April 15, 2008

Move 'Em Out - Lock 'Em Up

Hatched by Sachi

I've been reading comments on my last entry, and I realized that many American readers are unaware of the atrocities committed by China against the Tibetan people in the last month. For that matter, many readers don't know that the Chinese government has been "cracking down" on Chinese dissidents, Christians, Buhddists, bookstore owners, unlicensed pamphleteers -- and even forcibly removing ordinary citizens and demolishing their homes, without compensation, just because they were in the way of new Olympic-related development. And all in the name of renewal for the 2008 summer Olympics.

Shortly after Beijing was selected in 2001 by the International Olympic Committee -- years before the recent Tibetan problems began -- there was already talk of a boycott in the Japanese-language conservative blogsphere. By now, readers must have seen the "Boycott Beijing" logo of Reporters Without Borders:



Olympic handcuffs

Boycott Beijing 2008 logo

Reporters Without Borders, an international organization advocating freedom of the press, has been running a boycott campaign for more than a year now.

Anti-Chinese sentiment is very strong among the Japanese right-wing; many believe fascist Japan's invasion of China in the 1930s actually "rescued" the latter from a state of primitive feudalism, "modernizing" them into the twentieth century. Sound familiar? Although that is a very tendentious reading of history, the antipathy of the Japanese Right towards Communist (or fascist) China today is completely supportable: Whatever some may say, the government is unquestionably evil.

Before I go on, I should tell you a bit about me: I am a naturalized American citizen, but I was born and raised in Japan during the cold war. I have always hated Soviet Communism with a passion, as well as its Chinese cousin. I despise the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, as well as the Cambodian and Vietnamese revolutionary Marxist/Maoist movements.

It shouldn't be necessary to tell you that I do not hate the Chinese people. I have many Chinese friends, such as Mr. Ching; and they hate Communist China more than you can imagine. I am furious at Mao and his successors for what they did to their own people, as well as to others, including Tibetans, Mongolians, and other minor local tribes.

So let me tell you what the ChiComs -- I'm proud to use that word -- have been doing to "prepare" for the Olympics; you may not be quite so quick to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Forcible evictions

The Communist government has been forcibly removing residents unfortunate enough to live on future Olympic sites. Since government-owned construction developers do not sufficiently compensate evicted residents (sometimes not at all), many refuse to move. So what happens? This is what happens.



Olympic removal

Olympic renewal = peasant removal

I found a version of the original article in Japanese; here is my translated summary:

Last November, a married Beijing farm couple, who were protesting the destruction of their home of 30 years, attempted suicide when construction workers tried to remove them by force. Their house was located on the site where the Communists plan to build an expensive condominium for Olympic use. Construction workers had just dug a ditch around the couple's house, totally isolating it.

On November 29th, security guards hired by the construction company cordoned off the area and ordered the couple -- 殷永利, 53 and his wife 廬桂敏, 50 -- to leave. They climbed onto their roof and refused to move. When the workers forcibly tried to get them down, the couple swallowed pesticide. They were immediately carried to a nearby hospital, but the husband is in critical condition. Later that day, their house was completely demolished with everything still inside it.

This is hardly an isolated case. This type of forced eviction has been going on for years:

The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) handed China one of its not-so-prestigious "Housing Rights Violator Awards" in 2005. The Centre's executive director Scott Leckie stated, "The Beijing government has admitted [to] a minimum of 400,000 people [being] moved to create space to build various Olympic venues...."COHER also reports the "800 year old Jiaodoku neighbourhood was flattened in July 2003, destroying over 2,000 households, to make way for Olympics-related construction."

Like the couple above, many citizens who lost their homes resorted to suicide as a form of protest:

Another widely reported protest occurred on October 1, 2003. Beijing resident Ye Guoqiang jumped from the Jinshui Bridge in an attempted suicide to protest how the Chinese government forcefully evicted him from his home to make way for Olympic construction. He survived the fall but was jailed for illegally demonstrating. Apparently Guoqiang was not alone; in November of 2003, over 1,200 Beijing residents signed a petition on the Internet in support of his actions. Seven other protesters were charged with causing social unrest in October 2003, and two more protesters were detained. In 2004, another protestor, Ye Guozhu was detained "and sentenced to four years' imprisonment for protesting against the razing of his home and two of his restaurants." Daily protests against demolition and eviction occurred in Tiananmen Square and the Zhongnanhai Compound from September to December of 2004.

Crackdown on dissidents

Gearing up for the Olympics, China's repression of journalists -- and of many other professions that might offer visiting foreigners a glimpse of China contrary to the government-mandated image -- has gone into full throttle:

"There has been a renewed crackdown on journalists and internet users in the past year -- a fact that makes government commitments to 'complete media freedom' ring hollow," said Catherine Baber. "The current state of affairs runs counter to the most basic interpretation of the 'Olympic spirit' with the 'preservation of human dignity' at its heart...."

As well as carrying out forced evictions from Olympic related sites, Beijing city authorities have decided that in order to clean up the city's image in the run-up to the Olympics, targets of 're-education through labour' -- imprisonment without charge -- should to be expanded to include 'unlawful advertising or leafleting, unlicensed taxis, unlicensed businesses, vagrancy and begging'.

Religious persecution in China is infamous; but it has accelerated in recent years, according to the February 7th, 2008 issue of Christian Post:

China stepped up its crackdown on Christians last year compared to 2006, with an overall increase in reported persecutions of believers, according to the China Aid annual report released Wednesday.

There were a total of 60 cases of known house church persecutions by the government covering 18 provinces and one municipality in 2007, up from 46 cases in 2006, according to the report. The number of people persecuted was 788, up from 665 the previous year, and the number of people arrested and detained increased 6.6 percent, from 650 to 693.

The number of people sentenced or imprisoned decreased slightly from 17 in 2006 to 16 people in 2007....

Besides targeting house church leaders, China focused on disrupting Christian activities occurring in urban areas. Over half of the reported persecution cases occurred in urban areas, accounting for 58.3 percent of the 60 cases. The number of people persecuted in urban areas was 599, which is 76 percent of the total number of those persecuted.

The Chinese government also targeted Christian publications, with seven cases related to the operation, printing, transportation and distribution of Christian literatures.

Here's one amazing bit of news, unknown to those Americans who haven't paid much attention to China in recent years:

A notable case is that of Christian businessman and well-known house church leader Zhou Heng, who was formally arrested on Aug. 31, 2007, for receiving 3 tons of Bibles.

Zhou is the manager of a registered bookstore [!] that sells some Christian books published legally and officially inside China. He was detained when he went to pick up three tons of Bibles at a bus station. The Bibles were reportedly donated by South Korean churches and intended for local believers free of charge. But the government only allows officially sanctioned (state) churches to print and distribute a limited number of Bibles each year.

It is reported that Zhou was beaten in prison severely by inmates and prison guards.
Court officials, after investigating Zhou’s case, returned it to Public Security Bureau (PSB), ruling insufficient grounds for prosecution, according to the latest update. The PSB has neither sentenced nor released Zhou, who remains in detention.

Olympic Tibetan-baiting competition

China controls speech and access to the press; it controls all aspects of politics; it controls sports, and virtually every profession must be licensed and strictly regulated; even bookstores must be registered, and the owners can be arrested for selling unapproved Bibles. The Party controls the religion of their subjects -- and of course, even the number of children families can bear. Chinese are arrested without charge, held for indeterminate sentences, and beaten; they have no recourse at law against the will of the Party.

But thank goodness they're not "totalitarian."

In this context, it is undestandable that the Chinese Communist Party, facing unprecedented foreign-press scrutiny because of the Olympics, would decided to teach Tibetans a lesson in blind obedience, to crack down on whomever may have even thought about conducting an unlawful assembly -- of course, all assemblies are unlawful, unless they have government approval -- or otherwise embarassing the government, say by receiving unlicensed Bibles. But how would the Chinese leadership justify brutalizing people who are known for nonviolence?

In my estimation, the most obvious play would be first to stage a "violent riot" or two in Tibet, led by supposed Buddhist monks... and even one or two violent incidents in foreign countries, supposedly carried out by supporters of Tibetan independence. This would give the elite new media around the world the impression that Tibetans are the real problem, not their Chinese occupiers, oppressers, brutalizers. "They" (those protesting enslavement) are the ones disrupting the Olympics -- not those enslaving them!

How is this any different than saying the civil unrest in America in the late 1950s and early 60s was all the fault of those blacks who didn't know their place -- not those white politicians who enacted Jim Crow laws in the first place?

Judging from some of the comments we received, I must say this Chinese propaganda has worked very well indeed.

Hatched by Sachi on this day, April 15, 2008, at the time of 11:19 PM

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Every so often, I start writing a comment, and it -- well, it just gets away from me. In this case, I believe what I wrote is different enough from the original post by Sachi that it makes sense simply... [Read More]

Tracked on April 16, 2008 3:04 PM

» ミスター苺、親中共コメンターにもの申す! from In the Strawberry Field
English version of this entry can be read at Biglizards.net/blog. 下記はカカシの英語版ブログに寄せられた親中共コメンターのコメントへのミスター苺による反論である。 ************** 中共人権迫害の実態の主題は今日起きているレッドチャイナの暴虐について、特に2008年のオリンピック開催地に選ばれてからの中共の反応について述べることにあった。カカシはいくつもの例をあげて中共の悪行を暴露した。それに対してこのコメンターはこう書い... [Read More]

Tracked on April 20, 2008 10:01 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: nk

Sigh, Sachi. Granting you all your points, won't you agree that the Communists built a China the Chinese people can be proud of? A China entirely different from the one that existed 70 years ago? A world economic and military power? A country which will not be conquered by a neighbor one-twentieth its size? Which will not have its face pushed into the mud by the French, the British or the Dutch for the benefit of their trading companies? Which will no longer be vulnerable to becoming a nation of opium addicts at the point of a gun? Which will not see the beheadings of 100,000 of its civilians in just one city by an occupying army? (I have a WWII gunto. It is in very good, serviceable condition but the hilt is very worn and there are nicks on the "sweet spot" of the blade. I sometimes wonder where it saw so much use.)

I also wonder how many Chinese or even Tibetans want to see their country plunged into violence and chaos for western concepts of freedom and democracy. Or do most of the people have these sentiments? (Mild language warning).

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 5:10 AM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

nk: "Won't you agree that the Communists built a China the Chinese people can be proud of?"

The chicoms murdered north of 40mm Chinese (far far more than were lost in WWII) and utterly destroyed the civilization of ancient China. Two other peoples, non-communist peoples in Hong Kong and Taiwan actually did build a China its peoples could be proud of. They did it without murder and without the stifling pollution.

I am astonished that anybody in the 21st Century would say either that freedom and democracy are western concepts at this point or that they bring violence and chaos. Communist dictatorship brings only the quiet of the grave.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 5:50 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

I seem to be defending communism which is the last thing I want to do. But Hong Kong or Taiwan do not approach China's majesty in today's world.

The evidence for communism so far is that it is not immutable. Or long-lived as either a political or economic system. I expect that in one more generation China will be a much more free and open society and substantially, if not perfectly, democratic.

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 6:43 AM

The following hissed in response by: Seaberry

Shortly after Beijing was selected in 2001 by the International Olympic Committee -- years before the recent Tibetan problems began -- there was already talk of a boycott in the Japanese-language conservative blogsphere. By now, readers must have seen the "Boycott Beijing" logo of Reporters Without Borders:

That was basically my previous points, i.e. that China was selected by the IOC to hold the 2008 Olympics, and talk of a boycott immediately started. Now, with the Olympics almost ready to start, the anti-China frenzy is running overtime…in High Gear.

Politics need to stay out of the Olympics, and make no mistake; this anti-China frenzy is supported by political agendas from many sources and sides. So much for the “Olympic Spirit”.

As you have stated, this anti-China agenda started “years before the recent Tibetan problems began”, and has forced China to respond. I don’t trust any of the info coming from the pro-Tibetan side and/or the anti-China side…pictures can be Photo-shopped and stories can be exaggerated.

These from Stratfor:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5sdaua
http://preview.tinyurl.com/56p4uq

A physical geography map of China and a population density map of China and surrounding countries.

Note that running along the frontier directly south of this border is one of the largest population concentrations in the world. If China were to withdraw from Tibet, and there were no military hindrance to population movement, Beijing fears this population could migrate into Tibet. If there were such a migration, Tibet could turn into an extension of India and, over time, become a potential beachhead for Indian power. If that were to happen, India’s strategic frontier would directly abut Sichuan and Yunnan — the Chinese heartland.

OK…what started as “talk of a boycott in the Japanese-language conservative blogsphere” has now grown into a threat of China’s “heartland”. Look at those maps again…China sees it this way:

The Chinese note that the Dalai Lama has been in India ever since China invaded Tibet. The Chinese regard him as an Indian puppet… their view is that the Indians could shut the Dalai Lama down if they wanted to, and that they don’t signals Indian complicity…the Chinese see the American hand behind this as well. Apart from public statements of support, the Americans and Indians have formed a strategic partnership since 2001… encouraging India and the Dalai Lama to probe the Chinese, partly to embarrass them over the Olympics and partly to increase the stress on the central government…Beijing also notes the similarities between what is happening in Tibet and the “color” revolutions the United States supported and helped stimulate in the former Soviet Union…It is critical to understand that whatever the issues might be to the West, the Chinese see Tibet as a matter of fundamental national security, and they view pro-Tibetan agitation in the West as an attempt to strike at the heart of Chinese national security.

Look at those maps again…China has been invaded many times, by Muslims (Xinjiang is Muslim), by the Japanese, by Mongols, and by “the British and other European powers did on a lesser scale in the 19th century.” Now we have many calling for boycotts of the start of the Olympics, boycotting of the entire Olympics…India and America are pushing Strategic Buttons whilst looking for an opening…etc. and Sheesh!!!

China won the 2008 Olympics…other countries were upset (in some cases upset that they didn’t win it). China has come a long way since the cold war, and that change was reflected in their winning of the 2008 Olympics.

Politics need to stay out of the Olympics…

The above hissed in response by: Seaberry [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 8:01 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Chinese people have only improved since China adopted its policy of the 'rich slave'. It is very clever- permit the people of China to have the illusion of freedom by permitting a bit of prosperity.
The result for the Chinese people is the opportunity work massively hard and to accrue a few trinkets. Until the Chinese rulers decide to take it away.
And as for Tibet, China's illegitmate claim and genocidal rule over Tibet is well documented, no matter how much CNN or google kowtow.
The emerging demographics of China, thanks to its imposed abortion policy and killing of baby girls, means China's future is going to be dark and violent.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 8:28 AM

The following hissed in response by: nk

Hunter,

Yeah, the policy of "one family one male child" is going to turn China into a country of old men soon. But it's ok. Old men die. Which is why I believe China will turn a sharp corner in the next generation.

And, heck, we all pick our own way to Hell. There are scant few countries like America. Brigitte Bardot is on trial in France for "slandering Islam", for crying out loud.

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 9:44 AM

The following hissed in response by: David M

The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 04/16/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

The above hissed in response by: David M [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 16, 2008 10:07 AM

The following hissed in response by: Truth


Great blog and very well researched. I'd like to ask a question of you all, Why is that you haven’t mentioned the persecution of Falun Gong in this post?

Dont know about other posts on your blog but this is central to understanding the evil of the regime. And is something that is unspoken of especially in China as it concerns the Chinese people themselves. Not Tibetans Darfur’s Burmese etc but Chinese citizens.

IN the lead up to games its has been reported that thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been rounded up and their where abouts are unknown. Some have died thru torture and been cremated immediately which is a matter of course to hide the reason of death from the families etc..

www.faluninfo.net
www.falunau.org
http://organharvestinvestigation.net/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/china/article3779899.ece
Yu Zhou dies as China launches pre-Olympic purge of Falun Gong

The appeasement of Chinese officials stops here right on this issue. The threat of the Ccp and its influence on western conscience can easily be remedied by continually exposing this Genocide of innocent Chinese people wherever we can so the fundamental changes can happen in China now in the lead up to the GAmes

The above hissed in response by: Truth [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 22, 2008 11:03 PM

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