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China's Gang of Six Against Muslims
By Omer bin Abdullah
20/06/2001
The war against Islam has enlarged further with the establishment of a new committee of Islamophobes, as Russia and China have forged a new regional alliance to combat the spread of Islam into Central Asian nations.
Five years after the organization's modest start as a body to broker border disputes, the Shanghai Five - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan - joined by Uzbekistan, another former Soviet republic - matured into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at a heads-of-state meeting held in Shanghai on June 14-15. President Jiang Zemin of China calls it the "six good neighbors." And the SCO has become even more rabidly anti-Islamic with the addition of super-Islamophobe, Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov. Uzbekistan is a key country in the region.
The SCO's declared objective is to fight "ethnic and religious militancy," while promoting trade and investment in an area whose large oil reserves have revived international competition for influence.
"The signing of the Shanghai Pact has laid the legal foundation for jointly cracking down on terrorism, separatism and extremism, and reflects the firm determination of the six states to safeguard regional security," Jiang commented.
A day before Russian President Vladimir Putin was due to meet President George W. Bush, the new SCO also condemned Washington's missile defense plans. Bush, however, meeting with Putin, offered him a new level of friendship.
Bush is also equally committed to combating Islam, and the elevation of the Russian-Chinese anti-Islam endeavor should create an interesting situation, considering the rabid right-wing Republican demands on Bush to fight China.
The Shanghai summit was an event of major international importance. Central Asia has grown in importance in recent years with the development of oil reserves in and around the Caspian Sea, and China and Russia, and is keen on countering American attempts to draw Central Asia into its sphere of influence.
Kazakhstan, a Central Asian state, is forecast to be one of the world's top five oil-producing nations by 2010, with all its output exported via a pipeline running through Russia. The U.S. has offered Kazakhstan several million dollars to fund a study for an oil pipeline that would run through Turkey instead, bypassing Russia.
"The rivalry in central Asia is really between the U.S. and the Russians," said Robert Karniol, of
Jane's Defense Weekly. "But I see China and the Russians joining forces against the U.S. policy on an ad hoc basis."
The SCO agreement on fighting Islam set up the legal framework for cooperation between intelligence agencies of the Shanghai Five, and paved the way for an anti-terrorism center in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.
China's chief concern is the highly disciplined Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has led armed incursions over the past two years in an attempt to create an independent Islamic state. China fears that such unrest will only strengthen the freedom movement in its northwestern region, where Muslim Uighurs are seeking to recreate their state.
The Russian interest in the SCO is not just rooted in fighting Islam, but also in upgrading ties with China, as both are wary of Bush's plan for a missile defense system. Indeed, SCO defense ministers signed a communiqué declaring their joint support for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Washington wants to change in order to set its defense system. The communiqué warned, "Any violation of this [1972] treaty will bring enormous harm to the international community's efforts over many years on arms control and disarmament and will have serious negative consequences."
The Chinese are carrying out extreme measures to stomp out any stirrings of a Muslim freedom movement in the region; and besides forging closer SCO links, China has wrested cooperation from the Pakistani military regime, which is short of cash, friends, and Islamic credentials, to deport Muslims who enter China from East Turkmenistan. Beijing says that Muslims within China have backing among groups based in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The common front against Islam, including Chinese efforts, anxious to stop Muslim movements, has led Tajikistan and China to reach an agreement defining most sections of their common border. One remaining area under dispute is in the remote Pamir Mountains - a boundary disputed over since Soviet times. President Zemin sees a vital importance in the role of a road being built there, linking Tajikistan to China.
The SCO may be seen as an element in political tussles between the U.S. on one side and Russia and China on the other. However, the war against Islam has another plane, and the forum is open to all interested countries, with Mongolia showing an interest in the Shanghai forum, and the U.S. considering participation in the forum as an observer.
SCO participants want a more drastic war against Islam, and in this direction, they seek regular meetings of their education ministers. Cooperation in this field would ensure that populations in the region would be thoroughly conditioned to view Islam negatively.
All countries in the SCO are dealing with Muslim movements to some extent, many of whom are believed to receive support from Afghanistan's Taliban movement. China wants its partners to prevent Muslim groups there from linking up with Muslims inside China. But, China also has broader ambitions to build the Shanghai group into a bulwark against American influence in Central Asia. American investment in Central Asian oil-rich states like Kazakhstan, far outstrips that of either Russia or China, and observers believe that these smaller states may be more reluctant to get drawn into plans originating from China.
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