China Gets Spooked!
Sometimes it’s almost tempting to have sympathy for the Chinese leaders, knowing how afraid and insecure they must be about the upcoming Beijing Olympics.
In yesterday’s blog post, we asked: “With the coming [Olympics] protests, how will the Chinese leadership react this time? Will they show their insecurity by cracking down? Or will the eyes of the world constrain their actions, thereby showing disaffected Tibetans, Uighurs, and Chinese that the regime’s control is weakened?” The AP reports today that “China’s intelligence services are gearing up for next year’s Beijing Olympics, gathering information on foreigners who might mount protests and spoil the nation’s moment in the spotlight.” (The AP coincidentally uses the same word as yesterday’s blog post, “disaffected.”)
The AP gives more detail on China’s spying program:
While foreign governments often monitor potentially disruptive groups ahead of big events, Beijing this time is ranging farther afield, targeting groups whose activities would be considered legal in most countries.
As such, the move carries risks for Beijing. Evidence that the communist government is withholding visas or engaged in heavy-handed policing to suppress protests would likely draw negative press and could unnerve the International Olympic Committee and corporate sponsors.
Scott Kronick, the president of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide’s China operations, said he raised concerns about the way protests might be handled when an official with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee asked him about the possibility of activists disrupting the torch relay.
Mr. Kronick is right, but his client is atypical in how precarious its position is. China’s leaders are sitting on a pressure-cooker of popular discontent, held together by a thin line of repression and media control. And no amount of public relations spin by Mr. Kronick’s firm can cover that up.
As to the article’s speculation on the IOC getting unnerved, we’ll see. But so far the IOC has shown a spectacularly valiant lack of principle in dealing with civil society’s concerns surrounding the Beijing Olympics.
The AP‘s Charles Hutzler continues:
Though Chinese leaders believe a boycott is unlikely, successful protests by foreigners would not only tarnish the games but could also embolden domestic critics, Chinese foreign policy experts and activists said.
After four Americans unfurled a banner calling for Tibetan independence on the Chinese-controlled side of Mount Everest in April, China tightened access to Tibet for foreigners, especially Americans, Western diplomats in Beijing said.
In trying to neutralize foreign NGOs, Beijing is in part building on methods used to quash Falun Gong. After declaring the spiritual movement illegal in 1999, Beijing infiltrated the group and identified many among its millions of followers, both within China and overseas.
As with Falun Gong, the security consultant said government agencies were compiling lists of foreign NGOs and their members. He declined to specify whether electronic surveillance or infiltration, a textbook tactic for China’s police and spying agencies, were being used.
Part of the research into NGOs, including into Darfur groups, was being conducted by the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security that also has an Olympic security task force, the two analysts said.
Officials in China’s overseas diplomatic missions are also being tasked to gather information on groups, the consultant said.
(SFT’s banner action on Mount Everest, of course, can be viewed here).
The Chinese leadership is afraid, and with good cause. They’re faced with the realization that the dark side of their policies in China, Tibet, Darfur, etc. will be Exhibit A at their big coming out party. As we wrote yesterday, the Chinese government is in a bind: cracking down risks an international outcry, but if they don’t crack down they risk emboldening aggrieved Chinese and oppressed Tibetans. So the communist officials turn to spying, infiltration, and attempting to silence critics before they are able to speak. Yes, the Chinese government is sending out its spooks because it is spooked.
To anyone who opposes the Chinese government’s underhanded, dark, and subversive tactics, I suggest supporting one of the organizations you know will be in China’s cross-hairs. Please consider making a special donation to SFT’s Olympics Action Fund to give us the crucial financial resources we need to continue speaking truth to the Chinese government: Tibet will be free!
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[...] A couple days ago we wrote about China’s efforts to spy upon and infiltrate organizations supporting human rights, Tibet, Darfur, etc. in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Of course, there is also the case of Chen Yonglin, a recent Chinese embassy defector who described covert efforts by the Chinese government to spy upon and infiltrate Falun Gong groups and others deemed enemies of the state. [...]
[...] Posted by Lhasa Rising In the dark sea of espionage, China’s preparations for the Beijing Olympics keep making waves. We previously discussed China’s spying and infiltration efforts against groups it considers hostile to its interests, as well as China’s widespread economic espionage. Today’s Taipei Times carried a piece by J. Michael Cole, who was involved with security for the Athens Olympics. He writes that the Beijing Olympics will involve “a whole new, genre-defining level” of security. What will be different about Beijing, moreover, is that the security will be targetted not just at genuine terrorism, but at: “enemies of the Games” as varied as Chinese Muslims, US Christian groups, human rights advocates, environmentalists, Tibetan independence supporters, critics of China’s role in Darfur’s genocide in the making — in all, anyone, state-based to nongovernmental, that dares criticize Beijing. [...]