Report - 37. page

In June 2008, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders published its 2007 World Human Rights Report. A collaborative project between the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) and the Geneva-based World Organization Against Torture, the Report is one of the most important human rights reports in the world. The 2007 report enumerated how the Chinese government further repressed dissidents and arrested protesters before the Olympics. Mr. Wei Jingsheng wrote the preface for the China section of the 2007 International Human Rights Report. [1] The following is the translation of the preface.

The Power of Death Penalty Review Taken Back by the Supreme Court

In the most recent two to three years, China’s human rights made a great leap backward with minor improvements in certain aspects. The minor improvements manifested in the return of the authority to review the death penalty to the Supreme Court. Starting from Deng Xiaoping’s era, the authority to approve the death penalty, as stipulated in Criminal Law, was given to the provincial level, and even the local level. As a result, there was a plethora of executions. A great number of local officials applied the death penalty to a wide range of criminals, for political motives or personal vengeance; moreover, they even created false or unjust charges to achieve private goals. The executions in China have therefore constituted more than three fourths of those for the entire world.

Under international and domestic pressure, and especially harsh criticism from human rights organizations in other countries, the Chinese government was forced to do something on this issue. From last year, the authority to review the death penalty was finally returned to the Supreme Court, in accordance with the Criminal Law. Judicial organizations privately estimated that the number of death penalties will drop dramatically over the next several years. It will be much more difficult for local officials to unjustly frame people or create false cases. This is a great achievement of international human rights effort.

However, other than that, China’s human rights situation took a great leap backward. The two major regressions lie in two aspects.

Freedom of Speech Regressed Dramatically

The Chinese Communist authorities impose censorship and punishment on all media. They force media professionals to edit the news according to the requirements of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Freedom of the press has dropped to the lowest level in the whole world. Opinion articles have greatly decreased; those left from censorship have had to closely follow the party line. Especially for electronic (Internet) media, in addition to imposing self-censorship on these online media, the authorities have applied the most powerful Internet censorship and blockage in the world. All statements not in accordance with the CCP’s propaganda requirements cannot even reach Internet users in China.
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Those who have attempted to break through the censorship, including journalists, editors and freelance writers, have often encountered ruthless repression: their jobs taken away, they themselves personally assaulted by the mafia, or sent to prison. It is especially noteworthy that when the CCP’s special agents search for those dissident media professionals and impose Internet censorship, some western enterprises have given them a helping hand, causing many innocent people jailed.

Human Rights Defendants Are Brutally Persecuted

The Chinese people’s movement to defend their basic rights has been growing rapidly. During this period, the number and scale of such movements has multiplied every year, producing many human rights lawyers and group leaders. With their leadership and advice, the human rights defending movements have become more effective. It is a unique phenomenon in today’s China: the government does not take responsibility to protect its people, and more and more officials have become accomplices of the evil force. The Chinese people are forced to become organized, defend their rights, and come up with their own leaders.

To repress the human rights defending movement, the CCP went from its traditional, random suppression, to well-planned, systematic suppression with a clear agenda. On the one hand, additional 200,000 troops of People’s Armed Police are equipped with the most modern weapons, collaborating with local military police force to construct a powerful state machinery to suppress people’s rights movement. On the other hand, the regime tried to exterminate all group leaders and human rights defenders. The human rights defendants were routinely physically tortured and mentally devastated; many political prisoners lost the ability to take care of their own daily lives.

Especially in the past year, in order to make sure all voices suppressed during the Olympics, the government escalated its persecution, and expanded its target to include western athletes, media and tourists. In a handful of western countries, western politicians even collaborated with such suppression. For example, Belgium, Great Britain and New Zealand attempted to stop their athletes from voicing their political views during the Olympic Games.

We have sound reason to believe that the victims of this suppression are not just the Chinese people; the suppression has extended to every corner around the globe.

Endnote:
[1] Beijing Spring, September 2008
http://beijingspring.com/bj2/2008/140/200882831658.htm
Beijing Spring is a Chinese-language monthly magazine dedicated to the promotion of human rights, democracy and social justice in China. Founded in June 1993, it is published in New York and distributed throughout the world.

China mobilized the whole country to participate the Olympics, both ideologically and physically. Below contains a document of a grass-root level government in Fangshan District, Beijing on how to implement the measures of ensuring a “successful” Olympics as instructed by the upper level government.  The document is abridged. [1]

The Implementation Measures of The People’s Government of Dashiwo Township on the Working Plan of Olympic Security Measures and Complete Control of the Society

Document No. 27 [2008] of the People’s Government of Dashiwo Township

Dashiwo Township

Date: July 7, 2008

In order to ensure the absolute security of the 2008 Olympic Games and complete the task of protecting specific area by covering the entire region, we have formulated implementation measures for the security of our region according to The Fangshan District Working Plan of Olympic Security Measures and Complete Control of the Society and considering our situation.

II.    Task Objectives and Working Principles

1.       Objectives of the Measures:

The detailed task objectives of the measures are: no big incidents; reducing minor incidents; strict management; good social order, and “The Eight Guarantees.”

“No big incidents” means no terrorist acts that endanger the community security, no destructive events by hostile forces or Falun Gong or other cults; no large-scale social unrests; no major accidents involving group deaths or casualties or involving the Olympics or foreigners.  “Reducing minor incidents” means to reduce all kinds of street incidents, property trespass, criminal cases from the public security problems; reduce all kinds of disputes and appeal cases; and reduce all kinds of general safety and security incidents.

 “The Eight Guarantees” include:

1)    To guarantee complete implementation of our town’s security measures; maintain social stability and a secured environment, and have no occurrence of significant crimes or events that disturb social stability;
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2)    To guarantee complete implementation the measures for water, electricity, transportation, finance, postal services, and other important departments, and no severe theft or destruction activities;
3)    To guarantee the effectiveness of monitoring “The Falun Gong” diehards, and achievement of the two “Zero-Tolerance Targets” (No one goes to appeal in Beijing, and no illegal television signal interceptions);
4)    To guarantee there will not have massive group appeals, appeals that skip the process, or major repetitive appeals;
5)    To guarantee the safety of food productions; strengthen the sanitary inspections of the food industry, and prevention of occurrence of major epidemics or diseases;
6)    To guarantee the security of the thousand-year ancient Yunju Temple; no occurrence of vicious cases or high profile incidents that involves foreign athletes or international and domestic tourists;
7)    To guarantee the safety of the construction sites and coal mines; tightly control lethal chemicals, explosives and other dangerous products, and have no major safety incidents.
8)    To guarantee complete implementation of all the fire prevention measures and proper prevention of forest fires and fires in the communities.

2.       The Working Principles.

During the Olympic games, the control measures should follow the policies listed below:

1)    Adhere to the principles of holding leaders of the working units and various villages responsible;
2)    Adhere to the principle of stringent management and enhancement of primary forces formed by the local police station, the joint public security teams and patrol squads;
3)    Adhere to the principle of overall controls targeting key areas of villages and the people;
4)    Adhere to the principle of relying on people and mobilizing all positive elements in the neighborhood to ensure participation of all in the communities in the security work

III.    The Commanding Structure

Establish the Olympics Security Supervisory Groups to be responsible for leadership and coordination for security of our town during the Olympics. Next, set up a headquarters as a platform for resource deployment, information exchanges, and implementation of decisions for the area, and carry out the measures.
 
1.    Dashiwo Town Olympic Security Supervisory Group

2.    Dashiwo Town Olympic Security Operational Command
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Establish Security Operational Command for Dashiwo Town. Under the leadership of Dashiwo Town Olympic Games Security Supervisory Group, the Operational Command will be responsible for overall planning, plan formulating, issuing, organizing and implementing the measures for the safety of the entire region during the Olympics.  It will also direct all villages, units and all other departments to completely control the society.

The Security Operational Command has 5 teams:

1)    The Comprehensive Coordination Team: primarily responsible for making, issuing the working plan for complete control of the society, adjusting manpower, materials and financial resources, coordinating relationship among local organizations, departments and within the headquarters.   It will hold daily briefings of intelligence collect and analyze information from various sources and promptly find solutions to ensure scientific and highly effective processing of the information.
2)    The Monitoring Team: Primarily responsible for monitoring the security work of the entire community area during the Olympics, monitoring entire town’s local units and public security and potential dangers, inspect the implementation of security measures and provide feedback in time, organizing cadres to into inspectors with one for each key village.
3)    Intelligence Team:  Primarily responsible for collecting and analyzing information, determining important and difficult issues and providing solutions to prevent, timely analyzing and providing security data to assist town leaders in their decision making, publishing regional control measures related statistical data to guide local security work. During the Olympics, every morning and evening, local level situation, the entire security resource deployment, work progress, and all relevant information should be reported on time. The sensitive and urgent information should be reported immediately. Also compile special reports, periodically summarize and report various task information.  Coordinate with the schedules of the Olympics as well as releasing bulletins for the targeted areas every three or five or seven days.
4)    Emergency Team: Primarily responsible for handling significant, emergent events during the Olympic Games to ensure the personnel arrive promptly and process quickly when such an event happen.
5)    Logistics Support Team: Primarily responsible for logistics to ensure sufficient supplies of food, lodging, and transportation for all the personnel.

IV.    Allocation Of Anti-Terrorist Forces

Under the township, the Security Operational Command deploys and arranges public security police forces, professional and concurrent task security patrol troops, security patrol volunteers, management forces in all functional departments, social unit security forces and other social forces that specialized in mass prevention forces, holds coordinated prevention and control activities, strengthens social security and maintains stabilized working systems, focuses on important aspects under the achievement of an overall control to achieves all-weather, all-directional, and long-term prevention and management.
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  1.  Overall Allocation Of Basic Anti-Terrorist Forces.

During the Olympics, there are three levels of the security work for the Township:  conventional, strengthened and superior prevention and control.  The requirements for different level of prevention and control are:

1)    Conventional Prevention: No less than five persons, 227 (60%) professional full and part time security officers on duty, at least 595 (50%) security patrol volunteers on duty, and regular daily staffing for government personnel, local police and other assisting forces.
2)    Strengthened Prevention and Control: No less than eight patrol police on duty; 302 (80%) professional full and part time security officers on duty; at least 952 (80%) security patrol volunteers on duty.  Government personnel, local police and all other assisting forces will be provided as needed.
3)    Superior Prevention and Control: No less than 12 patrol police on duty; 378 (100%) professional full and part time security officers on duty; at least 1,191 (100%) security patrol volunteers on duty.  Government personnel, local police and all other assisting forces will be deployed at key areas and districts.

2.  Detailed Deployment of Major Prevention and Control Force.

1)    Professional police patrol.  It primarily local police stations.

2)    Professional full and part time security officers. It is the Township’s overall security department and the security task station at villages.

•    Establish a twenty-three person Township patrol team. Establish twenty-four village patrol teams, one for each village.  These teams are identified by codes assigned by the Township security office.
•    Each member is assigned a number and grouped into teams at villages.  Township will appoint team leaders.  Teams work under the direction of local police, village authorities and professional security officers.

3)    Security Patrol Volunteer Troop

The Security Patrol Volunteer Troop is mainly under the jurisdiction of the village commission. Under the leadership of the village cadres and overall security workstation leader, village commissions assign the 1,191 staff that wear red armband.  They targeting on the important village areas and its targeted persons in their neighborhood.  Divided into squad, they are responsible for a few districts or important prevention areas, and monitoring the targets at fixed locations.
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4)    The Community Security Force

This is under Township Commission.  It should establish a joint force including professional security officers at various organizations, appoint liaison officers and implement united defense; strengthen the combined efforts of the security and defense among the communities; to participate in the effort to build to the maximum extent a joint force of all security forces in the society, and to maintain complete control.

V.    Task Requirements

1.    Leaders at all levels must take this safe Olympics campaign as a political task with heightened sense of political responsibility and sense of mission.  They should take it as the priority of the Party; establish an Olympics Security Task Leadership Team, and implement strategies and solutions.
2.    Under the leadership of the Olympics Security Task Leadership Team and its Operational Command, the five teams should carry out various tasks, each responsible for its own activities.  Villages, work units and departments should do well the Olympics security work in according with the requirements Olympics Security Task Leadership Team.
3.    Strengthen the control of cadres at the Township and villages.  Adhere to the principle of “whoever in shall be accountable.”  During the sensitive period, the leaders should be on duty and be responsible. During the Olympic Games, the Township’s top leaders will not allowed to have out of town travel.  The Township’s security leader group should inspect the duty log to ensure performance.  The cadres of the Township and villages should guarantee the flow of information, and in times of emergency, react, be on site immediately and handle it promptly.
4.    Perfect the accountability system of leaders and one vote can veto the annual performance award at villages, work units and departments if there are incidents that impact the security of Olympic Games. Those who do not perform well, or fail to handle properly and cause major, severe ramifications will be subject to fines, and Party and administrative disciplinary actions.

Endnote:
[1] Beijing, Fangshan District Info Net, July 7, 2008
http://sfj.bjfsh.gov.cn/zwgk/dwwj/fsdshwzh/63491.html

On August 3, 2008, Hong Kong’s Open Magazine published an article titled, “The Dark Plot behind China’s Gold Medals,” which revealed the defects in China’s current sports system. The following is a translation. [1]

The Dark Plot behind China’s Gold Medals

Cai Yongmei    Open Magazine
August 3, 2008

Regarding the current Beijing Olympics, many people have guessed whether or not China will replace the U.S. as the world’s sports champion and be crowned as the winner of the most gold medals. Facing China’s push, the U.S. Olympics Committee executive director Seiler said that, the U.S. Olympic team has already been psychologically prepared to lose its lead position in gold medals during the Beijing Olympics.

Since joining the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, China’s trend in acquiring gold and silver medals has been swift and fierce, developing with an amazing speed. In the 2004 Athens Olympics, China jostled Russia over, claiming second in international sports. Receiving thirty-two gold medals, China was only four behind the thirty-six-gold-medal-winner, the United States, which was at the top of the list. However, this time, since China has the advantage of being the host country, the number of gold medals should advance, and it shouldn’t be surprising if it surpasses the U.S.

A Sports Official Openly Describes the “Whole Nation System”

China’s ability to leap forward in just twenty some years to become one of a few highly competitive athletic countries, and a controlling force in international Olympics, has depended on its special sporting system – the “whole nation system.” After the Athens Olympics, China’s State Physical Cultural Administration’s (SPCA) Deputy Director-General Cui Dalin frankly acknowledged, “If it weren’t for the ‘whole nation system,’ we wouldn’t have been able to accomplish such a magnificent achievement.”

The so-called “whole nation system,” according to a Chinese official’s explanation, “refers to the circumstance where the country’s synthesized strength is still relatively weak. Therefore, in order to make breakthroughs in a short amount of time, it adopts an organizational system that centralizes the manpower, physical resources and financial resources of the entire country.” Simply put, “the “whole nation system” mobilizes the entire society’s financial and physical resources to train a small number of elite athletes in order to capture the most number of medals and cups in large-scale international competitions. The system, because of the country’s absolute control and monopoly ability and its inexhaustible financial resources, can indeed transform it from one that may not correspond to the country’s national strength, to one in which people’s physical qualities and sporting level are at the summit of major international competition in a short amount of time.
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This system was founded by the Soviets in the 50’s and later imitated by an overwhelming majority of communist, totalitarian countries. Flagship countries include the former Soviet Union, the former East Germany, the former Romania and so on. However, after the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Block, China remained the only follower. Other countries such as Cuba and North Korea are too small to be worth mentioning.

The “whole nation system” values only Olympic gold metals. The country completely controls and monopolizes the sporting system. Therefore, it violates the universal free spirit of sports.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) acknowledges publicly that this system’s purpose, at its highest level, is precisely to bring about Olympic glory. If we make a comparison, it can be said that Chinese sports is a national act whereas western sports is a social act; in China, the government operates sports, whereas in the West, people take charge of sports; in China, it is elite athletic sports whereas in the West, it is popular fitness sports. Foreign Olympic committees are independent non-governmental organizations; however, the Chinese Olympic Committee and China’s highest bureaucracy that manages the sporting enterprise, The CCP Physical Cultural Administration, are two in one, or a two-labeled group.

In fact, many years ago, many domestic men of insight criticized this sports-spirit-killing system and demanded change. In broad summary, the “whole nation system” has the following defects:

Using Massive National Resources to Develop Athletic Sports

Firstly, there is a serious imbalance in the use of national resources. Every year billions of Yuan have been spent to train elite athletes and develop athletic sports, but sports, hobbies and the fitness needs of the general public have been seriously neglected and even ignored.

In 2004, the State Auditing Administration disclosed that the SPCA used the special Olympics fund to construct housing for SPCA staff members. When talking about its funds, the SPCA said that the Ministry of Finance directly allocated sports facility construction (sports schools nationwide and various provincial sports teams and facilities) the special fund and expenditures for national athletes and coaches in training for and competing in the Olympics and Asian Games and other such functions, directly to the SPCA. It was apparent that the country’s sport funds were only concentrated on national athletes whereas the populace has not benefited even a bit.

According to the U.S.’s Times Magazine, the SPCA annual budget used to be 428 million USD. In order to prepare for the Beijing Olympics, its annual budget increased to 714 million USD thereafter. The SPCA’s Sports Science Research Bureau chief disclosed that every gold medal won in international competition cost 7 million USD. Foreign media have estimated that the Beijing Olympics cost at least 40 billion USD.
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Critics have pointed out that the SPCA’s funds are taxpayers’ money. Spending all of it on elite athletes results in a serious shortage of popular sports facilities. Many citizens who love sports but who are not included in the system feel powerless and frustrated. It is a waste of taxpayer resources.

Hundreds of Thousands of Athletes Have Become Sacrificial Victims

A second defect is that in mobilizing the manpower of the entire country, the large scale selection of young people with athletic talents, and carrying on enclosed training for the sole purpose of letting a small number of elite athletes compete for awards has sacrificed hundreds of thousands of young athletes and has even caused lifelong injuries in many athletes, destroying their lives.

In order to train gold medal contestants, China has been using the tactics of a sea of humans. From strict physical examination testing of elementary and middle school students, those with potential are selected and sent to sports schools in various places where they undergo enclosed training in social isolation. There are over 3,000 youth sports schools with almost 400,000 youths (the youngest of whom are only 7 or 8 years of age). The cream of the students are then selected from among these young athletes to be especially trained to participate in major national and international sports competitions.

Time Magazine recently paid a visit to three sports schools in Shan Dong Province: the Qingdao Sports School (one of the key sports schools where China trains Olympics contestants), the Weifang Sports School and the Luneng Pingpang School. It mentioned a 14-year-old countryside girl, Chen Yun. After testing for shoulder width, length of legs and waist size, she was considered to have potential and was chosen for weight-lifting training. Another youth was selected for archery because of his ability to focus, his shoulder width, and his good eyesight. All of them were chosen, even though they knew little about these sports before and had not expressed any interest. Those with quickness of speed and superb hand-eye coordination were sent to practice ping pong. Time Magazine also added that school slogans and propaganda posters all emphasized, “Win glory for the motherland.”

All three of these schools are dormitory schools. Students at the Luneng Ping Pong School can only get together with their parents two weeks every month. Students train for at least five to six hours a day, even including the evenings. Although the school told the Time Magazine reporter that students have academic classes the majority of the time, and that training was only after school, the reporter found, to her surprise, that there was not a single textbook in the school. A youth who was practicing running told the reporter that his daily life besides running was sleep.

The brutal fact is, other than very few elite of the elites, most of these young athletes won’t ever see a competition until the day they win for their country. Moreover, even for those who have won glory, but aren’t sports stars, their fate is possibly very pitiful. China’s Sports Newspaper reported that 80% of retired athletes had trouble making a living because of illiteracy and not having a single skill. Among them, many ended up with a body full of ailments due to excessive training; some, like the former national weight-lifting champion, Zou Chunlan, have even become paralyzed.
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Weight-Lifting Champion Zou Chunlan’s Tragedy

The female Jilin Sports Team weight lifter, Zou Chunlan, was once a national champion, who received seven medals all together and had broken a world record. After retiring in 1993, because she only had a third-grade education, she could only go to the bathhouse to labor as a masseuse. Her life was full of disappointments. She was even more miserable because after joining the sports team at age sixteen, she was made to take “Dabuli,” a masculine hormone, once a day, every day for six years. The hormone in her body made her assume male characteristics. After marriage, she could not give birth. She had to retire because her entire body was damaged. Her muscles lost elasticity, so she couldn’t lift weights anymore. Zou Chunlan told reporters that many retired athletes have similar experiences. According to a report, 3,000 athletes retire in China every year.

Critics point out that the third defect in the whole nation system is the formation of a huge triangular special interest group consisting of sports stars, coaches and the sports bureaucrats. Gold medals bring the athletes and the coaches great fame and fortune. As a result, sports bureaucrats have successful official careers. Therefore the “whole nation system,” which resorts to all means to pursue gold medals, has also become a catalyst to the Chinese sports world’s corruption. In 2005 scandals about predetermined gold medals and fake matches rocked the 10th Chinese National Games. Public opinion clamored, and the sports world self-criticized. Most people believed that the cups-and-medal mania promoted by the “whole nation system” played a key role, resulting in a decline in sportsmanship in national competitions.

When examining the Chinese “whole nation system,” Chinese domestic media didn’t dare to touch the big scandals related to banned drugs. There is massive evidence that the rapid improvement of Chinese sports teams in the 80’s and 90’s, particularly for female athletes’ forward leap, was related to the scandal of banned drugs.

The Scandal of Female Chinese Athletes Taking Banned Drugs

During the 90’s, the Chinese women’s swim team dominated international sports, taking the world by surprise. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Chinese women won four gold, five silver and one bronze medal. In the 1994 World Swimming Championships in Rome, seven Chinese women unexpectedly captured twelve of the sixteen available gold metals and also broke several world records. The rapid rise was followed by a quick fall because no one believed the Chinese women swimmers depended on their own strength. In the ensuing 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Chinese contestants revealed their true colors. Altogether eleven tested positive for banned drugs, and all their medals were revoked. Among them were world swimming champions Lu Bin and Yang Aihua. After China lost face, it also strengthened drug testing internally. Wu Yanyan, who once broke the women’s 2,000-meter individual mix swimming world record, also tested positive and couldn’t attend the Sydney Olympics. After the Hiroshima drug scandal, Chinese women swimmers’ accomplishments quickly declined to their original level. In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, they won only one gold and one silver medal. In the Sydney Olympics, Chinese women swimmers didn’t win a single gold medal. In the Athens Olympics, the only women’s swimmer gold medalist, Luo XueJuan, acknowledged publicly that the Chinese swimming team wasn’t clean.
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In the mid 90’s, the once renowned Ma Team (The Liaoning Province track and field team was named Ma Team after their trainer Ma Junren) suddenly produced a group of world-class medium-distance women runners. Many women won gold metals in many major world games. The most renowned, Wang Junxia, won the women’s 5,000-meter gold in the Atlanta Olympics. It was always said that Ma Junren made the women athletes take tonics.

In 2000, many world champions from this track and field team were not selected to represent China in the Sydney Olympics. Many rumors were spread related to athletes taking stimulants, but the CCP never gave a clear explanation. Yet Ma Jiajun continued to hold the post of deputy director of the Liaoning Province’s Physical Cultural Committee. Until his retirement in 2004, he was still responsible for the medium-distance running athletes’ training. By then, Ma Junren was already worth tens of millions. Today it is generally believed that the Ma Team’s athletic achievements increased because they used banned drugs.

Moreover, in the West, drug scandals usually reflect an individual athlete’s personal behavior, but in China, it is an official behavior in which the country’s sports bureaucracy has played a key role. Zou Chunlan disclosed that in the Jilin Sports Team, the coach made them take Dabuli, telling them that it was a nutritional supplement for body nourishment. After taking it, they grew body hair and even mustaches; their voices grew deeper. Only then did the coach tell them that it was a male hormone, but he said that it was harmless to the body. They were all very afraid, but very helpless. Only a small number of people secretly discarded the drugs. Zou Chunlan said that they stopped taking it a half-month before the competition. Then they were injected with a “cover-up agent” in order to hoodwink the drug tester.

After Zou Chunlan disclosed the banned drugs, Jilin Province’s Physical Culture Commission threatened her, saying that if she disclosed the inside story again, it would indicate that all her gold medals were fake.

China Employees Notorious East German Trainer

Starting in 1985, after the employment of the infamous East German sports doctor Rudolf, Chinese women swimmers improved by leaps and bounds. In the next year, the Chinese women’s swim team, in a born-again fashion, defeated Asia’s former swim champion, Japan, in international competitions.

It can be said that former East Germany serves as a model for China’s “whole nation system.” Before its collapse, East Germany, the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, were the top three great athletic nations in the world. In a period of twenty years, the Olympic medals it obtained was number three in the world, and was only inferior to the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Its women’s swimming and track and field were most remarkable. Later Chinese women contestants also amazed the world by using banned drugs. After Germany reunified, this East German miracle was exposed. It turned out the gold medals were bolstered with banned drugs. East German authorities had made at least ten thousand athletes systematically take banned drugs for a long time, and had conducted systematic research and implementation on how to effectively hoodwink competition drug tests. Banned drugs made in East Germany shine brightly in Olympics, but have also caused more than 100 athletes’ sudden deaths and innumerable athletes’ lifelong disabilities. Many women athletes have displayed male characteristics and have lost the ability to give birth. After the reunification, athlete victims brought the East Germany sport minister and medical consultant, Manfred Ewald, to court and asked for compensation.
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According to mainland Chinese reports, the magic weapon brought by this invited Dr. Rudolf  were precisely the same plateau training, the blood lactic acid examination, and the banned stimulants. After the unification of East and West Germany, several thousand East Germany trainers became unemployed. Some were cordially invited to China and became the secret weapon behind Chinese women swimmers’ explosive achievement, but they also brought the banned drug scandals to China. In the past ten years, twenty-seven Chinese women athletes were unable to pass drug tests. This number surpassed the total sum of all other nations combined.

Domestic Voices of Anti-Whole Nation System Surface

In fact, the SPCA still employees these infamous East German drug trainers. In February 2006, Shanghai’s DongfangLuzhou Training base, a key swim base to train for the Beijing Olympics was unveiled. Overseas people found that the German flume trainer, Helga Pfeiffer, was the infamous former East Germany swimming project banned-drug expert, director of the East Germany banned-drug research institution, 415 Research Group director, and East Germany’s swimming team head coach. She was known as the stimulant queen. In the East German secret police file, she was an important member of the central sports drug management program. After East and West Germany reunified, she was accused of using banned drugs that cruelly harmed young people’s bodies, but because she was overseas (possibly in China), she escaped from trial.

After the scandalous tenth National Games, some domestic dissenting voices surfaced. They criticized the current “whole nation system,” demanded that the trophy-focused “whole nation system” be abandoned, and advocated following the policies of other countries that put sports in the service of strengthening people’s health. But after China won the bid to host the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese regime’s unrelenting goal became winning glory for the Olympics and struggling with the U.S. for the largest number of gold medals. This monstrous “whole nation system” was carried out with further intensity and with more national resources put into the bottomless pit of struggling for gold medals.

Time Magazine said that China’s gold medal strategy is to put the main investments in those sports that are easiest to win and with the most number of medals. For instance, weight lifting and fencing has ten gold metals, rowing has sixteen gold metals. Although these sports are very unpopular and have nothing to do with the Chinese populace’s interest in sports, the authorities invested numerous resources. Moreover, compared with the West, China has put more resources into women’s sports because women’s sports win more medals than men’s. In the Athens Olympics, Chinese women won 60% of the gold medals won by China.

After the 2002 Asian Games, China proposed a “119 project,” i.e. contending for the 119 (now 120) gold medals in the three major sports of track and field, swimming, and aquatics, and using it to represent to the world that China is a reputable, athletically powerful nation, and not just an opportunist that only monopolizes unpopular sports.
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Can this grand scheme be realized? We’ll only know afterwards. However, learning from China’s “whole nation system” and from the former East Germany, a miracle should not be surprising, but its price and consequences will be difficult to calculate.

In the final analysis, China’s “whole nation system” that takes Olympic medals as its highest objective is nothing but an inheritance from Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It uses sports achievements as a sharp weapon to strengthen the ruler’s ideology, to solidify people’s will, and to demonstrate China’s national strength to foreigners. During Mao Zedong’s time, this ideology was communism. In today’s China, it is nationalism. Although criticism resounds from all directions, suggesting that such a sports system cannot continue, the SPCA Deputy Director-General Cui Dalin said, “In my own opinion, I hope the ‘whole nation system’ will persist after the 2008 Olympics.”

Endnote:
[1] Open Magazine, August 3, 2008
http://www.open.com.hk/0808p29.html

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), terrorists are not really scary, but instead all the kinds of social conflicts piled up in China and their great threats against the authorities are. Olympic security gives the CCP a pompous reason to suppress different kinds of groups against them. Starting the “People’s War” actually establishes a “one-on-one” surveillance system at the grassroots level around the nation. If any unstable factor occurs at its early stage, it could be suppressed right away. Below is the translation of the article on the “people’s war” against terrorism published on Xinhua News Net. [1]

Beijing Kicks Off ‘People’s War’ Against Terrorism

By Intern Reporter Deng Yuan and Reporter Xiao Deng of International Pioneer Newspaper from Beijing

Silver high-voltage wires are standing crowdedly along the road and you can spot a security guard post every ten meters [33 feet] apart. The armed army police patrol, march, or stand in soldier poses, watching alertly at the vehicles passing by.

That was the scene that Chen Mei saw at the Beijing Capital Airport Highway on her way from Beijing to Xi’an on July 16, 2008. “Very shocking!” she said. “With this kind of scale of security force, the international athletes should feel secure and worry-free in Beijing.”

Not only the army police are at action. On July 17, 2008, the Chinese Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau printed and distributed “Citizens on Prevention of Terrorism Attack Pamphlet” which guides the citizens on how to discover terrorists and prevent the dangers of terrorist attacks. “Stimulate the whole society to participate in anti-terrorism activities, you may say this is a people’s war against terrorism,” famous anti-terrorism expert and the director of the China Modern International Relationship Research Academy Safety and Strategy Research Institute, Li Wei, told the International Pioneer Newspaper.

Citizen Anti-Terrorism Pamphlet Out Before Olympics

The Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau organized dedicated professionals to write and edit the “Citizens on Prevention of Terrorism Attack Pamphlet.” It focuses on how citizen could discover, distinguish, and react to terrorists and their activities. It designs a total of 39 scenarios, such as how to react when encountering explosions; arson; gun shots; kidnappings; chemical, biological and radiation attacks; how to save oneself and save each other in emergencies; how to distinguish suspicious explosive materials; etc.  
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The pamphlet also reminds the citizens of seven “No”s when encountering arson so to reduce the damage by the largest scale. The seven “No”s include “Don’t panic,” “Don’t cry blindly,” “Don’t be attached to money or belongings,” “Don’t open the door or window randomly,” “Don’t ride on the elevator,” “Don’t run randomly,” and “Don’t jump out of buildings easily.” The contents relate closely with ordinary citizens. It describes details of emergency situations easily happening in daily life and the citizens’ reaction strategies.

It was reported by Xinhua News Agency that the pamphlet reminds how to distinguish the suspicious explosive materials: under the condition of not touching the suspicious materials, first see, second listen, and third smell. If you smell the smell of the rotten eggs, it could be black power; if you smell the smell of ammonia, it could be ammonia dynamite.

“The knowledge in the pamphlet is very close to daily life and it very easy to operate,” some media commented. But from Li Wei’s point of view, the introduction of this pamphlet is right on time, since the Public Safety Department Anti-Terrorism Bureau put it on its agenda when it was founded. “How to utilize the public for anti-terrorism is a long-term question in the mind of related departments,” Li Wei said, pushing this pamphlet to the public before the Olympic games with no question of the benefits of utilizing the whole society’s power to eliminate terrorism at its early stages.

Whole Society in Action on Anti-Terrorism

In fact, before this professional pamphlet was published, the whole society’s atmosphere on anti-terrorism in Beijing had started to grow and move out.

Xu Rui is a pulmonary internal medicine doctor from the Beijing Fengtai Hospital living in Shijinghshang District in Beijing. From the middle of June 2008, she went to work half an hour earlier than her regular schedule, since she had an extra task in the mornings at her hospital: study the “Medical Guide on How to Deal with Nuclear Terror.”

At the beginning of July 2007, Xu Rui and her colleagues, along with other medical workers from other hospitals, all participated in the test on anti-nuclear terror knowledge for the Olympics and Paralympics organized by the Beijing Hygiene Bureau. Talking about the half-month study, Xu Rui said, “Getting to know a lot about how to deal with the nuclear terror attack, most of the emergency methods could be quickly reacted. Even if I encountered an emergency situation now, I would not be panicked.”

Besides the medical workers, every Olympic volunteer also has a copy of “Medical Knowledge and Emergency Rescue.”
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Liao Nan, an Olympic volunteer from Renmin University of China, was in training for the second time. She got up at 7 a.m. sharp every morning and returned to her dormitory at
6 p.m. She was reciting the stadium “Emergency Exiting Routine” for the last two days. “Although we are not going to participate in the anti-terrorism drill, we still have to recite the emergency exiting routine,” she said. “This way, when danger occurs, we volunteers would be able to stay calm and strictly follow the routine.”
 
At every subway station in Beijing, all kinds of safety routines are set. “Fellow student, please put your bag in the screening machine,” a staff member politely reminded Yu Min when she was carrying a bag of print materials going into a subway station. “I heard two beeps, a fruit knife was found in a person’s bag,” Yu Min said. “That person was allowed to enter the subway after giving up that [knife].”

On July 20, 2008, the first day that Beijing started to implement the odd-even car plate rules, the cars on the street were much fewer than usual. Staff with red arm bands were much more. I trotted on the street for a while. On West Xuanwumen Road, one elderly man was happily talking to his coworkers about his “patrol work.”

Early this year, Zhang Yue, the former deputy director of the Beijing Police Department, was transferred to be the director of the Hebei Province Police Department. Experts interpreted this change as “a very important arrangement for the reinforcement of the Beijing-Hebei alliance for the safety of the Olympics.” Now, the barricades were set up on the roads at most villages in Hebei Province. Strange vehicles were not allowed to enter the villages. Some new safety equipment was set up on the main roads going through Beijing.

The whole society’s consciousness and atmosphere on anti-terrorism is quietly spreading from the center, Beijing.

Government Leads Whole Society on Anti-Terrorism

When talking about the stronger and stronger whole-society’s atmosphere on anti-terrorism, Li Wei, on his business trip in Luo Yang, felt really happy.

Since 2001, the Chinese government set up anti-terrorism agencies at different levels, one after another. The Foreign Minister also set up a section responsible for overall overseas security matters. The anti-terrorism system keeps getting better and better. “But these are still far from enough,” Li Wei said. According to international anti-terrorism experience, anti-terrorism is not only the government’s responsibility, but also closely related to the public, since “the targets of terrorist attacks would first be everyday people.”
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Li Wei pointed out that anti-terrorism has two aspects, one is the elimination of the existing terrorists and terrorist organizations, and another is the elimination of the source that nurtures the terrorism. For the first one, it mainly depends on government agencies, including intelligence, police, public safety, army police, and even army to attack them. But no matter how strong these anti-terrorism agencies are, they all have their limits. “These special professionals could not expand without limits, neither could they reach every aspect in society.”

On the other hand, if the public improve their consciousness, it would suppress terrorist groups’ purpose to panic the public. “Government leads, the public participates, the combination of two would eliminate the source of terrorists,” Li Wei said.

So, what can everyday people do? Li Wei believes that the power of people would be shown on powerful monitoring and prevention, “such as, people could discover suspicious persons, things, or incidents around them and report to the anti-terrorist security agencies, that would be a very efficient way of public anti-terrorism.”

[1] Endnote: Xinhua, July 22, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-07/22/content_8743975.htm

In order to ensure a “safe Olympics,” the Chinese government is drawing on troops from the infantry, navy, and air force. The troops involve four military districts and divisions that are directly under the navy, air force, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) headquarters, including professional forces such as the air corps, engineer corps, antichemical warfare corps, and medical service squad. The government has also employed fighter planes, helicopters, warships, surface-to-air missiles, radar, antichemical equipment, and engineering protection equipment. They have also constructed a monitoring system using modern technology to monitor every spot in the city. According to the CCP, all of this has been done for the security of the Olympics and anti-terrorism. The reality, however, is that there are all kinds of conflicts in society, frequent incidents and many “factors that cause social instability.” This new system and arrangement afford a highliy efficient means to control people. Below is an excerpt of an article from Outlook Weekly under the Xinhua News Agency. [1]

The Technology of the Security System for the Olympics

The technology of the security system involves areas of communication and command, intelligence and information, weapons security inspection, and many others fields. It is like a virtue and digital system and it touches every corner of the city.

Beijing has initiated full-scale construction of a capital-security communication framework, six major technology systems for Olympics security, an Olympics intelligence traffic system, and a dynamic fire control digital system for the Olympics field. These provide strong technological support for the security of the Olympics.

The police department in Beijing has implemented the full-scale construction of a capital-security communication framework:

— It has finished building the different levels of a police fast-response command system with the application of information technology. It uses network video supervising, GPS controlled police cars, police on-site information control, 110, 119, and 122 emergency contacts, a real-time information collection and management system, and an operating control system.

— It has combined operational information, real-time information, and related social information resources, and formed a strong information support system. The real-time analysis, fast relating with other cases, and the dynamic information inquiry will give support to security and solving cases with wide-angle and multiple-level services.
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— It has constructed an integrated communication system combining both wired and wireless networks, and completed the preliminary construction of an information highway, supported by wide-band digital networks and group digital communication systems.

— It has perfected the public service system. The police station is currently supporting 31 on-line services and has 53 downloads of relevant forms.

According to the requirement of “security combat” for the Olympics, the Beijing City Police Department has completed the security information system, an advanced security system involving both communication and command. It includes six subsystems: a computer information command system, an information network communications system, an image information system, a personnel and area control system, an actual combat technology system, and a single soldier digital system.

Beijing has also done a study of intelligence traffic control. During the Olympics, based on a model of automobile and pedestrian traffic, it will have a complete and scientific traffic guidance system and an Olympics special-purpose guidance system. The traffic dispatcher system will also be perfected. These systems will be in complete accord with international standards. Also, the Olympics gymnasiums, special-purpose Olympics buses, and places with major activities will be monitored by TV 24-7. All these will give a fully intelligent transportation service for the Olympics.

In the work of the fire control system, major technical issues such as secure evacuation of the 90,000 people in the national gymnasium and steel-structures for fire prevention have all be delineated. In the city-wide fire control system, a great deal of high-technology equipment has been installed, such as remote-control robots for situations of subway fire, tunnel-fire, and large areas of poison gas or fog.

Internationally Advanced Weapons Equipment

The equipment for anti-terrorism, security inspection and explosion detection has achieved an internationally advanced level. Recently, Beijing’s modernized weapons equipment for the Olympics security personnel has drawn widespread attention from around the world.

— The police assault vehicles have strong attack and defense capabilities, and can be driven off-road. Special-purpose police can use them for dealing with hijacking, gunfights and other relevant violence.

— Violence-defensive vehicles have an anti-bullet functionality, nine electrical tear bombs in a running fire setting, and firing slots and striking horns on both sides of the vehicles. The climbing vehicles have extra assault ladders, and can break windows on the low levels of buildings. They can perform outside blocking and assault in case of an incident of crowd violence and of high-level confrontation attacks.
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— The command vehicles have advanced network communication systems, image transferring equipment, and the ability of communication while moving. They can gather all useful information and make the decisions with no loss of time. They are moving multi-functional commanding centers.

— The anti-explosion and security inspection motorcade is composed of anti-explosion trailers, interfering vehicles, anti-explosion equipment vehicles, and ZBV security inspection vehicles. They have the functionality of detecting explosion threats, anti-explosion, transporting, and screening, etc. They can perform security inspections of the contest fields, equipment, and people. The technology is the most advanced internationally.

— Multifunctional special-purpose motorcade. It is composed of armored cars, obstacle-laying vehicles, troop-transporting vehicles, and water bomb vehicles. The obstacle-laying vehicles can quickly lay down large numbers of obstacles to control the situation. The armored cars and troop-transporting vehicles can defend against an attack of hard particles such as large bricks, and are for transferring large numbers of armed forces to the center of an incident. The water bomb vehicles can shoot out high-pressure water, in order to dissipate crowds.

— The police aerocade under the special-purpose troops of the Beijing City Police Department was formed in April of 2007. It has four police helicopters, which are equipped with electric winches that can hang in the air and perform emergency rescues. They are also equipped with special high technology equipment to perform night searches, tracking and illumination, and image transferring. They will be performing air duties during the Olympics such as air command, patrol, and emergency rescue.

— The special-purpose troop was formed in 2005. It has 1000 special-purpose members who are equipped with long-barreled guns, handguns, and wolf-eye flashlights. Each squad is equipped with obstacle-clearing vehicles, dismantle vehicles, quiet submachine-guns, remote-intercepting machines, and electric intercepting vehicles, etc. All members have been trained for anti-terrorism attacks, and have experience in dealing with violent attacks such as hijacking, kidnapping, and explosion.

On June 21, the “Blue Sword” assault squad of the special-purpose troop was formally ordered to perform anti-terrorism tasks during the Olympics. The “Blue Sword” has had their original 81-1 automatic rifles replaced with 95- assault rifles, used by the field operation troops, and their 97-submachine guns have been replaced with the 06-submachine guns, which are the most advance submachine guns in the nation. The helmets that these special-purpose police wear are bulletproof Kevlar, and are used for the first time by the Beijing Police Department.

Also, a high-energy microwave emission machine can send microwave beams to destroy electrical devices within a certain distance. It is used for anti-explosion controls and by the motorcades. The acoustic sniper detector can locate snipers within several seconds. All this high technology equipment has reached the most advanced level internationally.

Endnotes:
[1] Outlook Weekly, July 7th, 2008
http://news.sohu.com/20080707/n258003951.shtml

Some people think that the emergence of the Internet is the biggest threat to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), and the CCP has therefore been trying to control the Internet. In mainland China, the CCP still places a lot of emphasis on controlling the Internet. Outside of China, the CCP likewise influences a majority of Chinese language websites. The following is a report by Xinhua.net (the CCP’s official media site) about Hu Jintao’s speech regarding “Construction of the internet culture.” [1]

In the CCP Political Bureau’s 38th group study, Hu Jintao stressed:
“Create and manage the Internet culture with the innovation needed to meet people’s growing spiritual and cultural needs.”

Based on news on January 24, from xinhua.net, the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau completed its 38th group study on January 23 in the afternoon. The CCP Central Committee General Secretary Hu Jintao hosted the study. He emphasized: strengthen the establishment and management of the Internet culture, and fully demonstrate the importance of the Internet in socialist culture. This can help to improve the whole nation’s ideology and social ethical quality, can help to expand propaganda and ideological work, help to improve the charm and influence of the socialist construction of the ideological infrastructure, and help to enhance China’s soft power. We must adopt a positive attitude and innovative spirit to develop and spread a healthy Internet culture, truly construct the Internet well, utilize it well, and manage it well.

The content for this group study of the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau deals with the development of the global network and Internet culture, and its construction and management in China. The Central Foreign Affairs Office Internet Bureau director Li Wufeng, the Telecom Research Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry Prof. Cao Shumin, and senior engineers discussed this issue, and shared their opinions and suggestions on the Internet culture construction and management in China.

Several staff members of the CCP Central Committee Political Bureau carefully listened to their presentation, and discussed the related issues.

Hu Jintao hosted the study and gave a speech. He pointed out: the rapid development of Internet culture in China has play a positive role in spreading information and knowledge, and in promoting the party’s theoretical guidelines and policies. At the same time it has brought up the issue of our construction of socialist ideology. Whether we can actively use and effectively manage the Internet, whether we can truly use the Internet as a new tool to spread the advanced socialist culture as a new platform for public culture service, and as a new dimension for people’ healthy spiritual culture, are issues related to socialist cultural undertakings and cultural industries, related to the nation’s culture of information and the nation’s long-term stability, related to the overall situation of a socialist system with Chinese characteristics.
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Hu stressed: to strengthen the construction and management of China’s Internet culture, we must start from the overall layout of socialist development with Chinese characteristics, and the strategy of cultural development; persist in the guidance of the “Deng Xiaoping Theory” and “Thought of the Three Represents;” comprehensively implement Scientific Outlook on Development in accordance with the requirements of developing an advanced socialist culture; adhere to positive use, large scale development, and scientific management; use advanced technology to spread the advanced culture, to promote harmonious cultural construction, to better meet people’s growing spiritual and cultural needs, and to provide a powerful ideological guarantee and public media support in building a well-off society in an all-around way.

Hu Jintao introduced five requirements on strengthening Internet culture construction and management. First, we must adhere to the direction of developing an advanced socialist culture, loudly sing the main theme of ideological culture on the Internet, advocate scientific truth, spread advanced culture, promote the scientific spirit, shape good minds, and promote a healthy social environment. Second, we must improve the capability to service and supply Internet culture products, improve the scale and professionalism of the Internet culture industry, take the profound Chinese culture as the important source of the Internet culture, push our advanced culture to be digitized and Internet-ized, improve the spread of the higher grade culture of information, strive to form a group of high quality Internet products which are brand rich in the Chinese style, embodied with the modern spirit, and push the internet culture to take effect in nurturing the soul, cultivating character, and pleasing both body and mind. Third, we need to strengthen the ideological and public opinion construction on the Internet, dominate public opinion on the Internet, improve the level of guidance on the Internet, pay attention to the art of guidance, actively use the new technology, increase the intensity of positive publicity, and form positive pubic opinion. Fourth, promote construction of the Internet with civilization, purify the Internet environment, strive to create a civilized, healthy, and positive Internet culture environment, and create a sharing spiritual home. Five, we must adhere to management in accordance with law, to scientific management, and to effective management, combine the use of law, administration, economy, technology, ideological education, industry, self-regulation and other means, to speed up the dissemination of Internet information under management that is according to law, industry self-regulation, society supervision, and an orderly manner, and truly safeguard the security of the nation’s cultural information.

Hu Jintao pointed out: the CCP committees and governments at all levels should take action to strengthen the planning, improve the system, standardize management, and add staff, etc., to strengthen the development of the information industry and of Internet culture, and to truly apply the requirement of both development and management to Internet technology, industry, content, security and other aspects. It is necessary to formulate policies and create conditions to strengthen and improve the information and service closely related to people’s work and living. We must accelerate the building of Internet teams, form teams suitable for the Internet culture construction and management, such as a management team, a media guidance team, and a research and development team. We need to train a group of people with high political quality and strong technology. Government leaders at all level must pay attention to studying Internet knowledge, improving leadership and control, and striving to create a new situation for the nation’s Internet culture construction.

[1] Xinhua.net，Jan. 24, 2007
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2007-01/24/content_5648188.htm

On July 3, 2008, the International Herald Leader under Xinhua News Agency published a report titled “The U.S. Attempts to Set Up Its Stronghold in Tibet to Facilitate Its Entry Into Tibet.” This report reveals the Chinese government’s response to the U.S. government’s proposal to set up a consulate in Tibet. The following is the translation of the report.

By Lin Jie, International Herald Leader Staff Reporter from Beijing

It is very obvious that the United States has its political agenda in having a consulate in Lhasa; which is, setting up a stronghold in Tibet for the United States.

Not for the first time, the American politicians who are overly “concerned” about Tibet once again proposed to set up a consulate in Lhasa.

On June 26, the U.S. Senate passed an urgent fund appropriation act. Included in the additional articles of this act was a proposal to appropriate five million dollars to establish a consulate in Lhasa. The House of Representatives passed this act on June 19 before it was sent to the Senate.

The U.S. Has an Obvious Political Agenda

When interviewed by the International Herald Leader, Professor Niu Xinchun of the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, explained the seriousness of the act passed in the Senate: “Although similar proposals have been brought up in recent years many times, this time it is passed in the form of Congress Law, making it more formal. That means the U.S. Congress will implement this act accordingly.”

What on earth is the true motive of those American politicians who are making such a great show to demonstrate their earnestness?

Professor Ye Hailin at the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been an expert in consulate affairs. He told reporters of the International Herald Leader that there are two necessary requirements in choosing the site for a consulate. One is the consulate must be located in a region where the bilateral economic exchange and cultural exchange are both very active; the second is the overseas residents from the particular foreign country are populous in that region. However, in Tibet, neither of these two requirements is met. In addition, in terms of the U.S. consulate distribution in China, the United States already has a consulate in Sichuan Province, the neighboring province of Tibet. If the United States needs to accomplish certain consulate tasks, its consulate in Chengdu should be sufficient to handle them.
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“If we use the elimination method,” said Professor Ye Hailin, “the only motive for the U.S. to set up a consulate in Lhasa is a political motive. It has nothing to do with the normal functions of a regular general consulate.”

The U.S. ‘Priority Project’ to Meddle With Tibetan Affairs

Then, what is the political agenda of the United States? According to Professor Niu Xinchun, the United States intended to “establish a stronghold in Tibet.”

As early as April this year, the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stated clearly that trying to set up a U.S. consulate in Tibet is meant to help explore a channel for American diplomats to get into Tibet. Back then, Rice made this statement when addressing the fund appropriation committee of the Senate. She also mentioned that the U.S. government was studying the possibility of establishing a consulate in Tibet. The NGO organization in the United States, “International Campaign for Tibet,” which had been instigating the Congress and supporting the establishment of a U.S. consulate, claimed that having a U.S. consulate in Lhasa would “improve the quality and quantity of the information obtained from inner Tibet for U.S. government officials.”

As a matter of fact, at the very beginning of the motion, it had a close tie to the activists in the United States advocating an independent Tibet and those forces supporting an independent Tibet. On April 24 of this year, the Dalai Lama’s Special Envoy Lodi Gyari made his way to the hearing of the Senate, claiming that establishing a U.S. consulate in Lhasa should be listed as the “Most Priority Project” by the U.S. congress in meddling with Tibetan affairs. Also present was the American actor Richard Gere, who willingly works hard for “Tibet Independence activists.” He is one of the organizers of the “International Campaign for Tibet.”

It Requires Bilateral Agreement to Establish a Consulate

At present, there is only one consulate in Tibet—the consulate of Nepal. This consulate was established before the Dalai Lama escaped to India in 1959. Lhasa has played a significant role in the active economic and cultural exchange between China and Nepal. The direct transportation line between Nepal’s capital Kathmandu and Lhasa is serving passengers traveling between the two cities.

India was the second country with a consulate in Lhasa at that time. However, after the rebellion in Tibet in 1959, the Indian Consulate in Lhasa played an extremely shameful role. When the Sino-India war broke out in 1962, the Indian Consulate in Lhasa was abolished. A few years ago, Indian government had thought of resuming the consulate in Lhasa; after a bilateral negotiation, the consulate was finally chosen to be set up in Guangzhou City. According to analysts, such an arrangement conformed to the principle of equality in setting up a consulate, because India is not allowed to enter the sensitive northwestern region of China either.
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Therefore, a senior international law scholar also pointed out, if China rejects the American proposal of setting up a consulate in Lhasa, it does not constitute a violation to any international law. In addition, China does not have to provide any explanation. There isn’t any problem in the legal aspect either.

Endnotes:
[1] Reference: International Herald Leader, July 3, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2008-07/03/content_8480905.htm

The following excerpts are from a Confucius Institute article published in the May 5, 2008, edition of Outlook Weekly Magazine. [1] It describes the global strategy for promoting Chinese is made evident. The director of the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOTCFL), Xu Lin, expresssed the belief that the global promotion of Chinese culture is a national strategy that should join the various ministries of the government and even the entire society. Only when the country organizes its resources and forces can it be a truly great enterprise. She emphasized that the pressing matter now is to upgrade China’s ability to export Chinese culture. [2]

The “Soft Promotion” of Chinese Culture

The process promoting a culture is also the process of exchange, confrontation, the mingling of different cultures, and the process of expanding cooperation.

Three years ago, the Minister of Education, Zhou Ji, named  Xu Lin as the director of NOTCFL. Xu Lin declined vigorously, saying that the post was ill-suited for her, and that her previous work “had nothing to do at all with the promotion of Chinese abroad.”

With an A B.S. in chemistry and as an economics student in graduate school, Xu Lin had been a college instructor, an administrative cadre, a mayor’s assistant, and had worked on the Ministry of Education’s planning and budgeting. [She] later served for five years as an education counselor in a Chinese Embassy abroad. “You must go! [You] must do this well!” The minister’s words were resolute, so she agreed to [her] superior’s arrangement.

When she first took up the post, the first Confucius Institute just opened up in Seoul, Korea. By the beginning of 2008, over 210 Confucius Institutes have been established in succession in more than sixty countries. At this time, only three years had past since the five-year goal of opening up 100 Confucius Institutes worldwide had been set. The Confucius Institute has already become a fundamental ingredient to enable the various countries to learn Chinese and Chinese culture, a major platform to understand modern China, and even an important component of China’s “big diplomacy” and “big propaganda abroad.”

Join the Forces of the Entire Society to Promote Chinese Culture

NOTCFL was established in 1987. [It] is a daily affairs organization of China’s teaching Chinese abroad leadership group organized by the leaders of 11 ministries under the State Council. Its function is to coordinate the various ministries and committees to promote Chinese [abroad] as a national and ethnical enterprise, going abroad in a “smooth, fine, and silent” fashion. The Confucius Institute headquarters established thereafter and China’s NOTCFL are one group of people wearing two different hats.

According to Xu Lin, as a brand new platform, the Confucius Institute is playing a new, important role in the aspect of cultural exchange abroad. For example, the Ministry of Culture’s Paris Culture Center [and] Egypt’s Culture Center had cooperated with the Confucius Institute. The NOTCFL has dispatched Chinese teachers, [and] these centers had started to recruit Chinese language students. The result is gradually showing. As another example, China International Radio’s broadcast abroad has 43 languages. The trend of shrinking audiences appeared in more than a few language [broadcasts]. In recent years, broadcasting Chinese culture and Chinese language instruction at set times not only kept a large group of old listeners, but also attracted an increasing number of new listeners.

The Confucius Institute is not only an important avenue of foreign cultural exchange to China, but it also expanded the stage of China’s diplomacy. Statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that cumulatively, there have been close to one hundred ambassadors and consul generals who have participated in the Confucius Institute’s activities one or more times. Because Confucius Institutes are all [established] in post-secondary institutions, and post-secondary institutions are important sources of thinking in society, [it] is very advantageous to promote understanding and mutual communication. Many consulate officials abroad all believe that the Confucius Institute is a very good foreign diplomacy platform. In some countries, prime ministers and state legislators have all supported and even personally attended Confucius Institutes’ Chinese language promotion activities.
…

The Chinese language as a powerful carrier of culture—[we] should use the opportunity of global Chinese fever to change this situation. Xu Lin believes, “The global spread of Chinese culture is a great enterprise, is a national strategy, [and] should be joined by the government and even the entire society. Only by taking advantage of the socialist policy, focusing energy to do big things, having the country organize all resources and strengths, can [we] truly hold up this great enterprise.”

Projecting Chinese Culture’s Charm

By and large, China’s foreign Chinese language education has undergone two stages: From the 1950s to the 1980s, teaching the Chinese language abroad was considered as an important part of foreign affairs, therefore, foreign exchange students basically came from socialist countries or third-world countries. Since the 1980s, accompanying China’s reforms, opening up, and economic take-off, China’s economic trade with various countries of the world became ever more and ever closer, [and] learning Chinese gradually became popular. Especially starting from the end of the 1990s, global “Chinese fever” has been on the rise. The scale and scope of Chinese language education abroad increased unceasingly. There have been profound changes from content to form.

Xu Lin believes that the main differences between teaching Chinese language abroad and the global spread of Chinese then and now are manifested in at least the following aspects:

1. Content-wise, global spread of the Chinese language is not only pure language teaching, there is also a responsibility of spreading of Chinese culture. … In the process of learning a language, [one] is actually learning a culture, [therefore] teaching language is also spreading culture. In the past, teaching Chinese abroad overemphasized language drills, especially pronunciation drills. … Many foreign youngsters have an interest in Chinese marshal arts. When [they] come to China for summer camp, [they] would first choose to go to the Shaolin Temple in Henan [Province]. [3]

2. In terms of pedagogy, some people in the past taught students in a perfectionist mode. … Reality proved the “perfectionist mode” to be unworkable. First teaching foreigners the way Chinese people are taught proved to be ineffective. Secondly, there has been too small of a number of “perfectionists,” [which] mismatches China’s major power image as well as the urgent need to upgrade soft strength. Therefore, to promote Chinese abroad, popularization and applicability should come first, [thus] having people intimately want to know Chinese.

3. [I]n the beginning the primary purpose of teaching Chinese abroad was to break through barriers, and the main object of spread was the third world. Later, stressing economic utility, many people learned Chinese out of their career considerations. But to depend on the international spread of Chinese solely on language utility is obviously lacking. Therefore, the purpose of establishing the Confucius Institute is to upgrade official cultural exchange, folk cultural interactions, teacher investment and training, application of new culture, etc. to a regulated modernized level, so as to make Chinese a charismatic international language, and then fundamentally change the “soft influence” of Chinese culture against the backdrop of globalization.

Using the Vision of Globalization to Forge Strength

Xu Lin believes that either through non-governmental or governmental paths, [in order to spread Chinese internationally] it’s necessary to liberate one’s thoughts, develop and create, and forge the strength of exporting Chinese culture. In fact, Confucius Institute’s headquarters … has been stepping into the direction of globalization. There have already been ten foreigners sitting on the board of directors of the Confucius Institute, most of whom are chancellors from the world’s top 200 universities, such as Scotland’s Edinburgh University and Japanese’s Waseda University.

…

Xu Lin disclosed that in order to strengthen the guidance and service to each country’s Confucius Institute, headquarters has decided to establish several special committees. For instance: Teaching Guidance Committee, Cultural and Economic Development Committee, Financial Supervisory and Guidance Committee, Quality Appraisal Committee, Legal Consultation Committee, and so on. These committees are responsible to submit appraisals, opinions, and suggestions regarding teaching qualities to the headquarters, which include teachers’ training [and] teaching material development. These committees comprise both Chinese and foreign parties. Xu Lin said that these measures are all based on long-term development considerations.
 
…

It appears to Xu Lin that the greatest questions currently are firstly that the so-called “soft strength” is difficult to quantify. Either the Confucius Institute or cultural export—what are the contributions to China’s “hard strength?” What’s the relationship between “soft strength” and “hard strength?” Due to lack of statistics, formulas, and models, it’s not easy to answer this question. Secondly, the capability to export a team to spread Chinese globally must be further upgraded. Originally, it is required that Chinese language teachers must have had studied overseas or have had work experience, but now it seems that it still can’t fully satisfy foreign requirements. Many people only studied abroad to obtain a diploma and didn’t enter the mainstream society. Maladjustment is unavoidable now that [they] suddenly appear as a host teacher. Especially lacking are [in the area of] public relations and market development.

Xu Lin proposed that in the long run, a special troop be established to spread Chinese globally. This troop is a “folk ambassador troop.” “The process of promoting culture is also the process of exchange, struggle, and blending of different cultures, and the process of expanding cooperation. The most pressing thing to spread Chinese globally is to learn and upgrade the ability of exportation,” said Xu Lin.

Endnotes:
[1] Outlook Weekly, May 5, 2008
http://news.sohu.com/20080505/n256668069.shtml
Outlook Weekly is a Xinhua publication.
[2] In the Outlook Weekly excerpts, “Chinese culture” or “culture” refers to the current Chinese culture as opposed to genuine, traditional culture. Such is a result of former culture destruction and later culture re-reaction and its product has been taught throughout China and in Tibet.
[3] While China has a rich history and culture, since 1949, various aspects of traditional culture have undergone a transformation process that generally followed the outline of criticism, denunciation, ban and destruction, replacement, and exploitation. Traditional martial arts, for instance, sprung from Taoist and Buddhist origins and carry such traditional Chinese cultural values as character cultivation, health maintenance, violence curbing, and justice promotion. After 1949, traditional martial arts has been replaced with modernized martial arts, which kept the dazzling forms but became devoid of traditional culture content. Other aspects of Chinese culture have been similarly transformed.