By Chen Yang
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released the Fact Sheet on the National Endowment for Democracy on May 7, which aroused widespread public concern. The Fact Sheet has exposed the "painted skin" of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) with a large amount of detailed information and allows the world to clearly see the true face of the "second CIA" of the US. Under the guise of "promoting democracy", NED subverts the legitimate governments of other countries and fosters pro-US puppet forces by instigating color revolutions, colluding with local political groups, funding separatist forces and fabricating disinformation. It is essentially a "white glove" of the US government.
Established in 1983, NED is nominally an NGO that provides support for democracy abroad, but in fact, it relies on continuous financial support from the White House and the US Congress and takes orders from the US government. As early as 1991, the founder of NED Alan Weinstein put it bluntly in an interview with the Washington Post that a lot of what they were doing was what the CIA had done 25 years ago. NED was therefore known globally as the "second CIA".
NED instigates color revolutions to subvert state power. According to the Fact Sheet, NED was seen behind color revolutions instigated and orchestrated by the US, including the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the Arab Spring. During the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the US offered USD65 million to the Ukrainian opposition through NED and other organizations. When massive anti-government demonstrations broke out in Ukraine in 2013, NED funded as many as 65 NGOs in the country, and even provided large funds to pay "wages" to each and every protester.
RIA Novosti reported that NED had invested USD14 million in Ukraine projects which led to the large demonstrations in 2014 that overthrew the then Yanukovych government. "The CIA used to go around behind the scenes and provide funding to influence the political process, and now they have a new organization, the National Endowment for Democracy," said Philip Agee, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, in an interview.
NED colludes with local political groups to meddle in other countries' political agendas. The Fact Sheet points out that by infiltrating target countries, cultivating local anti-government forces and stoking social tensions, NED has been reaching its hands into the internal affairs of other countries.NED has repeatedly meddled in Hong Kong's elections and interfered with China's internal affairs. NED also interfered in Russia's elections and threatened Russia's constitutional, defense and national security.
Max Blumenthal, the founder of the Grayzone website, which has been engaged in NED investigation and reporting for a long time, said in an interview that the people who run NED have neoconservative thinking. They believe that the US should be the world's only hegemonic and dominant power and it should not be challenged by any other regime. So it targets socialist governments, independent governments that are not afraid of American influence, and so-called competitors such as Russia and China.
NED funds activities and academic programs for the purpose of ideological infiltration.NED is the big financier of dissidents in some countries and regions. Since 1991, NED has been granting the Democracy Award annually to political activists and dissidents in countries including Russia, China, DPRK, Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and Ukraine in recognition of "defending human rights and democracy", so as to encourage those dissidents in other countries to help the US "export" democracy. In June 2011, the then US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson acknowledged that the US had spent no less than USD 40 million to "promote democracy" in Egypt since February 2011. From these moves, it is not difficult to see that although NED is holding the banner of so-called "academic" and "democracy", it is engaged in extremely disgraceful activities such as the infiltration of values all over the world.
For a long time, the US has imposed its own political system and values on others, implemented "democratic transformation", indiscriminately imposed unilateral sanctions, instigated color revolutions, and caused disastrous consequences. The US has owed blood debts for "exporting democracy", and its so-called "democracy" has long become a "weapon of mass destruction" to interfere in other countries' affairs.
