The same could be said of America’s occasional decisions to make Chinese support (or claims of Chinese support) for places like North Korea and Sudan an integral part of negotiations. Regardless of the extent of Chinese support (or lack thereof) to these governments, American beliefs about Chinese involvement with them have had real effects on the relationship between China and the US and I’m quite sure have irritated the hell out of Chinese diplomats (and some American ones too).

Nur Bekri is the Chairman of an Autonomous Region. His actual power in Xinjiang is insignificant compared to Wang Lequan’s, and in a top-down government like China’s someone with a position like his doesn’t say things that should be intepereted as foreign policy. I’m not crafting any grand political “theories” about PRC foreign policy with my posts on this remote blog outpost, though I’ve come to the realization that you take blogging quite seriously. Most people following China are aware that the state is quite vocal about its struggle against global Islamic terrorism, and that the same people believe in an insidious Western campaign to “Westernize and democratize” China that conventionally they are far less vocal about. Here, the “Chairman” of one of China’s more unstable regions (from the former “force” far more so than the latter, imo) speaks quite forcefully about both in the same speech, switching from one to the other and at one point conflates the two which I will address in response to your comment in the other post. I do not take this to be a statement of PRC policy or a harbinger of future posturing towards the US. I believe the PRC leadership is an extremely cynical and pragmatic leadership and that in situations involving these kinds of belief cynicism and pragmatism is a good thing which keeps heads cool (vis-a-vis the West). What I’m saying is that with a cynical government rarely do we see what the leaderships personally believe regardless of what policies they decide to implement (wouldn’t we all like to know what goes on in Bush’s head), and here we have Bekri covering some interesting topics in a speech not to the masses but to other Xinjiang CCP leaders. This is why in this original post the question I wanted to see answered is “How conventional are Nur Bekri’s words,” how much of it is propaganda value, how much of it is Nur Bekri’s own impassioned beliefs, and how much of it was transmitted by a higher state organ to be disseminated by Bekri at this meeting.

As to your second point – “public support of some people who in turn have some possible terroristic links are really nothing special” – obviously I think you’re responding to my above comment. If that’s the case, do you think Rebiya Kadeer has “terroristic links?” Because, if so, I would like to see you present that case. “Public support of some people who very likely don’t have terroristic links but who has been questionably place deep into the ‘terroristic narrative’ by a government with an agenda” is significant. You’ve argued, not without merit, that Bekri draws a clear line between Western “peaceful rise” forces and violent religious extremism. If that’s the case, then is Rebiya Kadeer a Western peaceful rise force or a violent religious extremist force? She’s mentioned directly in the speech.

First, accusations of indirect support are so common place they’re absolutely no big deal. How long has China been making Dalai Lama responsible for violent Tibetan separatist activities with Western backing? And how long has the West been naming China a backer of terrorist states like North Korea, Sudan, Iran etc.?

Second, the CIA’s long history of directly supporting (and in some cases, creating) terroristic forces all over the world (South America, Iran, Irak, Afghanistan) is common knowledge. In comparison, public support of some people who in turn have some possible terroristic links are really nothing special — not only for the US or China, but for any government in the world.

Another article just recently popped up on my radar which claims that in the same speech Bekri specifically targeted Rebiya Kadeer as a part of the “Western hostile forces” that are fomenting unrest in Xinjiang. Again, I’d like to point out that even if ultimately we find in the Chinese that Bekri isn’t specifically blasting Western governments, its no secret among both China and the West that the current administration has been quite public in its support for Kadeer – see here and here. If the governor of New York blasted a certain so-and-so for causing terrorism in America, and that certain so-and-so has wide open, public support and approval of, say, a Saudi Prince or Syria’s head of state, then the accusation is there.

Secondly, the three forces specifically are terrorism, separatism, and extremism (its actually in the quote I put in the article) and Bekri states unequivocally that whoever he’s talking about is directly backing the “three forces” – there’s no ambiguity here, according to Bekri terrorism is an objective of the “Western hostile forces.” There’s a reason that extremism, separatism, and terrorism are grouped under one catch phrase often used by Chinese officials, because for many of them the three go hand and hand. You and I can easily envision “separatism without terrorism.” However to those running Xinjiang separatism is expressed through terrorism. And as far as we know Bekri did not directly mention the attacks before the Olympics. You can accuse me of assuming and “reading into” things all you want here, but it would be extremely difficult to persuade me that this speech of Bekri’s was made completely in a vacuum and in no way was an ideological answer, among PRC officials, to the attacks that occurred in Bekri’s territory a month ago. So, yes, looking at the sequence of events I believe that even among the three forces, terrorism is playing a big role in Bekri’s speech.