Jason Jones of The Stream interviewed the leading spokesman in the U.S. for the people of East Turkistan, where Uyghurs and other peaceful citizens are being viciously oppressed by the Communist government of China for their religion and their ethnic identity.

Jason Jones: You’re Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile (ETGE). I bet most of our readers have never heard of it. Can you please explain?

Salih Hudayar: The East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) has been at the vanguard of the ongoing struggle for East Turkistan’s independence from Chinese occupation. The ETGE, founded in 2004 in Washington, DC, is the official diaspora administrative body advocating for the restoration of East Turkistan’s independence. However, it has encountered numerous obstacles and attempts to undermine its efforts, especially the Chinese government and its security partners like Turkey.

So it’s like Charles de Gaulle’s Free French headquarters in London, while the Nazis occupied France. Got it. But you don’t sponsor guerrilla fighters, as the Free French did. What do you do instead?

Our government advocates for the restoration of East Turkistan’s independence. We lead global advocacy and legal efforts to recognize China’s atrocities against Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples as genocide and crimes against humanity. We seek to establish a framework for the restoration East Turkistan’s independence. We have been actively pursuing legislative recognition of East Turkistan as an Occupied Country, highlighting the urgency and significance of this cause.

China Is Desperate to Silence the Uyghurs’ Defenders

So China’s communist government must see you as a threat.

Since its inception, the ETGE has been a top threat for the Chinese government and its security and intelligence partner nations. As a result of Chinese and Turkish intelligence operations, the ETGE was largely undermined and marginalized prior to 2019.Utilizing its alliances with the Central Asian republics, Pakistan, Russia and NATO member Turkey, the Chinese government has consistently sought to control and suppress East Turkistan’s struggle for independence.

Secret directives, such as Directive 8 from CCP’s Top Secret Document No. 7 in 1996, instructed Chinese intelligence to infiltrate, divide, and win-over Uyghur groups while collaborating with countries such as Turkey and the Central Asian republics to limit, weaken, and suppress pro-independence Uyghur forces and prevent the East Turkistan cause from becoming internationalized.

Turkey Is China’s Proxy

Wait, so aggressively Islamist Turkey is siding with the atheist regime in Beijing against the Uyghur people?

Despite being home to the second-largest East Turkistani/Uyghur diaspora community and sharing profound historical, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural ties, Turkiye has actively collaborated with China to undermine and suppress East Turkistan’s independence movement. Examining Turkiye’s secret cooperation in help China’s legitimize its ongoing genocide against Uyghurs under the false pretext of counterterrorism reveals its treacherous role.

China used Turkey as a proxy to lure tens thousands of unsuspecting, naïve Uyghurs to Syria as cannon fodder. This helped China to depict Uyghurs as “terrorists.” China’s security and intelligence cooperation with Turkey to spread this false narrative can be found in a number of sources, including an recent research article titled “China’s Support to Terrorism to Undermine the East Turkistan Independence Movement” published by the UK-based thinktank, Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism.

Uyghur Judases Working for China

Is China recruiting Uyghur collaborators, akin to the Vichy French, who are willing to sell out their people and aid China’s ongoing genocide?

Organizations affiliated with the Turkish government, such as the Turkic World Solidarity and Assistance Association, continuously attempted to undermine the ETGE. Dr. Aburrahim Can, a member of this association’s Executive Board and a Uyghur himself, orchestrated the attempted infiltration and subversion of the ETGE by individuals with questionable backgrounds.

After its failed attempts to both infiltrate and subvert the ETGE, the Turkic World Solidarity and Assistance Association attempted to gain influence over the ETGE by employing deceptive tactics, including overtures and false promises of help to raise awareness about the East Turkistan cause in Turkiye. In exchange for such assistance, the Turkic World Solidarity and Assistance Association demanded that Dr. Mehmet Sukru Guzel, the Geneva representative of the Ankara Centre for Crisis and Policy Research, a pro-government Turkish think tank, be included in the legal team representing the ETGE before the International Criminal Court in its case against Chinese officials.

Upon investigation, the ETGE immediately discovered that Dr. Guzel had written numerous articles that not only deny China’s Uyghur genocide, but also falsely accuse the United States of “inventing the issue to undermine China.” Dr. Guzel’s articles defending China and denying the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs have been translated and published on numerous communist/Marxist websites, including those in Chinese, Russian, Turkish, and Italian.

The Armenian Genocide Isn’t the Only One Turkey Denies

Is Turkey actually helping China to whitewash the genocide of Uyghurs, which has seen 1 million peaceful citizens interned in concentration camps?

In mid-May 2022, the Turkish government linked Turkic World Solidarity and assistance Association held a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, bringing together Uyghur genocide deniers like Dr. Mehmet Sukru Guzel, along with Uyghurs who opposed even using the term East Turkistan and instead favored the Chinese colonial term “Xinjiang”, former Chinese communist party members, and those with suspicious links to China, as well as many unsuspecting naïve Uyghurs. The conference concluded with the official launch of the so-called “Uyghur Freedom Forum,” a Turkish-controlled puppet group. This clearly demonstrates China’s renewed efforts, using Turkiye as a proxy, to control or suppress the East Turkistan independence movement through the creation of fake opposition organizations.

Disinformation and Demonization

Is this proof that China’s spymasters are working along with Turkey’s, to quash real human rights campaigners?

Senior Turkish officials have repeatedly stated categorically that “Turkiye considers China’s security as its own security and will not allow any activities in Turkey targeting and opposing China.” It would be illogical for Turkey to support the formation of a pro-independence Uyghur organization unless it were part of an intelligence operation to obtain control over the East Turkistan independence movement. In addition, it is important to highlight the fact that the ruling AKP has repeatedly opposed Turkish opposition parties’ efforts to pass legislation to recognize China’s ongoing genocide of Uyghurs in East Turkistan.

Following the conference, a coordinated disinformation and demonization campaign was launched against the ETGE, with genocide denialists such as Dr. Mehmet Sukru Guzel falsely accusing the ETGE of being the a “fifth column” attempting to undermine Turkey. Dr. Guzel continued to parrot the Chinese government’s false narrative by denying the ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, defending China, and opposing East Turkistan’s struggle for independence by labeling the ETGE as a bunch of so-called “separatists.”

Simultaneously, puppet Uyghur opposition actors began producing propaganda in Uyghur suddenly claiming to be pro-independence and denouncing the ETGE as “illegitimate,” echoing Dr. Guzel’s statements. The abrupt alliance of historically anti-independence Uyghurs, former Uyghur CCP members, and pro-China Uyghur genocide deniers like Dr. Mehmet Sukru Guzel to oppose the ETGE reveals the true objectives of this Chinese-Turkish intelligence and influence operation.

Red China’s Propaganda Campaigns in the West

More and more Americans are waking up to the sophistication of well-funded Chinese propaganda operations in the Western media. Have the suffering Uyghur people been targeted too?

The Chinese government employed the Turkic World Solidarity and Assistance Association and Turkish assets to launch a coordinated disinformation, demonization, and influence campaign in February 2023. This clearly Chinese-backed Turkish intelligence operation uses social media, mainly WhatsApp and Facebook, to extensively to disseminate deceptive information and deceive the global East Turkistani diaspora, with a particular focus on the Uyghur diaspora in Turkiye and Central Asia amidst the East Turkistan Government in Exile’s parliamentary candidate elections.

Turkey, along with the Central Asian republics and many Muslim countries, has extensive intelligence and security cooperation with China. Alarmingly, all Turkic Central Asian states signed new agreements with China at the Xian Summit in May 2023, pledging to support China’s fight against so-called “separatism, extremism, and terrorism,” which was clearly aimed at the Uyghurs, with Kyrgyzstan even declaring they would assist China in “fighting East Turkistan forces.” In addition, all of these nations, including Turkey, the Central Asian Republics, and the Muslim majority nations, are economically dependent on China, making them subservient to China’s political interests.

A NATO Member Acting as China’s Puppet

What’s the long game that China is playing here? How is it we have a NATO member (Turkey) aligned with China?

China and Turkey’s deep security collaboration, despite Turkey being a NATO member, raises concern. Their primary objective is to suppress the Uyghurs and hinder East Turkistan’s independence movement. By utilizing Uyghur and Turkish assets to wage a psychological warfare against the East Turkistani diaspora through various channels, their joint intelligence operation reveals a calculated approach.

China employs Turkish proxies and organizations like the Turkic World Solidarity and Assistance Association to create controlled “Uyghur groups.” This tactic aims to deceive the East Turkistani diaspora and the international community while exerting control over the independence movement. These efforts serve a broader strategy, allowing China to continue colonization and genocide in East Turkistan without resistance.

Democratic and free nations must no longer ignore China’s transnational intelligence operations and repression against the global East Turkistani diaspora. China and Turkey’s efforts to subvert and hijack the ETGE must be countered. Democratic and free nations should support the ETGE’s mission, take concrete steps to end China’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in occupied East Turkistan, and hold China and other complicit actors accountable for their actions. The international community must stand in solidarity with the East Turkistani people and ensure that justice is served for the tens of millions of innocent people who continue to suffer genocide at the hands of the Chinese government.

Salih Hudayar is an American Uyghur who serves as incumbent Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. He is a strong advocate for the restoration of East Turkistan’s independence; you may follow him on Twitter at @SalihHudayar.

 

Jason Jones is a senior contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, author, activist and human rights worker.