Opinion | The National Endowment of Hypocrisy

By Tom Fowdy

Last week, China's Foreign Ministry announced a new paper focused on America's "National Endowment for Democracy" (NED). Describing the US having "long used democracy as a tool and a weapon to undermine democracy in the name of democracy, to incite division and confrontation, and to meddle in other countries' internal affairs, causing catastrophic consequences"- the fact sheet proceeded to severely criticize the organization as a covert tool of American political influence over other countries and described it a "white glove" of the activities typically undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

American foreign policy is legitimated on a value-based exceptionalism which makes it a moral imperative to evangelize its ideology of "liberal democracy" into other countries, seeing it as its own mission to reshape the world in its image. This highly dogmatic worldview is zero-sum, framing global affairs as a binary struggle between good and evil, wherein America is framed in heroic terms and is constantly used to legitimate and mask its national interests. The United States has promulgated many wars, interventions and upheavals in the name of "Democracy and human rights" despite the often-horrific tolls such decisions have taken on those countries.

The NED is an organization, funded by the Congress of the United States, of which plays to these narratives. Advocating this unimpeded "right" to spread democracy, the modus operandi of the organization is to effectively interfere in the sovereign affairs of other countries under the guise of being an NGO, promoting and funding political movements and causes which are preferential to American interests and goals. In other words, the organization serves as a moral and ideological front in order to service foreign policy objectives in a way which appears legitimate, which leads it to be frequently associated with grassroots-based regime changes in many countries. As noted in the MOFA factsheet, the funding and priority given to NED projects vary based on the foreign policy of the US at that particular time.

The factsheet notes that the NED often creates "independent media" with the goal of undermining a target country and promoting dissidents. As one critical example of this, on the Korean peninsula, the organization funds an Anti-DPRK online newspaper which is known as "The Daily NK". The newspaper claims to provide insight from sources in the country, but in practice is little more than a rumor mill of unverified information which focuses purely on promoting unverified, and more often than not false, negative stories about the country based on hearsay with the goal of circulating critical stories about North Korea into the international media. On many occasions, false stories about the DPRK have been appropriated by the mainstream media originating from this NED publication, despite having no evidence whatsoever. No information is ever given on the source or agenda.

It is no surprise that in the past few years, NED funding for projects opposed to China has surged in conjunction with the shift in foreign policy goals against Beijing. In the financial year of 2020-2021, the NED's website shows it appropriated $9,764,335 in funding for China-related projects. This includes separatist-related projects and movements in the Xinjiang autonomous region and Tibet, schemes related to increasing hostile journalism and scholarship, and of course up until the national security law was imposed, the NED was a prolific actor in instigating Anti-government and separatist inclined riots in 2019. Across the board, the NED is effectively aiming to undermine and change China, disguised by ideological and moral rhetoric.

Given this, whilst sources in the West enjoy dismissing talk of the NED as a "bogeyman", in reality its activities and agenda are very much tangible and extensive. The NED is a vehicle for covert and deliberative political operations on behalf of American foreign policy, an expansion and consolidation of what was originally solely undertaken by the CIA, and should be understood as a political "trojan horse". It is finally worth noting that America has otherwise frequently accused other countries of "political interference" based on far, far less and would see such activities by an enemy state as an unacceptable assault on its own national sovereignty. American exceptionalism is thus an ideology that believes it is indeed "exceptional" in its bid to interfere and subvert the politics of other countries, and the NED is the acceptable "face" of such.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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