afghanistan. The Pentagon should realize that this serves its interests in the long-run. If a well thought-out commercially oriented supply link devoid of U.S. military involvement is created between Central Asia and Afghanistan, it will not only create a more cost effective way for the U.S. to bring supplies into the country; it will also encourage increased Central Asian commercial involvement in Afghanistan, especially from Kazakhstan. Furthermore, it would essentially remove the need for a U.S. airbase in the region since supplies could be brought overland at lower cost than by air through either Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan. While I am sure that many military strategists will continue to insist on the necessity of a base, the arguments I have heard in the past for its need were based on the high cost of bringing supplies directly from Germany, and presumably a land-route would resolve that problem. Furthermore, the increased stability in host government support for (and hopefully decrease in Russian objection to) the overland supply line that would likely result from avoiding a base would ultimately better serve U.S. interests in Afghanistan over the long term.

Besides keeping the Pentagon away from the nuts and bolts of the running of a supply line through Central Asia and forgoing any plans to establish yet another military base in the region, the U.S. should not consider ramping up military assistance in Central Asia (if such assistance has not already been promised by General Petraeus). As already noted, this will inevitably create an impression that the U.S. is helping armies that could be used against local citizens as was the case in Andijan in May 2005. In short, while the supply line is certainly entangled with the Defense Department’s goals in Afghanistan and will inevitably involve DOD input in its design and planning, the engagement with Central Asians should primarily be run through two of the three D’s – diplomacy and development. Otherwise, as the former Kyrgyz ambassador to the U.S. noted Friday in a Washington Post op-ed about the Kyrgyz base, the long-term development goals of sustainable free markets and good governance will be lost to an over-emphasis on short-term military interests.

While limiting the Pentagon’s involvement in Central Asia is probably the most challenging step the U.S. would need to take to realize the plan I mention above, it is certainly not the only one. Secondly, USAID needs to engage the many people who have been working on the ground in the region on development issues for the last decade and a half in the formulation of a coherent long-term development strategy for Central Asia. Such a strategy needs to be cognizant of local cultural issues and history while also being aware of the regional context and the symbiotic relationship between democracy and economic development.

Finally, the U.S. government as a whole needs to commit to the long-term resources to realize this strategy. While the U.S. is usually reticent to make any financial commitments that extend beyond one year, it must be understood that this is a critical aspect of any strategy to rebuild Afghanistan, where we are already prepared to be involved over the long-term. If USAID is given the opportunity to use increased resources for the establishment of long-term projects focused on gradual changes in all sectors from economic reform to democracy, the agency may find a willingness on the side of host governments to buy into these development efforts when appropriate. Ideally, such buy-in would also create more tolerance on the part of host governments for projects engaging citizens on freedom of information, civic involvement in governance, and the protection of human rights, especially when they stress gradual change and citizen development over short-term regime change.

Although this may sound like a radical and ambitious plan for a region on the margins of Americans’ attention, the new administration should also keep in mind that it was voted in on a platform promising change and “out-of-the-box” thinking. The last thing the Obama administration should want to do is repeat the mistakes of its predecessors. Unfortunately, if current trends in the recent increased engagement of Central Asia continue, that will be exactly what the administration is doing. If it makes the effort to do things right this time, however, the Obama administration could make more in-roads in the region than any U.S. government since the fall of the USSR and help make a sustained impact on Central Asia’s development while they are at it.

New Video: Understanding Central Asia

Simon James, a video documentarian at The Refugee Studies Center at Oxford University, has produced an interesting introductory educational/informational aid on Central Asia, entitled "Understanding Central Asia" that is worth sharing with you. It a basic video that highlights interviews with various experts in the field of Central Asia studies, providing commentary on some basic issues as they relate to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. I serve as the primary interviewee for the Uzbekistan section. Mr. James has hosted the video on a free video hosting site if people would care to access the video for educational purposes. On the same hosting site, he has posted a video on the IMU. While these pieces are not really for those who already follow events in the region, they are useful aids for those who are new to the region, but would like a good intelligent overview of major political, social, and economic issues. The link to the "Understanding Central Asia" video is here.