Despite its claims of being a champion of the universal values of democracy and equality, the National Endowment for Democracy, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit foundation, has become one of the biggest enemies of world peace, stability and harmony with its double standard, sinister conflict provocations and disruptive regime change operations. Unmasking the NED has shattered the illusion of the United States' high democratic values.

Increasingly the NED's shameful deeds, especially in the Middle East, South East Asia, Africa and South America, are being exposed. It has often acted in close collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency and the US Agency for International Development to support insurgent forces in other countries in a bid to overthrow regimes the US administration disliked.

Initially, the NED was created and sponsored by the US administration as a "beacon of real democracy" in the world. In reality, it has actively been a party to all kinds of anti-democratic norms, inhuman initiatives, propaganda and anti-development plans to sabotage democratically elected governments that do not appease the Western bloc.

The NED's political maneuvers, social manipulations, media control and propaganda against the emerging countries in the Global South have been aimed at the inception of new national narratives aligned with the US.

The US trinity of CIA, Pentagon and the NED have been jointly working to subvert, incite, confront and distort public opinion through ideological infiltration, political hyping and dissemination of false propaganda. Often they target China, Russia, Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and all countries that are allies of the "Axis of Resistance" in the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, under the pretext of promoting and saving so-called democracy and human rights.

Since its inception, the NED has been acting against the true principles of liberal democracy which is based on respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, noninterference, socioeconomic prosperity and unconditional international cooperation.

The NED has been trying to impose its own self-devised principles of governance, human rights, gender development and freedom of expression, which are solely for the purpose of strengthening Western hegemony and have resulted in massive socioeconomic, geopolitical and geostrategic unrest in the world.

It is good at planting the seeds of instability, disharmony and displeasure among different segments and stakeholders, ultimately creating massive political chaos, economic uncertainty and societal division to hostage the states, systems and societies in developing countries.

It is famous for financing and promoting pro-US nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, journalists, puppet media outlets and gluttonous politicians whose views align with that of the West. Moreover, it has intentionally prolonged the traditions of the Cold War by promoting a "small yard, high fence" approach in Europe, the US Military-Industrial Complex Theory, containment of China, the "China collapse" theory in the Asia-Pacific, the "Arab Spring "in the Middle East, "color revolutions" in Central Asia, ethno-societal division in Africa, and sectarian polarization in Southeast Asia for its vested interests.

Obviously, it is the biggest ally of the CIA's covert operations. The private voluntary organizations in Eastern Europe, the political Islam factions in the Middle East, terrorist sanctuaries in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan and widespread network of suspect NGOs in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Latin America, violent groups in Africa and Mediterranean regions have all been aligned with the NED to sabotage peace, hijack prosperity and hinder peaceful rise of these societies to perpetuate white supremacy, human miseries, ethnic cleansing, genocide, borrowed and dangerous tendencies in local cultures, energy and food terrorism against other countries.

The NED has nurtured "Taiwan independence" separatist forces to inhibit the economic growth of China as the US cannot match the country's economic growth. In 2022, the NED and Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party authorities cohosted the Global Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy.

Iran has been a prime target of the NED which has been trying to overthrow the successive Iranian governments and when it was unsuccessful in doing so it declared Iran as a "global threat" and tried to alienate it. The same model was applied to Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and numerous African countries through sponsored think tanks and social security centers.

Furthermore, through many funded operations in Russia and by supporting Russian opposition figures in exile and by financing dissidents against the Russian government at important political junctures, such as the State Duma, presidential and local elections, it has tried to create difficulties for Vladimir Putin's administration.

However, it is certain that the NED will meet its doom as it goes against trends of our era which feature Chinese wisdom creating bridges of mutual respect, better understanding, connectivity, multiculturalism, economic globalization and international cooperation for sustainable development.

The author is president of Pak-China Corridor of Knowledge and executive director of the Islamabad-based Center for South Asia &International Studies.