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Beijing fetes Islam Karimov, lauds his bloody crackdown

Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Wednesday made his first trip abroad since a bloody crackdown on protesters that many analysts say killed hundreds, if not thousands, of people, arriving in China one day after it voiced support for the authoritarian Central Asian leader.

Chinese officials greeted Karimov at Beijing's airport in a red carpet ceremony with flower bouquets.

While the visit was a courtesy trip scheduled after Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) went to Tashkent last year, it gave Karimov a way to underline that China is on his side.

On Tuesday, Beijing said it "firmly" backed his actions in crushing anti-government demonstrators.

China is eager to tap into Central Asia's energy resources, and it has watched warily since the US deployed troops to the region after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US, including at an Uzbek base.

In an interview with the People's Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of China's ruling Communist Party, Karimov said the two sides were planning to sign a US$600 million oil joint venture deal during his visit.

"This is an important step for energy cooperation between the two sides," Karimov was quoted as saying yesterday.

He didn't give any other details.

Beijing also wants stability in the former Soviet states of Central Asia, a region that China -- like Russia -- considers a tinderbox of Islamic militancy that could spread to its own territory.

The Chinese and Uzbek governments said Karimov's visit yesterday was planned long before the May 13 uprising in the eastern Uzbek town of Andizhan.

Uzbek officials claim 169 people -- mainly militants -- were killed in Andizhan. But rights activists contend hundreds of protesters died and insist many were unarmed civilians who were only voicing their opposition to Karimov's government and anger over economic woes.

An Uzbek activist, former physician Gulbakhor Turayeva, said Tuesday that she saw about 500 bodies lying in the yard of Andizhan's School No. 15 the day after the violence.

She said she counted 400 bodies before guards chased her away and she estimated there were about 100 more. She said most of the dead were men.

"We firmly support the efforts by the authorities of Uzbekistan to strike down the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said Tuesday in Beijing.

China claims ethnic Uighur separatists are fighting for an independent Islamic state in its western region of Xinjiang, which is about 190km from Andizhan and shares Uzbekistan's Muslim religion and Turkic language roots.

Foreign experts are skeptical of the claims, and the regime's critics say the specter of terrorism is being used as an excuse to tighten Beijing's control there.
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