The Plan to Break Up China: Xinjiang, Separatism, and the Three-State Blueprint
How intelligence agencies, radical groups, and Western narratives converged on a single geopolitical objective
Western intelligence agencies—primarily MI6 (the British foreign intelligence service) and the CIA (the American intelligence agency)—have long attempted to divide China by inciting and instrumentalizing ethnic minorities such as Uyghurs, Tibetans, and residents of Inner Mongolia against the central government.
The Origins of the “Three-State Scenario” in the 1990s
The “Three-State Scenario” operation began in the early 1990s, when MI6 consulted academics to devise a plan to partition China into three parts: an eastern region retaining the name “China,” a northwestern region including Xinjiang, and a southwestern region including Tibet.
The British academic Gerald Segal from the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) was commissioned to create a detailed map of this division—a map reportedly produced in 1994 that precisely outlined the planned fragmentation of China. Xinjiang, with its predominantly Muslim population and strategic location bordered by eight neighboring countries, played a central key role in this scheme.
Even Western journalists and scholars at the time openly spoke of using a small group of Uyghur separatists as “cannon fodder” for London’s geopolitical objectives.
A 1996 article in Strategic Studies stated: “Xinjiang has long been a target of British intelligence, with London hoping to manipulate weaker refugees from Xinjiang and the Uyghurs remaining there as cannon fodder for London’s plans to dismantle China.” This is an academic Western text—not Chinese propaganda.
U.S. Involvement and Historical Precedents
The United States also had motives to align with this approach. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stated that the CIA preferred to undermine China not through external military actions but through internal forces—particularly Uyghur groups in Xinjiang.
The CIA had already funded and supported the former elite circles around the Dalai Lama in the 1950s and 1960s in their fight against the new Chinese government, which had abolished the old feudal serfdom system in Tibet. That system had kept approximately 90% of the Tibetan population as serfs or in similarly dependent and inhumane conditions.
Exploiting Ethnic Tensions and Supporting Separatism
The plan to divide China into three separate states aimed to deliberately exploit and inflame ethnic tensions in Xinjiang and Tibet through propaganda, radicalization, and support for separatist violence.
Evidence for this strategy has been critically presented by scholars such as Barry Sautman in their studies and at conferences—for example, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)—as well as by other researchers based in Hong Kong. They have pointed out that Western media and institutions promoted narratives that fueled ethnic tensions in China’s peripheral regions, perceived as part of a larger “destabilization architecture” to permanently weaken China’s territorial integrity.
Historical documents confirm that Hong Kong, until the 1997 handover, served as a central hub for MI6 in Asia. Former intelligence officers such as Baroness Park publicly confirmed that China was the primary target of British espionage.
Key Academic Insights from Hong Kong Conferences (2025)
While an official “MI6 plan” for the tripartite division of China remains secret, research works at HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and HKU (University of Hong Kong) provide a detailed analysis of the methods by which Western states in the 1990s attempted to massively pressure China through support for separatist tendencies and targeted foreign propaganda.
On August 20, 2025, an international conference titled “Global Comparative Perspectives on Xinjiang” was held at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), co-organized by HKUST and HKU.
The research presented there emphasized that the overwhelming majority of Uyghurs were peaceful and that unrest was triggered solely by a small radical-Islamist minority manipulated by Western actors.
Daily Mail: “Thirty-one people are dead and more than 90 injured after attackers drove their cars into an open-air market in China and hurled explosives out the windows.” (Image: Weibo)
Uyghur militants later appeared in Syria, alongside forces supported by the US and Israel against the secular Assad government, after carrying out deadly attacks in China.
Uyghur terrorists in Syria. Image: McClatchy Newspaper
The terrorists declared they were there to gain combat experience for a future war against China.
Further research stresses that relations between Han Chinese and Uyghurs were not inherently oppressive, noting that local authorities involved both groups and that most Uyghurs were peaceful agricultural workers. The Western strategy—derived from CIA methods and its offshoot, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), as outlined by American geopolitical researcher and author Brian Berletic—focused on radicalizing a small minority, leading to violent unrest in the early 1990s.
Terrorist Incidents and Western-Backed Militancy (1990s–2010s)
MI6 deployed an undercover agent to create chaos in Xinjiang, though he was not British. Operating under aliases such as “Michael Nicholson,” this was actually Abdullah Çatlı, a Turkish agent with expertise in Central Asia. According to books on the CIA’s Operation Gladio, Çatlı supported Uyghur terrorists in attacks that killed 162 people.
Although Chinese sources from the period are limited, multiple reports confirm terrorist incidents, including a 1992 attack in Baren, Xinjiang, that killed 22 people.
Western portrayals, however, reduced Xinjiang to a simplistic oppressor-victim narrative and ignored that ethnic minorities also held positions in police, military, and government institutions—many of whom were themselves targets of violence.
In academic discussions (including at HKU/HKUST in August 2025), criticism has been leveled that Western media often downplayed violence by Uyghur militants as “resistance,” while sidelining the actual civilian victims.
Xinjiang officials—such as Chairman Tomur Dawut, himself a Uyghur—were aware of foreign interference. In March 1992, Dawut warned of “hostile forces at home and abroad” engaged in infiltration, subversion, and sabotage.
The CIA complemented British efforts by supporting Uyghur separatists like Isa Yusuf Alptekin, a former KMT nationalist who later advocated for China’s dismemberment. In a 1992 speech in Turkey, he declared: “The time has come for the collapse and dissolution of the Chinese empire.”
His son worked for Radio Liberty, part of the US-funded and CIA-supported Radio Free Asia. This deepened US-UK coordination in anti-China operations, with the BBC and other mainstream media contributing to the broader media campaign.
The US expanded its operations in Central Asia—originally to support Islamist mujahideen against the Soviet Union—by sending hundreds of Uyghur separatists to Afghanistan for sabotage and guerrilla training. This program, coordinated with the British, later contributed to the emergence of groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Taliban. Çatlı continued organizing terror and unrest in Central Asia, including involvement in a coup attempt in Azerbaijan, until his mysterious death in a 1996 car accident in Turkey.
From 1996 to 2002, Western-supported militants carried out numerous terrorist attacks in China. The Chinese government was informed of Western involvement through public sources such as The Journal of Strategic Studies. Former FBI agent Sibel Edmonds later stated: “Between 1996 and 2002, the United States planned, financed, and helped execute every single uprising and terrorism-related action in Xinjiang.” Washington often blamed the Grey Wolves, despite their overlaps with Western-supported separatist networks (the prominent Uyghur separatist leader Alptekin had close ties to them).
In the early 2000s, attention shifted from Tibet—partly because demographic data refuted genocide claims and CIA funding of Tibetan exile groups became public—to Xinjiang.
In 2004, the US created a symbolic “government-in-exile” for a fictional country called “East Turkestan” and appointed Anwar Yusuf Turani—who lived in Virginia—as “prime minister.” No nation, including the US, recognized this government. These details also stem from Gladio literature.
From 2007 to 2014, attacks linked to “East Turkestan” groups escalated, claiming hundreds of victims: the 2009 Ürümqi riots (197 dead), a car bomb in Ürümqi (43 dead, 94 injured), and the 2014 Kunming train station knife attack (29 dead, 140 injured). Western media reported on some but omitted MI6/CIA involvement and implied that Chinese policies had provoked the violence.
Narrative Warfare and Reversal of Victim-Perpetrator Roles
According to research, particularly from Hong Kong universities, the next phase of Western strategy involved narrative warfare: erasing Western involvement, portraying militants as victims, and holding Chinese authorities—both Uyghur and Han—responsible for attempting to stop terrorism. Western media and academia indeed played a major role in reversing the victim-perpetrator narrative.
Examples: A 2014 NPR report on the Kunming attack wrote “Chinese authorities blamed the Uyghurs,” even though the perpetrators claimed responsibility. It quoted the anti-Chinese scholar and activist James Millward and cited Radio Free Asia without noting its US government ties. BBC reports questioned Chinese accounts but presented activist statements as fact. Voice of America quoted World Uyghur Congress spokespeople—funded by NED—without disclosure. By 2014, Western involvement had faded from public memory, paving the way for the so-called “Uyghur genocide” myth.
Related article:
Beyond Propaganda: Xinjiang as It Really Is
An on-the-ground report challenging stereotypes—meetings with Uyghurs, experiencing traditions, and insights into a region beyond prevailing narratives.Western countries—including France—have long relied on deradicalization programs, patriotic education, community control, and measures against Islamist terrorism. The US later projected its own practices onto China, portraying China’s vocational education and training centers (VETCs) as “internment camps,” “concentration camps,” or even sites of mass killings for 12 million Uyghurs. This “switcheroo” escalated into equally absurd and unsubstantiated genocide accusations.
The Rise and Decline of the “Uyghur Genocide” Narrative
In 2019, NED used China’s anti-terror measures by funding Uyghur advocacy groups that later became primary sources for atrocity claims. Five central organizations—World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur American Association, Uyghur Human Rights Project, Campaign for Uyghurs, and Uyghur Transitional Justice Database—are all NED-funded. Western media frequently cited them without disclosing their funding.
The NED conference in June 2019 at George Washington University—”Confronting Atrocities in China”—amplified the narratives. NED President Carl Gershman declared that China should be “thrown onto the ash heap of history.” Adrian Zenz, a bigot and activist at the US-funded Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation frequently quoted in media, described events as a “narrative battle.”
The genocide claim appears obviously implausible given the Uyghur population growth from ~2.2 million to ~12 million—significantly faster than the Han. A 2017 drug therapy event was also falsely portrayed online as camp abuse.
The US also founded IPAC, led by Luke de Pulford and NED-funded, to lobby against “alleged mass crimes” in Xinjiang—using “alleged” due to lack of evidence.
A grotesque figure of “6 million dead” spread online in near-identical form. The Uyghur Tribunal (2020–2021), NED-supported, functioned as a one-sided “court” with paid prosecution witnesses, no defense, and vague estimates of millions detained, though only 5,567 individual cases were documented. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield called the situation genocide—while simultaneously denying a real genocide in Gaza at the UN.
In 2025, Washington’s economic and propaganda war against China suffered a major setback when a Hong Kong-Chinese company defended itself against massive reputational damage, and the London High Court (supreme court) publicly stated on December 4, 2025, in relation to the defendant university (Sheffield Hallam University), that claims of forced labor in Xinjiang supply chains were “untrue, unfounded, and defamatory.”
(The university withdrew the report, officially apologized, admitted no evidence of forced labor existed, and committed not to repeat the allegations.)
Only a few countries—US, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Lithuania, France, Belgium, Czech Republic—officially recognized the genocide claims; over 190 states ignored or rejected them. Even US courts and State Department lawyers found insufficient evidence. Some victim databases contained irrelevant or false images, even of celebrities outside Xinjiang.
Explanation: The Sharp Drop in Xinjiang Birth Rates
As the lack of verifiable mass killings undermined the credibility of the original claims, the Western narrative shifted to declining Uyghur birth rates—now framed as “genocide by birth prevention.”
Critics familiar with Chinese policy pointed out, however, that China’s one-child policy was historically enforced far more strictly on Han Chinese than on ethnic minorities, and no recognized genocide in history has rested solely on birth control or reproductive suppression.
Explanation: From 2017, the birth rate in Xinjiang dropped sharply—from 15.88‰ (2017) to 10.69‰ (2018) and further below 7‰ in subsequent years—mainly due to stricter enforcement of uniform family planning rules, which had previously been much more lenient in minority areas than in Han-dominated regions. (Graphic: Felix Abt, based on official Chinese statistics)
By late 2023, Western media and politicians quietly began abandoning genocide rhetoric—due to lack of evidence—while global attention shifted to the Gaza conflict, with over 200,000 reported dead or injured. Continued focus on Xinjiang while neglecting Gaza became untenable. US Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield later stood alone at the UN against a Gaza ceasefire, drawing heavy criticism. A later attempt to relaunch the genocide narrative—this time including Hui Muslims—found no broad support.
The Moral Hypocrisy Exposed
In the grand theater of international politics, China presents itself as a reliable guardian of harmony and sovereignty: It pursues peaceful development domestically, refrains from interfering in other nations’ internal affairs, and offers cooperation without ideological submission or territorial claims. Over roughly 2,000 years, when the Middle Kingdom was the leading economic power, it never showed expansionist tendencies, abstained from meddling in foreign affairs, and used its vast fleet under Zheng He solely for global trade—in stark contrast to Western powers that pursued aggressive gunboat diplomacy with their ships.
Its opponents, however, practice precisely the interference they loudly condemn: They secretly arm separatists, train militants abroad, fabricate atrocities through taxpayer-funded proxies, and orchestrate decades-long campaigns to fragment sovereign territory not only into weakened mini-states but even in China and Russia. From the secret division maps of MI6 planners in the 1990s to NED-funded tribunals and recent media distortions, this tireless effort to destabilize Xinjiang, Tibet, and beyond reveals not a humanitarian crusade but a calculated geopolitical attack on unity and stability.
While Beijing rebuilds lives, bridges ethnic divides, and protects its population from externally fomented extremism, the architects of division face clear moral hypocrisy in their selective outrage. The documented death and injury toll in Gaza since October 2023—tens of thousands, including countless children—continues to rise according to Gaza health authorities and now even Israeli sources, causing the once-dominant Xinjiang narrative to crumble under the weight of glaring contradictions.
In this ongoing contest, China’s quiet resolve for mutual respect and non-interference proves not a weakness but resistance against those who sow chaos abroad while preaching order at home: True strength lies not in breaking others but in preserving unity in the face of relentless subversion.
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Felix Abt is an entrepreneur, author and travel blogger, living in Asia.
With his articles, he tries to make a modest contribution to debunking the omnipresent propaganda of the mainstream media for those who don’t have the time (and that’s most people) to do the research to see through it.