Tell me more...
Not as far fetched a notion as it may at first appear, IMHO. Two reasons for my not-so-expert speculation:
From the article:
According to the head of the Committee of National Security of Kazakhstan, Nurtay Duratbaev, the organization was preparing to commit terrorist acts. Several witnesses testified at trail that - following instructions from Maksum - the cell was planning an attack targeting the American military base in Kyrgyzstan. Pakistani authorities' subsequent confiscation of blueprints showing the location of the US Embassy, the American military base, and a synagogue in Kyrgyzstan from Uighur members of IPT provided additional, albeit indirect, confirmation of an IPT plot.
These people are threats to both the U.S. and China.
Nor would this be the first time post WWII that China and the U.S. were almost military allies in the face of a common threat. During the 1971 Pakistani-India troubles, Nixon was prepared to support the Chinese against the Soviets with air support which would include bombing Russian troops and facilities. From the State Department Historian's office:
Later in the afternoon of December 9, Nixon applied further pressure on the Soviet Union. The Soviet Minister of Agriculture, Vladimir Matskevich, was in Washington and Nixon received him for what Matskevich assumed was a courtesy call. Instead, to his surprise, Nixon delivered a stern warning that the crisis on the subcontinent was poisoning the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. He asked "are short-term gains for India worth jeopardizing Soviet relations with the U.S.?" (257) On Nixon's instructions, Kissinger saw Vorontsov on December 10 and warned him that the United States had "treaty" obligations to Pakistan, established in 1959 and confirmed by President Kennedy, that required the United States to come to Pakistan's assistance in the event of aggression. The United States, he warned, intended to honor those commitments. (268)
The other element that Nixon wanted to see come into play in a belated effort to prevent India from crushing Pakistan was a threat from China. In a conversation with Kissinger in the Oval Office on December 10, Nixon instructed Kissinger to ask the Chinese to move some forces toward the frontier with India. "Threaten to move forces or move them, Henry, that's what they must do now." (266) With those instructions, Kissinger went to New York the evening of December 10 and met with Huang Hua, China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations. He briefed Huang Hua on Gandhi's position and on the threat to West Pakistan as perceived in Washington. He told Huang Hua about the carrier force moving toward the Bay of Bengal. And, using diplomatic language, he relayed Nixon's request for Chinese military moves in support of Pakistan. Kissinger added that Nixon wanted China to know that if China took such action, the United States would oppose the efforts of others to interfere with China. There were no qualifications to Kissinger's diplomatically worded but clear assurance that the United States would be prepared for a military confrontation with the Soviet Union if the Soviet Union attacked China. (274)
On December 12, Nixon had to contemplate the implications of the assurance offered to the Chinese two days earlier. During the course of a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger in the Oval Office about the need for a military move by China to reinforce the impact of the arrival of the U.S. carrier off East Pakistan, Kissinger's deputy Alexander Haig entered with word that the Chinese wanted to have a meeting in New York. That was startling news. Kissinger said the Chinese had never initiated contact in New York. Suddenly it seemed likely that the China was going to move militarily against India. That raised the likelihood that the Soviet Union would be given an excuse to strike China. Kissinger said: "If the Soviets move against them and we don't do anything, we will be finished." Nixon asked: "So what do we do if the Soviets move against them? Start lobbing nuclear weapons in, is that what you mean?" Kissinger responded: "If the Soviets move against them in these conditions and succeed, that will be the final showdown...and if they succeed we will be finished." He added that "if the Russians get away with facing down the Chinese and the Indians get away with licking the Pakistanis...we may be looking down the gun barrel." In the end, they concluded that the projected confrontation with the Soviet Union would not involve a nuclear exchange. Kissinger felt that to preserve credibility, the United States, if necessary, would have to support China with conventional forces: "We have to put forces in. We may have to give them bombing assistance." Kissinger saw the danger of war between the Soviet Union and China as a strong possibility, with the Soviets looking for "a pretext to wipe out China," but Nixon concluded at the end of the discussion that "Russia and China aren't going to go to war." (281)
As badly as the Chinese need the oil, they are even more xenophobic than the Russians. IMHO, they'll want to keep their land buffers, like Xinjiang, intact. Seems to me they have both an economic and a military incentive to see things go our way in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, even in Iran. They just don't want us too close to the buffers.
How much of a threat do the Uighurs present to them? Not much, I'd wager. Totalitarian regimes like unrest. It gives them an excuse to expand their power.
The ChiComs are not our ally. We should never make the mistake of confusing them for one.
Iran's a natural flashpoint. Under what circumstances do you think China would stand with Iran against the US? I agree about Iraq - they want it settled, we want it settled.