By Willy Lam
22 August 2008
Not only have the Olympics failed to act as a catalyst for political
liberalization in China, but the regime's pre-Olympics security buildup
looks set to enable the government to crack down as hard as ever on dissent
after the Games are over. In line with the time-honored Chinese tradition
of "taking revenge after the autumn harvest," police and military
authorities are planning major reprisals against a host of troublemakers.
Punitive action has begun even before the athletes and the estimated
400,000 foreign tourists leave town. Remember the "protest zones" that
Beijing authorities set up in three local parks as testimony of the
regime's "new openness"? According to international human rights watchdogs,
several activists who have applied to hold protests have been harassed and
detained. They include two Beijing petitioners, Wu Dianyuan and Wang
Xiuying, who were last week sentenced to a one-year term of "re-education
through labor." Mr. Wu and Ms. Wang's crime: repeatedly petitioning the
authorities for having been wrongfully evicted from their Beijing homes
seven years ago.
Indeed, a good number of the strategies and institutions put into place to
ensure a fail-safe Olympics are here to stay.
Since disturbances hit Tibet and four neighboring provinces in March, the
leadership under President Hu Jintao has boosted the powers of the People's
Liberation Army, the People's Armed Police, the regular police and the
judicial apparatus in combating destabilizing forces. As a key element of
the revival of Chairman Mao Zedong's "people's warfare," Beijing and a
number of other cities have revived the vigilante and spying functions of
neighborhood committees. Municipal administrations along the coast -- and
in the autonomous regions of Tibet and Xinjiang -- have recently earmarked
additional budget to maintain the "spying" functions of neighborhood
committees and similar vigilante outfits after the Olympics.
Moreover, the Politburo's Central Political and Legal Commission, China's
highest law-enforcement agency, has urged the courts and prosecutors to do
more in fulfilling the party's priority task of thwarting anti-Beijing
conspiracies and upholding sociopolitical stability.
That the courts will comply in this is evident from a just-released article
by the President of the Supreme People's Court, Wang Shengjun. Writing in
this week's edition of the official Seeking Truth journal, Mr. Wang said:
"We must pay more attention to maintaining state security and social
stability. . . We must boost our consciousness of [safeguarding] the power
of the regime . . . and fully develop our functions as a department for
[proletarian] dictatorship."
Recent vows made by senior judicial cadres about doing the bidding of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are indicative of the Hu leadership's
long-term game plan of using the judicial apparatus against the party's
foes. In numerous political campaigns waged by the CCP in recent decades,
prosecutors and judges have played a pivotal role in "expediting" the
incrimination of "counterrevolutionaries."
The CCP leadership also is beefing up its campaign against "splittist
elements," particularly in Xinjiang. In three separate attacks in western
Xinjiang between August 4 and 12, ruffians described by Chinese authorities
as "terrorists" killed 20 PAP officers and police.
In a televised conference earlier this week, a high-ranking member of the
Xinjiang CCP Committee, Zhu Hailun, indicated that the authorities would
step up their "military struggle" against the "three evil forces" of
separatism, terrorism and religious extremism. "We must use iron-fisted
methods to hit out at the disruptive activities [of separatists]," said Mr.
Zhu, who is responsible for law and order in the restive region. "We shall
take the initiative in attacking [the evil forces], hit them wherever they
show up, and launch pre-emptive strikes against them."
Mr. Zhu's stern rhetoric has left no doubt that Beijing has ruled out any
compromise with underground Uighur groups, many of which are merely seeking
autonomous rights guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution, not outright
independence. Instead, President Hu had in early summer ordered more
People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police reinforcements into
Xinjiang and Tibet. These deployments have been confirmed by a Liberation
Army Daily story earlier this month, which said that crack units from the
Air Force of the Nanjing Military Region, which is responsible for the
Taiwan Strait, had taken part in recent war games in Xinjiang.
Apart from hitting out at dissidents, petitioners and secessionist
elements, the CCP leadership is buttressing its capacities to handle "mass
incidents," a code word for riots and disturbances staged by peasants and
workers who bear grudges against the authorities. The party journal
Fortnightly Chat pointed out last week that "a rash of mass incidents have
suddenly erupted, and they have rung the bell of alarm for [the viability
of] grassroots administrations."
Many of these incidents have to do with peasants whose land has been
grabbed by corrupt officials, or workers and migrant laborers who have been
deprived of their pensions and other rightful benefits. Confrontation
between the masses and police is tipped to rise owing to recent
difficulties in the economy. Some 67,000 medium-sized enterprises folded in
the first half of the year. And the livelihood of workers and farmers has
been rendered more difficult by inflation that is hovering between 6% and
7%.
Growing instability on various fronts has predisposed the Hu leadership
toward strengthening the police-state apparatus that has been put together
in the name of ensuring a trouble-free Olympics. Moreover, cadres in the
law-and-order establishment, who include senior officials in the Central
Political and Legal Commission as well as military, police and judicial
departments, have gained immense clout, not to mention much more funding,
since early this year.
These units have used their extra budgets to hire tens of thousands of new
staff, in addition to acquiring hardware that includes state-of-the-art
antiriot gear and hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras and related
equipment. It is in the vested interests of this fast-expanding
law-and-order establishment to play up the imperative of eradicating
"enemies of the party," whether real or imagined.
All of which together bodes ill for the prospects of a post-Olympics thaw
for China's aggrieved residents and political dissidents.
---
Mr. Lam is a Hong Kong-based China scholar and author of "Chinese Politics
in the Hu Jintao Era" (M.E. Sharpe, 2006).
The Wall Street Journal Asia
2008年8月22日
Harsh Chinese Crackdown Coming in Xinjiang
| by Willy Lam |
| 15 August 2008 |
Once the troublesome Olympic Games are out of the way, steel will rain on China’s rebellious regions Chinese Communist Party and military authorities are set to launch an all-out, life-and-death struggle against underground, “splittist” elements in Xinjiang, whose three attacks against security personnel this month resulted in the death of 20 police and officers of the People’s Armed Police. Diplomatic sources in the Chinese capital said the enhanced military action would begin immediately after the Olympics end on the 24th, when the world’s attention will no longer be focused on China’s human rights record, including its shabby treatment of the Uighur minorities in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The political fortunes of President Hu Jintao’s faction are at stake. Since disturbances began to intensify in Tibet and Xinjiang early this year, Hu cronies running western China, including the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Party Secretary Wang Liqun and Tibet Party Secretary Zhang Qingli, have come in for criticism by other CCP factions for failing to do a good job in maintaining stability in the two flashpoint regions. In the Chinese tradition, cadres under fire for failing to maintain law and order will normally opt for hawkish and draconian measures so as to demonstrate their toughness as well as “political resoluteness.” Given that Wang’s and Zhang’s jobs are on the line, they would seem to have ample reason to use whatever firepower they could muster to obliterate bitter foes among the ethnic minorities. The call to arms was issued August 13 by Politburo member and Xinjiang region secretary Wang, Hu’s protégé. In language that recalls the excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Wang said in a meeting with local cadres and military officials that the CCP’s war against the “three evil forces” – or groups advocating terrorism, separatism and religious extremism – would be “a struggle unto death… that will remain long-term, severe and convoluted.” Wang also hinted that there was no room for compromise or for a non-military settlement of the differences between Beijing and these “enemy forces.” The Politburo stalwart told his comrades that military and police forces must “seize the initiative in attacking, hit them [the enemies] wherever they show up, and undertake pre-emptive strikes” so as to deny the three evil forces opportunities to re-group. Recent party documents on the “next stage of struggle” against the “three evil forces” have underscored the significance of a kind of responsibility system for PLA, PAP and ordinary police officers. This means that military and police officers must ensure that areas under their jurisdiction be free of underground separatist or extremist bases. And if trouble or quasi-terrorist activities occur in a certain city, town or county, responsible cadres or officers are to be fired or demoted immediately. As Wang said Wednesday: “Every official must man his command post well. Officials must have a high sense of responsibility toward safeguarding areas [under their jurisdiction].” Beijing sources knowledgeable about Beijing’s policies toward ethnic minorities – especially Uighurs – say that President Hu has totally abandoned the policy of flexibility and appeasement advocated by his patron, former party chief Hu Yaobang, in the 1980s. The sources have pinpointed two new thrusts in Beijing’s long-standing efforts to tame Xinjiang. Firstly, more troops – and hardware such as jet fighters – are to be moved to the Lanzhou Military Region (MR), which is responsible for western provinces including Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang. Reinforcements have come, for example, from divisions that were originally responsible for guarding the border with Russia and for a possible military confrontation with Taiwan. With relations across the Strait having been stabilized in the wake of the triumph of the Kuomintang at presidential polls last March, several units from the Nanjing Military Region (which is responsible for Taiwan) have been deployed in the Lanzhou MR for the time being. Secondly, Xinjiang public security departments will revive the surveillance and “spying” functions of neighborhood committees in various cities in the autonomous regions. XAR authorities have allocated additional funds to hire “part-time informants” that are attached to neighborhood committees. These informants, who include both Han Chinese and Uighurs, are tasked with telling police about suspicious-looking people who have newly moved into the neighborhood. At least as of now, President Hu is confident that iron-clad tactics against Uighur “rebels” would not lead to serious international repercussions. The US has in the past few years toned down criticism of Beijing’s XAR policy partly in return for China’s help in Washington’s global anti-terrorism gambit. And President George W Bush’s appearance at the opening ceremony of the Games has convinced Beijing that whatever it does in Xinjiang or Tibet will not lead to a deterioration of Sino-U.S. ties. Moreover, even if the PLA and PAP were to play hardball with “underground gangs” in the XAR, such actions would pale beside the recent incursion of Russian groups into Georgia. The Western world’s lukewarm response to the Georgian crisis reinforces the CCP leadership’s belief that it can get away with even the most repressive policies in Tibet and Xinjiang. |
http://asiasentinel.com/index.
2008年8月9日
Ex-Official Slams Olympics
By Bao Tong
2008-08-06
A former top Communist Party official has slammed Beijing's hosting of the Olympic Games as being built on the back of corruption and human rights abuses. "In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone," writes Bao Tong, who is under house arrest at his Beijing home.
Bao Tong at his Beijing home, April 2008.
Bao Tong, former top Communist Party aide to the ousted late Chinese premier, Zhao Ziyang, has been under house arrest at his Beijing home for nearly two decades after his boss's fall from power during the 1989 pro-democracy movement. Following are edited extracts from a three-part series of his essays about the Olympic Games in Beijing, broadcast on RFA's Mandarin service beginning Aug. 4:
It is very naive to take the number of gold medals won as an indicator of the rise of China. That sort of patriotism...has nothing to do with the Olympic spirit...There are subtle differences between China and other countries when it comes to the training and selection of athletes. Other countries use athletics as a way of training the body. China uses athletics to snatch prizes.
China has sponsored a top-down professionalized system, a totally segregated approach to athletic training. Non-Chinese may not understand the term "away from production." It has its roots in the Chinese Communist Party's experience of the 1927-37 Chinese civil war, when peasants who relied on the land for their existence took up arms as their revolutionary duty to fight for a share of it. In the process, they were torn away from their families, from the rest of society, and from normal economic activities. They were said to be taken "away from production" to fulfill this task.
China's athletes are chosen as young children...and taken away from their families, from their schools, and totally cut off from normal social activities. The door is closed, and they give up their entire youth and part of their childhoods for the sole aim of entering and winning competitions, an aim for which they are totally re-molded by the system.
Elitist training
China has the largest population of any country in the world, and therefore an unending supply of human resources with which to win glory and acclaim for country and Party. But it is a totally different thing from encouraging ordinary Chinese people to get fitter and healthier.
A gold medal is just a gold medal. It is not of the same order as the well-being of the people, or the fate of the nation. The former Soviet Union won countless gold medals. The gold medals are still there today, but where is the Soviet Union?
China's array of medals and prizes was produced out of the sweat, tears, and lives of generations of athletes and paralympians...You can't use the achievements of our young people to cover up or to dilute the mistakes of the country's leaders.
The Chinese Communist Party has used the Olympics as a way of suppressing all other political duties. It has put all its energy into this for the past decade, emptying out the last drop of strength. All political, economic, propaganda, and diplomatic effort has been channeled into the Olympics. The entire Party and nation has repeated the message about the importance of the Games time and again, an importance which is greater than that of the fight against corruption, disaster relief efforts, human rights, or the livelihood and welfare of ordinary Chinese.
Ordinary citizens pay the price
It is hard to see how the efforts of ordinary people will be repaid. Aside from the more obvious contributions of effort and money from those who have it, there are all those people who have had their land grabbed away from them, or whose homes have been forcibly demolished, or who have been forced to give up their...business. Those who have been forced to return to their hometown as part of the pre-Olympics "clean-up," or those who have been detained against their will. Those who have been forbidden to speak, forbidden to conduct interviews, forbidden to offer legal services, or forbidden from helping people stand up for their civil rights or property.
There is a fly in the ointment, and that lies in the fact that the Chinese government has refused to keep the promises it made to improve human rights and to allow greater press freedom when it applied to host the Games in the first place.
In the eight years since China applied to host the Games, with the continued suppression of human rights and continuing controls on the freedom of the press, those promises have turned into nothing but empty words. And an empty promise is very hard to keep.
Chinese people who have had their rights infringed know it. A lot of the international media know it. Communist Party and government officials know it too, in their heart of hearts. Who would have the gall to propose or second this motion, to talk the empty talk about "the best Olympic Games ever"?
Manufacturing injustice
The best at suppressing the news? Maybe. The best at trampling on people's rights? Perhaps. Even though the curtain has yet to rise on the Olympics, we can say with 100 percent certainty that we have lost all hope of being "the best."
There is one extremely good thing about a one-party system, and that is that it can achieve pretty much anything it wants to. That's why Deng Xiaoping said that China should never go the way of the West, because it was terribly troublesome, and that any attempt to get anything done petered out in argument. That's quite right. Who would have dared to argue with Deng or Mao? That's why Mao announced in 1976 that Deng was an enemy of the people, and why Deng announced in 1989 that Zhao Ziyang was the enemy.
History repeats itself, and the wheel comes full circle. Leaders at every level have to deal with dissenting opinion, and at every level they have the power to brand the other a public enemy. In China, we produce miscarriages of justice and trumped-up charges like a high-intensity industrial zone, rolling them off the conveyor belt at a rate no-one else can match.
We are so efficient at it: Why stop now? It is a task beloved of Chinese officials at every level of leadership. One thing they are particularly good at, for example, is allowing people they like to get rich first. All you need to get a bank loan in the blink of an eye is the favor of a local ranking official. In the blink of another eye, you can acquire a whole state enterprise for the token price of between three and five percent of its market value, which you can then transfer into your own private ownership.
One-party system
In the same blink of the eye, you can get access to a plot of land "approved" for your use, expel a large crowd of people who live on it and farm it, and begin a lucrative career as a property developer. Will anyone make a fuss? Well, that's easy to deal with. In the blink of an eye, anyone making a fuss will have lost their livelihood and received a warning from the authorities. Who will have the courage to publish such a negative news story? That would be revealing state and Party secrets, calling all sorts of trouble down on the heads of the journalist and even the whole newspaper.
In the case of a lawsuit being filed, the lawyer will either be warned off, obstructed at every turn, or have his license to practice taken away, or be convicted himself of a criminal offense. In the case of any mass unrest, the last resort is to send the security forces in to stamp out trouble. There is one of these "mass petitioning incidents" in China every five minutes, 80,000 a year, and they are all the inevitable by-product of a one-party system.
Under today's one-party system, we have a highly efficient system for an exponential increase in the gap between rich and poor, for corruption, state-sponsored robbery, oppression, and for the control of information. All these things fit together seamlessly. This is the human rights record and the state of press freedom against which it will be very hard to gain any improvements. This is the big, bad secret.
The efficiency of the one-party system can be applied in any number of ways. For example, to stop anything from happening that Party leaders do not like. China has been a People's Republic for 59 years now, but we haven't seen any progress in the direction of democracy in any of those years. The only reason China sent a delegate to the United Nations to sign the covenants on human rights back in October 1998 was because of the forthcoming application to host the 2008 Olympics.
Voting with their feet
As soon as the bid was successful, the thing was shoved into the shadows. The National People's Congress was never asked to ratify it. Putting on a show is indeed very efficient. Actually doing something is very inefficient. Thanks to China's one-party system, they really have been able to make a momentary difference to the air quality in Beijing. But as soon as the Games are over, who knows how many lifetimes ordinary Chinese residents will have to wait to get decent air to breathe again.
There is one clear barometer of how good a political system is. It's no good listening to what people say; mouths are very unreliable. You have to look at what the feet are doing. A good system will attract people. People in China may be living quite happily, and foreigners may make light of traveling a thousand miles to visit. But would they want to emigrate here? When they have seen the Olympics, seen the show, and had a chance to understand Chinese people a bit better, and to compare China to their own country, then what? I am certain that while they will say a lot of nice things about China, they are not going to start flooding in to live here. Whereas Chinese people would be leaving in their tens of thousands if the opportunity was there. That is my prediction. History will be the judge of whether I am right or not.
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