The recent death of Zhao Ziyang, the ousted General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for his support of the student demonstrators in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, has sparked new interest in this reformist leader once seen as heir apparent to Deng Xiaoping, the de facto ruler of the People’s Republic of China from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

Zhao was last seen in public in Tiananmen Square on May 19, 1989, when he walked among the student demonstrators and told them: "Sorry kids, I have come too late." From then on, he spent the last fifteen years of his life under house arrest until his death on January 17, 2005. Zhao had become another casualty of CCP power struggles. Yet, his fate could have been a lot worse had a scheme, masterminded by Deng Xiaoping, then Premier Li Peng, and other CCP hard-liners played out.

The Plot

During a recent interview with New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV), Dr. Cheng Xiaonong, Chief Editor of Modern China Studies, with a Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton, revealed that Party elders had sought ways to legitimize the Tiananmen Square Massacre in order to escape accountability for opening fire on innocent students and for deploying the military to Tiananmen Square without an official order of martial law, an act that amounted to a military coup. By framing Zhao as a CIA agent, they could argue that the crackdown was a necessary step to fend off a foreign infiltration attempt.

Before leaving China in 1989, Dr. Cheng worked in the Research section of the General Office under the China People’s Congress. Later he worked as a director of the General Research Office and an associate fellow at the Chinese Research Institute for Economic System Reform, which allegedly was the outfit Zhao used to contact the CIA.

According to Dr. Cheng, Deng held conclaves with hard-line Party elders prior to June 4, 1989, and secretly decided to deploy 500,000 soldiers to surround Beijing. They were willing to wage a bloody crackdown to secure the Party’s power. However, they kept this decision a secret from the Politburo and the Standing Committee.

Deng’s plan was to call for a Politburo Standing Committee meeting to rubber-stamp the order of martial law in Beijing in the evening of May 16, the day the soldiers were scheduled to enter Beijing. However, Deng was surprised when Zhao disagreed with his plan. Concerned that Zhao might block his move at the Politburo Standing Committee meeting, Deng postponed the meeting to May 17.

Yang Shangkun, then President of China, played a key role in ordering the military crackdown. On May 19, 1989, after the troops had entered Beijing, Yang told the army top brass that Deng had ordered the deployment. In the absence of a Politburo Standing Committee meeting on May 16, the army entered Beijing without an official order of martial law, a situation Yang described as "awkward."
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Without the Politburo Standing Committee’s approval or even notification of the deployment, for the army to enter Beijing was illegal. Nonetheless, Deng had arbitrarily deployed half a million troops into Beijing without informing the Politburo and the Standing Committee. Under the CCP doctrine of "the Party dictates to the Army," this constituted a gross violation of the Constitution. In essence, it constituted a military coup, Dr. Cheng explained. Yang’s confession of a "very awkward situation" was in fact his acknowledgement of a violation of the Constitution.

On May 19, Deng managed to pass the martial law by forcing Zhao Ziyang to resign. After the Tiananmen Massacre, the CCP’s reputation hit rock bottom. Eager to find a scapegoat, the Party came up with a farfetched scheme that made any 007 movies pale by comparison.

Soros’ Intervention

As reported by NTDTV, Dr. Cheng said that in early July 1989, Wang Fang, then Public Security Minister, delivered a speech to senior CCP officials in which he accused Zhao Ziyang of being a CIA agent.

This was the Party’s "evidence": Zhao was trying to contact the George Soros Fund for the Reform and Opening of China through the Chinese Research Institute for Economic System Reform. The middleman was Bao Tong, then Director of the Central Research Institute for Political Reform and a senior adviser to Zhao. The Institute had collaborated with The Soros Fund on several projects before, including field trips to Hungary and Japan that were sponsored by the Fund. Wang alleged that the Soros Fund had CIA connections, so by default, Zhao was a CIA agent.

"The CCP did not have any evidence because the whole thing was fabricated out of thin air. But they didn’t care because framing was a routine practice for the CCP. They arrested more than a dozen employees at the Institute and held them at the Qingcheng Prison (a specialized place for imprisoning political opponents) for interrogation in an attempt to find damaging information against Zhao so they could fabricate evidence to frame him," Cheng told NTDTV.

Wang’s secret speech leaked out and found its way to the West. A Washington Post reporter got wind of the story and reported it in mid-July 1989.

Soros was shocked and furious. However, it did not take long for the currency wunderkind to master the CCP’s logic. In his letter to Deng Xiaoping, Soros argued that his Fund was established in China and was in reality controlled by China’s National Security Ministry because Ling Yun, retired deputy minister of National Security, was on the board of the Fund. Therefore, if the Fund had CIA connections, then China’s National Security Ministry was also linked to the CIA. Soros threatened to go public with the facts.
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When Soros’s letter reached Deng Xiaoping, he and other CCP leaders realized that the story was too absurd and would cause more humiliation to the CCP if they allowed the farce to continue. They silently ditched the plot, and Zhao was spared from an undeserved ill turn.

A Vicious Circle

The ill-planned plot to label Zhao as a CIA agent was not Deng’s first assault on Zhao. Although Deng was the de facto ruler of China, his only official title in 1989 was Chairman of the Communist Party Central Military Commission. When Gorbachev visited Beijing in May 1989, he first met with Deng Xiaoping. When Deng told Gorbachev that their meeting was the equivalent of a summit meeting between the top leaders of the two nations, Gorbachev was clearly puzzled. Later that evening, Deng’s daughter called Zhao and asked him to explain to Gorbachev in their meeting the next day that Deng was the "Paramount Leader" and had final say among the Chinese leaders. She was asking Zhao to support Deng’s claim to Gorbachev, and Zhao obliged. Despite Zhao’s compliance, Deng’s followers and children later accused Zhao of pushing the responsibility of the June 4 Massacre to Deng by claiming Deng was the behind-the-scenes ruler.

What happened to Zhao is not unusual in CCP history. In the late 1950s, Deng Xiaoping, an old comrade and supporter of Mao Zedong, and then President Liu Shaoqi gained influence within the CCP amid growing disenchantment with Mao’s Great Leap Forward. They embarked on economic reforms that bolstered their prestige among the Party apparatus and the public. Mao grew apprehensive. Fearing that he would be reduced to a mere figurehead, he launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 to destroy his enemies. Deng fell out of favor and had to retire from his offices, but returned in 1974. A second downfall in 1976 did not prevent him from a second return soon after Mao’s death the same year.

Liu Shaoqi was not as lucky. Labeled as a "traitor," "scab," and "the biggest capitalist roader in the Party" during the Cultural Revolution, Liu was removed from all his positions and expelled from the Party. He was confined under terrible conditions in an isolated cell in Kaifeng, where he died from "medical neglect" (untreated diabetes and pneumonia) in 1969.

Rising up from the CCP’s internal purges time and again, Deng didn’t seem to repent for his CCP-style cruelty. Instead, he continued the CCP’s tradition of maintaining an iron grip by any means, including killing.

Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, known for forming the infamous Gang of Four, was arrested in 1976, after Mao’s death and when the Cultural Revolution had ended. She was sentenced to death followed by a two-year reprieve in 1981. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. She committed suicide in prison.

In the case of Zhao Ziyang, had it not been for the Washington Post article and for Soros’s intervention, he could have been tried, sentenced, or even executed for treason.

When it comes to CCP power struggles, anything can happen.

Helen Chou is a freelance writer based in New York.

It has been 16 years since the June Fourth Movement of 1989 took place. According to reports, this event that shook the whole world is little known among students in China, who seem indifferent to what happened and do not even want to ask about it.

That once-dynamic movement has seemingly faded into obscurity. Many formerly active students, who now felt "more mature" after years of reflection, were beset with remorse and their faces would redden at the mention of what they had done in their younger days. They have busied themselves with earning money and making a living. "To heck with state affairs!" they would say.

This is eerily similar to what happened after the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In fact, the June Fourth Movement has received even more of the cold shoulder than the May Fourth Movement of 1919. The central government over 80 years ago did not deprive the people of their right of free speech, and did not forbid the expression of public opinion regarding the May Fourth Movement. But today, the central government treats June Fourth as a scourge and takes every possible measure to remove it from public discourse. It plots a systematic policy of brainwashing for the younger generation and tightens its grip on all channels of information, all in a desperate attempt to wipe out all traces of that chapter in history. When its attempts fail in some cases, it resorts to the concealment of facts with lies. Its only intention is to brainwash the "New Generation," thus creating a buffer against the June Fourth Movement for the purpose of removing the event from history.

Without a doubt, Beijing’s policies have been partially successful.

Therefore, a question is brought before us—one that is chilling to contemplate:Has the torch of June Fourth been extinguished? Have we lost any hope of handing the torch of June Fourth down to a new generation?

The answer is a resounding "No!" Voices have recently reverberated across the landscape: "In our hearts the Tiananmen Mothers are not only mothers of the June Fourth martyrs, but also mothers of the generations before and after the June Fourth Movement, mothers of this nation that is tortured by political abuse. We therefore declare upon solemn oath that we are the sons of the Tiananmen Mothers. We feel guilty for our silence and indifference when they suffered, and we are willing to protest against the government persistently for its persecution of these mothers, with our tears, pens, human conscience and even our lives."—This was a public declaration by Yu Jie and Wang Yi last year, champions of the young scholars of the post-1989 generation.

"Whether it is for liberation or self-salvation, we appeal for starting again from that early morning. ‘Returning to June Fourth’ shall be the real starting point for China’s public politics… we, the generation who witnessed death or even chose death in 1989, still feel the warm blood as if it was shed just this morning. We make this joint declaration for liberation and self-salvation." —This was the declaration issued last year by Ren Bumei, Yu Shicun, and Pu Zhiqiang, and others, representatives of the "1989 Generation."
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In fact, the voice of righteousness has not been silenced in the past 16 years. Documents and files related to June Fourth have been smuggled out of China and put into publications. Oral and written condemnations of the bloody massacre have been heard or seen without end and have brought tears to many audiences. The Tiananmen Mothers, braving threats and going up against great pressure, rose up from the earth that is soaked with the blood of their children to investigate the truth, to charge those who had committed wrongdoings and to seek justice. Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who saved untold number of lives by exposing the truth when SARS raged through China two years ago, stood up again at risk to his life to appeal for the rectification of the government’s handling of the June Fourth Movement, to expose the crimes that took place there and demand the innocent dead be given their due. To our great comfort, quite a few young scholars of the 1989 generation or later generations have stood up with courage. They proudly call themselves the "Sons of June Fourth" and the "Sons of the Tiananmen Mothers," and assert that June Fourth had a great influence on their entire lives.

Perhaps the sons of June Fourth are not great in terms of sheer numbers. But history has proven that it does not matter if only a small number of intellectual successors exist. The difference between 1:0 and 1,000,000,000:0 is essentially the same when measured by the significance of intellectual succession. Once the spiritual value is passed on, it will cast its light upon every inch of the land, drawing multitudes from all corners of the earth.

As stated above, in the years after the May Fourth Movement, China was paralyzed because of the desperation and dejection of the intellectual world. There remained only a very few people who still considered themselves successors of the movement. However, with the passage of time, the May Fourth Movement has played an increasingly important role in the Chinese history of the 20th century. From a long-term, historical perspective, three types of ideology that are closely connected to China’s fate, whether in a positive or negative way, originated from the May Fourth Movement, namely nationalism, liberalism and Marxism. And as if handled by a magical hand, all of the significant events in the 20th century can be traced back to this movement. Most parties and intellectual schools in today’s China claim to be its successors, as if in fear of the denial of their identities if they did not make that claim. However, the historical account of this movement is not clear-cut, as it varies in different periods of time and is evaluated with different measures by different people. This is probably the only reason why the May Fourth Movement has been entered into the annals of history.

Without a doubt, unlike the May Fourth Movement, the June Fourth Movement has not yet been authorized to be part of China’s history. To make things worse, many people are in constant fear of being connected to it. However, as mentioned above, there have been both young and old people who have asserted themselves as the successors to and guardians of June Fourth. Meanwhile, I have noticed that not all who take an interest in this movement are liberalists. Quite a few are from other intellectual schools, such as Wang Hui, who is of the New Left Wing (or Liberal Left Wing, as it labels itself). In an essay of a considerable length, Wang calls the 1989 movement a leftist movement, and he places it in the leftist system of discourse. This is a phenomenon of remarkable significance, which implies, no matter what the will of the present authorities is and no matter how hard they try to quarantine the event, that the June Fourth Movement will inevitably become a public spiritual legacy of modern China, and will thereby merge into the long river of Chinese history.
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Therefore, I venture to foretell the fate of the June Fourth Movement.

I once gave my basic evaluation of June Fourth, which remains unchanged, and which I wish to hereby use to commemorate the 16th anniversary of June Fourth.

History is not a calendar. In a calendar, all the dates are treated without discrimination. But history has its partiality, usually for certain specific dates. Leafing through history, we see dates in capital letters-in which undulating human destinies, hymns for life and requiems for death, are focused and thus acquire their weight. How dull and pale history would be without Confucius’ birth in 551 B.C.; without Jesus Christ’s birth on December 25, 0 A.D.; without June 15, 1215, the day the English king was forced to affix his royal seal to the Magna Carta; without October 12, 1492, when Columbus found the New Continent; without July 4, 1776, when American Independence was declared; without July 14, 1789, when the Bastille was captured by French revolutionaries; without October 10, 1911, when the Wuchang Uprising broke out in China; without May 4, 1919, when the May 4th Movement started in China! It is because of those dates that the human race illuminates, that history and civilization are worthy of themselves!

June 4, 1989 is a date in capital letters, immortal in history – for China, and for the whole world.

Theatrically condensed within the temporal space of those dozens of days were the hundred years of our nation’s simple appeals and destiny. That was a tragic stage of history. Within seconds, a hundred years of joy and sorrow, glory and dreams of our nation exploded from the shouts at Tiananmen Square and the gun bursts of June 4th. In the wake of the Tiananmen Square events of June 4, 1989, a succession of the most monumental changes in the twentieth century took place: the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet and Eastern European Camp, the downfall of communism, the end of the East-West Cold War at the main frontlines. Judged from this broader historical view, June 4, 1989 has become a detour sign for world history.

After June 4, 1989, as far as the market orientation of the Chinese economy is concerned, the butchers of June 4, 1989 were forced to carry out the will of Tiananmen Square martyrs.

There is no need to ‘search the heavens above and Hell below’ for the purpose of rescuing the spirit of Chinese civilization. What we need to do is to take action right now to restore the memory of the June Fourth Movement, to mourn those who died in the massacre and to redress the injustice inflicted upon the innocent. June Fourth is a Crucifix borne by China, a Crucifix that Chinese people must carry. Only when this Crucifix, which is stained with the blood of the June Fourth martyrs, towers above us in the spiritual heaven of the Chinese people, will there come the chance for China to escape from disaster and win its final salvation.

.  .  .
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Justice knows no substitute. China’s trouble will not end as long as injustices remain uncorrected. Sooner or later, the fiery lava within the earth will spew out of the crater, billowing like the wild sea and bringing new features to the landscape. First, there will be the judgment as justice descends, and then the bounty of peace for the Chinese people.

The Sixteenth Anniversary has arrived. The bell has begun to toll. The last judgment is right around the corner.

Kuide Chen, Ph.D., is Editor-in-Chief of GUANCHA Magazine (www.observechina.net) and Executive Director of the Princeton China Initiative.

On February 11, North Korea announced for the first time that it possesses nuclear weapons. The claim grabbed headlines, but it was difficult to substantiate. What follows is an article I dashed off over that weekend (it was finished on February 13, according to my Word file), and which was rejected a couple of times by major newspapers the following week:

If I were President Carter, I would have announced yesterday, swiftly following North Korea’s telling the whole world that it now had nuclear weapons, that "I would like to return my Nobel Peace Prize earned for my work to broker a deal in 1994 to exchange more aid for North Korea’s promise to stop its nuclear program." Making such a statement will be important for Mr. Carter unless he found it savory being placed in history next to Mr. Chamberlain, who brokered the Treaty of Munich, as a naïve appeaser. Time is not on your side, Mr. President, as Chamberlain had hardly ever lived in shame because he was shamed to death not long after the eruption of World War II on the heels of his now infamous treaty, but you are still active on so many ambassadorial duties, trotting around the globe in the halo of that Prize. So hurry up!

If I were President Kim Dae-jung, of South Korea, I would follow suit, giving back my 2000 Nobel Prize for my sunshine policy to engage with my brothers and sisters in the North. Apparently, sunshine, smiles, and shaking of hands can’t keep our Northern siblings from making nukes targeting us. In the 1980s, I once almost drowned off the coast of Hong Kong for my pro-democracy activities; now, I am more than willing to plunge myself into water if only that can wash away this indelible blemish on my name.

If I was heading the selection committee for the Nobel Peace Prize, I would go home and ask my son to slap my face several times, to make sure I am sober whenever I make decisions in the future. Then I would go visit an optometrist to make sure I do have some vision. Stupid me, I had always thought "peaceful negotiations," "dialogues," as cherished by our colleagues at the U.N., are an end in themselves. Now, it seems real peace is more complicated than that. Now, to redeem the honor and prestige of the Prize, which could have been befittingly renamed "Nobel Appeasement Prize" for some of the selections we made in the past decade, we will ask Presidents Carter and Kim to relinquish their rights to the name and financial benefits of the prize. We, however, will ask President Kim Jong-II, of North Korea, to keep the prize and money that he shared with President Kim of South Korea—because we really don’t know he would return them if we ever asked or, if he does concur, as President Carter will testify this time, we are not sure whether he will ever keep his promise.
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If I were that professor from Harvard’s Kennedy School, I would not make that appearance on PBS repeating all that has been repeated thousands of times about China and North Korea, that China is in fear of a refugee problem in case of a showdown in the peninsula and thus would willingly broker a rapprochement between the U.S. and North Korea. You know what, although my title does accord a lot of weight to what I said, I really don’t know much about what I am saying as far as those far-away countries whose languages are beyond my ken are concerned. Our analyses are all based on the assumption that the Chinese government would act like its U.S. counterpart, which we are truly familiar with, but whether that is really what will unfold is really none of our business. You know, we are eminent academics, but we live in our own world, or "Ivory Tower" as someone would call it. And sometimes, I really don’t understand why people keep coming to us for help although our analyses have proven to be wrong one after another. Here, I’d like to avail myself of the opportunity to make it clear that our strength—as well as major source of income—lies in our ability to write books and articles to keep the event in perspective afterward, but not in advance.

Since I am only me, not those dignitaries, I apparently don’t have much to worry about any serious fallout of my words or thoughts. You may call me a Monday morning quarterback, but my friends could be my witnesses that I did yell out many times in front of the TV showing a smiling Carter in North Korea ten years ago, "Stupid, it only takes a ten-year-old Chinese kiddo to understand this is nothing but Yu2 Hu3 Mo2 Pi2 (a Chinese proverb meaning "negotiating with a tiger for the price of his skin)." Okay, if this gives me a little bit credibility—but I would understand if it is still not enough to put me on PBS—let me tell you this: All that theorizing about China having incentives to help the West in curbing the North is nothing but wishful thinking. China needs Kim and the North to make trouble for the U.S. so that it always has the trump card in dealing with the U.S., and the U.S. is always distracted when China and the U.S. don’t see eye to eye on something. The theory that China would worry about that hypothetical huge influx of refugees crossing the Yalu simply doesn’t hold water, either. Remember how they treated their own people at Tiananmen in 1989 and Falun Gong in 1999? There are already credible reports of hundreds of thousands of troops stationed along the Yalu, and when the first batch of North Koreans tries to escape their country in a crisis, such as the fall of the Kim family dynasty, the same machine guns that were releasing lethal fires upon Chinese in 1989 will fire again. And when that happens, do you think there will be a second batch coming? Just check how China treats those North Koreans being smuggled into China, and you will understand what I am saying here. Yes, you are right that if China ever dares to do that it will be put under international sanctions, but weren’t there international sanctions too in the wake of the 1989 massacre? And to Beijing’s amusement, those sanctions have only become the catalyst for the billions of dollars being poured into China every year.
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I don’t know what others might think, but as long as Kim Jong-II keeps his Nobel Peace Prize, and people like Falun Gong members who, by their sheer numbers could have made China a much more messy place if not for their embrace of peace and endurance of deadly persecution against them, are not getting the Prize, I am not sure whether it is an honor or disgrace to get such an award. Besides, I happen not to be a big fan of Kofi Annan, the most recent Nobel Appeasement laureate, either.

.  .  .

I regret that the original title of that article was a sarcastic "Nobel Appeasement Prize?"—which misdirects the attention to the negligible, petty, trifling vanity of the Nobel Prize, relative to what is at stake for the whole world. Even worse, at that time I was so obfuscated by strong feelings that I forgot the editors of those media outlets to whom I sent the article are mostly graduates of Harvard’s Kennedy School. Since that time, however, there have been several developments that suggest more attention might be needed to the issues I raised. So much so that we started hearing voices of concern from think tanks and academics about China’s role in the six-party talk.

Meanwhile, I still can’t understand why so many people still believe China would have big problems with a nuclear North Korea due to its geographical proximity—isn’t Pakistan, a recipient of China’s assistance in building its nuke bomb, China’s neighbor too? I don’t understand all those talks about the limited leverage China has over North Korea, either—Isn’t that true there is a North Korea on the map today only because of China’s involvement in the Korea War, and now the North doesn’t stand any chance of survival if China simply turns off its faucet? From this perspective, China’s declared neutral position between the U.S. and the North clearly shows its favored party, not to mention its manifest intention of vetoing any U.N. move against the North if it were ever proposed.

Indeed, if North Korea is a natural buffer that dilutes the pressure of democratization and a trump card in its deck against the United States in any game of diplomacy, then it would be in China’s best interest to see the continuation of a communist North Korea. Now the question that has to be discussed at the beginning of every discourse of this issue is: Will China want it to happen or not?

John Li is a New-York-based freelance writer on China and Sino-U.S. relations.

[Summary: In 2003, China imported 35% of its crude oil supplies and 36% of its iron ore supplies. The sharp rise in 2003 of the shipping cost of iron ore had greatly impacted China’s iron and steel industries. Therefore, relying on foreign fleets for oceanic shipping of imported mineral resources has become a great challenge. To ensure China’s ability to ship its needed mineral resources, the author makes the following policy suggestions: A) Transport strategic materials using domestic fleets; B) Establish strategic cooperative relationships between the mining and shipping industries; C) Support the following: loans to purchase ships, tax incentives for the purchase of second-hand ships, development of ship chartering, and improvement of the laws and regulations for oceanic shipping.]

China’s Demand for Mineral Resources

Raw materials are fundamental to the nation’s industrialization and modernization. Consumption of mineral products exhibits the following pattern in major developed countries: A) During the rapid expansion period of industrialization, consumption of minerals’ products expands at a correspondingly rapid pace. Bulk mineral’s "consumption elasticity" (the ratio of mineral product consumption growth to GDP growth) is greater than 1. B) When the industrialization period ends, consumption of mineral products such as steel and copper tends to stabilize. C) Energy consumption grows with GDP growth.

The industrialization process has sped up since 1978 when China adopted its reform and open policies. Consumption of mineral products has risen sharply with increasing consumption elasticity. From 1985 to 2000, the average consumption elasticity for each five-year period was 0.46, 0.60 and 0.83, respectively. In 2004, it exceeded 1.0. The average consumption elasticity coefficient for steel, copper and aluminum in the past 10-year period all exceeded 1.0. This is a similar pattern to what other developed countries experienced during their industrialization periods.

The projection of demand for mineral products is based upon the general pattern and trend of the relationship between the growth of the national economy and the consumption of mineral products over the past 15 years. The potential effect of new industrialization paths and advances in technology on the consumption of mineral products must also be considered. By 2010, the total energy demand is expected to reach the equivalent of 1.867 to 2.273 billion tons of coal, including 300 to 350 million tons of crude oil (or 6 to 7 million barrels a day), 1.74 to 1.92 billion tons of coal, 78 to 120 billion cubic meters of natural gas (or 8 to 12 cubic feet per day), and 250 to 310 million tons of steel. By 2020, the total demand is expected to reach the equivalent of 2.6 to 3.2 billion tons of coal, including 470 to 480 million tons of crude oil (or 9.4 to 9.6 million barrels a day) and 2.2 to 2.4 billion tons of coal.
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Crude Oil

By 2010, it is expected that China will have access to 300 to 400 million tons annually of additional crude oil reserves in newly discovered oil fields, with a capacity of 18 to 25 million tons of crude oil per year. In 2010, the production of crude oil is expected to be 168 to 180 million tons, only 51-55% of the demand. By 2020, crude oil production is expected to be 156 to 185 million tons, only 34-40% of the demand. There will thus be a shortage of 275 to 304 million tons.

Iron

By 2010, domestic iron ore output is expected to reach 200 million tons, which will yield 70 million tons of iron. Scrap steel output will be 45 million tons. The demand for steel will be 250 to 310 million tons. Therefore, domestic iron production will only be able to meet 38% of the total steel demand. By 2020, domestic iron ore output is expected to be 156 million tons, yielding only 56 million tons of iron. Scrap steel output will also be 63.3 million tons. However, the demand for steel will be 273 to 334 million tons, so domestic iron production will only meet 29% of the total demand for steel.

Coal

It is estimated that by 2010 and 2020, the demand for coal consumption will reach 1.738 to 1.922 billion tons and 2.173 to 2.4 billion tons, respectively. However, because production capabilities are limited, the shortage of coal supplies will reach 250 million and 700 million tons, respectively. For this reason, beginning in 2004, China changed its coal export policy, and coal exports have been reduced by 10 million tons.

Natural Gas

In 2001, the remaining exploitable natural gas reserve was 1.8345 trillion cubic meters. The estimated long-term reserve of natural gas is expected to be 12 to15 trillion cubic meters. By 2010 and 2020, the demand for natural gas is expected to be 78 to 120 billion cubic meters and 180 to 280 billion cubic meters, respectively. The production will be 130 and 165 billion cubic meters, respectively. So demand can be basically met domestically in 2010. However, there will be a shortage of 65 billion cubic meters in 2020.
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Importation and Transportation of Iron Ore and Crude Oil

In 1993, China’s import volume of iron ore was about 33 million tons. In 1995, 41.2 million tons were imported, and that number increased to 55 million tons in 1999. The average annual growth was less than 5% during those years. There was even a negative growth of 7% in 1998. In 2000, the importation of iron ore grew more than 10% and reached 70 million tons. From 92.4 million tons in 2001, the amount increased to 111.5 million tons in 2002 and reached 148 million tons in 2003. Approximately 36% of China’s iron ore was imported. China has become the world’s largest importer of iron ore. While the total amount of the world’s iron ore shipments increased by 43 million tons in 2003, China’s import of iron ore increased 33 million tons in that year alone. China’s iron ore imports accounted for nearly 30% of the world’s oceanic shipping of iron ore. Even so, China’s fleets have shipped a very limited share of the imported iron ore due to the limitations of scale and structure of China’s shipping fleets. This is one of the main reasons why shipping prices of imported iron ore have risen sharply since 2003.

Since 1996 China has been a country with a net import of crude oil. In 2003, the net import of crude oil was 97.41 million tons, accounting for 15% of China’s demand for crude oil. In general, countries with huge demands for imported crude oil usually control a powerful crude oil carrier to handle shipping for its imported crude oil. For example, almost all of Japan’s crude oil is imported. Its annual import volume exceeds 250 million tons. The tonnage of large crude oil carriers controlled by Japanese ship owners exceeded 20 million tons and is able to handle the shipping of more than 80% of Japan’s imported crude oil. All the large crude oil carriers were leased to crude oil importers with long-term contracts, ranging from a minimum of 5 years to as long as 18 years. In Japan, in addition to the close cooperation between ship owners and crude oil companies, a stable, cooperative environment has been established among other relevant businesses, such as the shipyards, banking and finance industries, and insurance companies.

All of China’s imported iron ore was shipped by fleet and mainly came from Australia, Brazil, India and South Africa. Two major import routes for oceanic shipping are from West Australia to Beilun Port in Zhejiang Province and from Brazil to Beilun Port. China’s role has become increasingly more important in the world’s oceanic shipping of iron ore. In 2001, China’s iron ore imports grew by 22.4 million tons. That same year, the world’s oceanic shipment of iron ore grew only 6 million tons. There would be a 3.8% decline in shipments of the world’s iron ore without the growth of China’s imports. In 2003, China’s iron ore imports grew to 33 million tons, while the world’s iron ore shipments grew only 43 million tons.

In recent years, China’s import of iron and steel materials and products has grown by 50 to 60 million tons a year. With such rapid and continuous growth, supply and demand, as well as the overall structure of the world shipping market, have changed. This has brought the world’s dry bulk shipping market to China. Although the Western economies have not fully recovered, the international dry bulk shipping market has been vigorous for an unprecedented period since 2002.
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The Baltic Exchange Dry Index (BDI) reached a peak of 5,681 on February 4, 2004, 2.4 times the previous historic high in May 1995. The BDI started to ease down after the Chinese government released a series of macroeconomic policies when some industries in China appeared to show signs of over-investment. However, the world’s dry bulk shipping market is still a seller’s market. The market began to stabilize in late June and the BDI stayed at 4,000 points. China has become the driving force for the growth of the shipping market (see table 1).

The Sharp Rise of Iron Ore’s Ocean Freight Charges

In view of the freight charge, the fast increase of China’s iron ore imports is the cause of tension between the supply and demand for marine transportation. The year 2003 was the first time in history that cost of the freight was higher than the price of the commodity. In 2003 the global iron ore FOB price rose 9%. In 2004 the contracted FOB price grew 18.6%. In the "2004 Yearly Ores Price Agreement" signed between the six Japanese steel mills and the Australian mining company BHP BILLITON, the average FOB price for the BHP’s high-grade fine ore (with 65% iron content) rose from US$20 per ton in 2003 to US$23.78 per ton in 2004.

However, according to the freight index of the Baltic Shipping Exchange, the rate for iron ore marine transportation between West Australia and Beilun was US$6.7 per ton for 15,000-ton freighters at the beginning of 2003. It rose to US$18.78 by the end of the year, a 180% increase. On New Year’s Day in 2004, it rose to US$21, a 213% increase, much higher than the ore trade price increase. In two years, the transportation freight from Brazil to China rose from US $8 to US$40-50 per ton. Therefore, the freight cost is almost twice as much as the price of the ore.

Compared with the situation in 1999, the market has seemed to fluctuate to a greater extent. At that time the freight was only US$3 to US$4 per ton from West Australia to Beilun, while it was US$20 per ton at the end of 2003. For a Cape-of-Good-Hope ship that carried 168,000 tons of iron ore and transported it from Australia, the entire freight cost was only US$500,000 in 1999, but in 2004, the freight cost reached as high as US$3.43 million.

This kind of situation changes the international iron ore trade, with the trade terms changing to Cost and Freight (C&F). China used to use the FOB price to import the iron ore, but in recent years, several multinational corporations, through merger and reorganization, have controlled the international iron ore market, forming a "seller’s monopoly." At present Australia’s Hammersley, BHP BILLITON, and Brazil’s CVRD control more than 70% of the global iron ore trade. The more united the cargo owners, the more able they are to negotiate prices. The overseas cargo owners have expanded their contract volume under C&F and seized the right to dispatch ships, taking advantage of their control over resources. For example, 50% of Australian Hammersley’s export of iron ore to China changed the trade terms to C&F. In 2003, some Chinese iron ore consumers were unable to purchase the ore even if they had the money, pushing up the price of domestic iron ore even higher.
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The freight increase has seriously burdened the steel and iron industry in China. Moreover, the high freight costs will ultimately be shifted to downstream industries, adding to production costs. Take twisted steel as an example. When the price of upstream iron ore products rises from 300 yuan (US$35) to 900- 1,000 yuan (US$105-117) per ton, the billet price rises from 1,000 yuan to 3,700-3,800 yuan (US$433-445). The cost increase to the steel and iron industry will be transferred to further downstream industries such as construction, shipbuilding, and real estate. It will also impact agriculture and the chemical fertilizer industry, causing an imbalance in the entire economic system.

Factors That Influence Iron Ore Importation Freight Charges, and Chinese Shipping Companies’ Countermeasures

First, due to the insufficient capacity of domestic fleets, the foreign fleets usually take control of import transportation. Second, ocean transportation for the domestic ore import is almost completely exposed to the spot market, with no long-term contracts. Third, the purchase of iron ore from scattered suppliers gives the foreign ore exporter the opportunity to exploit the situation. Lastly, the harbors become overstocked, and railroad transportation is unable to take over.

COSCO’s (China Oceanic Shipping Company) bulk cargo transportation fleet has 210 ships with 12.3 million deadweight tons. It also has 120 rented ships with 10.46 million deadweight tons. Among them, COSCO owns and controls nearly 50 Cape-of-Good-Hope vessels for iron ore transportation, nearly 25% of the total transportation capacity of the spot market. Nevertheless, foreign-owned shipping companies hold the majority of marine transportation contracts for China’s imported iron ore. According to preliminary statistics, of China’s overall iron ore imports in 2003, Chinese transportation companies ship approximately 25%. In this 25% transportation volume, only 10% is a highly profitable first-hand contract. In other words, the Chinese marine transportation company only enjoyed 10% of the total Chinese transportation of iron ore imports, while the foreign transport companies have taken the majority. We should learn from the Japanese experience in this respect. The Japanese government implements a very favorable policy toward the Japanese shipping enterprise, giving them subsidies and low-interest loans to buy ships. They also give tax incentives. Japanese steel mills, business organizations and Japan’s shipping companies have established close relations by share-holding and making long-term agreements. It is very difficult for foreign ship owners to infiltrate the Japanese large bulk cargo marine transportation market. Chinese ship owners find it difficult to transport iron ore imported from Japan, as well as China’s coal exports to Japan.

China’s iron and steel enterprises and the shipping enterprises should strengthen their ties by means of signed agreements and transportation contracts or even cooperation at the level of property rights. If domestic ship owners purchase ships according to the demand, and the steel mills, aided by ship owners’ ocean transportation superiority, take control of ocean transportation power, it will be impossible for the international mining businesses to continue to maintain the high profit margin over ocean transportation that they now enjoy.
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Current Status of China’s Crude Oil Ocean Transportation

There are about 60 shipping companies that are engaged in crude oil transportation operating out of mainland China. The total fleet of 660 oil tankers can carry nearly 5 million deadweight tons. At the beginning of 2000, COSCO formulated a strategic plan to rapidly develop large-scale oil tanker fleets to meet the large increase of crude oil demand. It is estimated that by 2007, COSCO’s fleet will reach 31 tankers, with 4.2 million-deadweight tons. Adding the oil tankers ordered by other mainland companies, it is estimated that by 2007, the mainland shipping companies will have 23 Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC) and six 100,000-ton tankers. If 50% of the 29 oil tankers are used in crude oil import transportation, 30 million tons of crude oil import can be shipped. Compared with the total import transportation need of 120-135 million tons, China’s shipping capacity will still have a large shortfall.

In recent years, as a result of not applying the "domestic products transported by domestic companies" policy, our own fleet has only been able to transport less than 10% of total imports. Despite increasing import concentrations in the Middle East and West Africa, the capacity of middle- and large-sized Chinese oil tankers has not grown correspondingly. Transportation by our own fleet occupies only a small portion of the total. In 2002 for example, COSCO transported 1.6 million tons of China’s crude oil imports, which only equaled 2.2% of the total import volume. If COSCO put three VLCC and three SUEZMAX oil tankers into full service on the Middle East route, the annual transportation volume would be about 10 million tons. Together with other transportation, the total volume of transportation could reach about 12 million tons, less than 13% of the 100 million tons of total imports in 2004.

Suggestions and Measures to Strengthen Oceanic Shipping of Mineral Resources and to Improve Ocean Transport Capabilities

1. Speed up the construction of large-scale petroleum-loading wharfs. Transform or build seven to nine 200,000-ton mooring berths by 2010 to secure crude oil import transportation. Confirm a second batch of petroleum strategic reserves projects as soon as possible, besides the four currently approved petroleum strategic reserve bases.

2. Establish a large-scale oil tanker fleet alliance to share profit and risk. A joint oil tanker alliance can be established by COSCO, China Marines, and other shipping companies with long-term transportation contracts with China National Chemicals Import & Export Corporation, China Petroleum Corporation and China Marine Petroleum Corporation. With an alliance created, shipping capital and management companies can be established.
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3. Actively participate in international organizations and the international affairs related to international petroleum transportation. At present, the Malacca Strait, an international channel, has not been subject to an internationally recognized management organization. Japan, as the main user of the channel, started cooperating with the countries along the Strait in 1968. Japan has gradually become involved in the administration of the Malacca Strait. An entire package has been formulated for Japan to participate in the construction and shipping management of the Malacca Strait. As the second largest country after Japan to use the Malacca Strait, China should begin to participate in the management of the Strait as soon as possible and establish a Malacca Strait Construction and Management Fund.

4. Shipping enterprises should continue to expand their fleets. Because of the large capital investment required to build ships, China’s shipping companies have difficulty obtaining ship purchase loans and paying them back with interest. With shortage of capital being a bottleneck for China’s shipbuilding industry, the government may need to intervene to encourage the development of a ship chartering industry.

The article was based on a research report published on the website of Beijing Dajun Research Center of Economy (http://www.dajun.com.cn/kuangchan.htm).

[Editor’s note: The article below was written by the famous Chinese philosopher and essayist Hu Shih (1891-1962) in 1947 before the Communist Party took over in mainland China. The article analyzes the fundamental differences between the two different types of political parties. The Kuomintang, the ruling party in China before losing the battle with the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 during the civil war, has completed the transition of giving up one-party control after settling down in Taiwan. Although more than half a century has passed, the nature of the Communist Party has remained the same. At a time when the Taiwan Kuomintang leaders are trying to sit down with the Chinese Communist Party again, this article may be useful in helping people understand what might be expected from the talks between the two parties across the straits.

Hu Shih studied in the United States at Cornell University and later at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1917 and returned to China to lecture at Beijing University. During his tenure there, he began to write for the New Youth Journal, quickly gaining much attention and influence. Hu soon became one of the leading and influential intellectuals during the May Fourth Movement and later the New Culture Movement.

He was China’s ambassador to the United States (1938-1942), chancellor of Beijing University (1946-1948), and later (1958) became president of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, where he remained until his death.]

In any discussion about constitutional governance, democracy, the conflict between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang, ending one-party politics, and the conflict between two worldviews embodied by the United States and the Soviet Union, we should first clearly recognize that there are two fundamentally distinct types of political parties in the world.

Thirty years ago, people who discussed politics were only familiar with one kind of political party — the kind of party in Great Britain, the United States and Western Europe. In the past thirty years, however, another kind of political organization has emerged. Even though it has also labeled itself a "political party," this type of party has fundamentally different characteristics from those in America and Western Europe. Russia’s Communist Party, Italy’s Fascist Party, and Germany’s Nazi Party all belong to the latter kind, because they have similar party disciplines at the organizational level, in spite of the differences in their goals.

For convenience, let me call the political parties in Britain, the United States, and Western Europe Type I parties and designate the later-emerging political parties in the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany as Type II parties.
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The characteristics of the Type I parties can be described as follows:

1. Type I parties have no fixed number of members nor are membership records even kept. Everyone can register as a member of the party or withdraw from it at will. For example, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used to be a member of the Freedom Party but later became a member of the Conservative Party. Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat in the United States but later became the Republican Presidential candidate.

2. The votes in a Type I party are anonymous and their membership is confidential. Every party member is free to speak; there is no party discipline to constrain the votes of its party members; there are no spies or detectives to interfere with the speeches and actions of its members. As a good example, in the United States, Henry Wallace, a Democrat, criticized the policies of his own party. In Great Britain, it is common for the MPs of the Labour Party to criticize, often harshly, the policies of their own party. Regarding such criticism, there is simply no policy in place to punish a party member. In fact, society accepts critics of the party and calls them "independent," "non-partisan" or "unbiased."

3. The strategy of the Type I party is to contend with one or more other parties for the majority status in order to attain its goals. For that reason, every political party strives to become the majority. Once a party attains majority status, it must tolerate and respect the rights of the minority parties, because today’s minority party may become the majority next year. Likewise, this year’s majority could lose next year’s election and become the minority. People’s votes are the final determination of who is the majority. Before the election, no political party knows the nation’s final decision, and no party can control the people’s votes. For instance, in the 1928 presidential election in the United States, Republican Herbert Hoover won the Presidential election with 21 million popular votes. Four years later, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt won 21 million popular votes and became President. Each became President as the result of the American people’s freedom of choice.

4. Once the election result is finalized, on the official day, the winning party takes over the government and power from the losing party. The losing party cannot and dares not use the police or army to maintain its power by violence, or to destroy the winning party. This is because the countries with Type I parties know that, in a few years, they will have another opportunity to win. They understand that "victory is certainly joyful, but loss is also acceptable with pleasure." It is interesting to look back at the 1945 British election, when Prime Minister Winston Churchill was highly anticipated as the winner. Nevertheless, the election resulted in the Conservative Party losing badly, and Mr. Churchill had no choice but to turn over power to the winning party and become the minority leader.
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Described above are the styles of any Type I party as an organization. Type II parties are totally different and can be characterized as follows:

1. The Type II parties are well-organized, have an exact number of members, and have a detailed and precise membership. Before a person is admitted to party membership, he is closely investigated and scrutinized. After admission, a member can be punished or expelled but cannot freely withdraw from the party.

2. The members of the Type II parties must obey the party’s discipline. Party members do not have freedom or privacy. Well-organized spy and detective organizations not only investigate and guard against non-members, they also keep watch on the speech, thoughts, and actions of the party’s own members. The party members must follow the party’s orders, and even their thoughts and speeches must follow the party’s line.

3. The goal of the Type II parties is to achieve a one-party dictatorship. Before gaining power, they use any means to fight for it. Once they gain power, they use any means to consolidate and maintain it. They use any means because they cannot rely on the electorate to freely choose them. Type II parties are themselves minority parties. Because of the means they use and their tightly controlled organizational structure, they often can control the entire nation by suppressing the majority.

4. Type II parties absolutely do not recognize any opposition parties and do not allow them to exist. Any opposition forces are regarded as a threat, and thus must be thoroughly suppressed and eradicated in order to maintain and strengthen their one-party dictatorship.

The characteristics of the two kinds of political parties summarized above are merely my common sense understanding of politics, which political scholars might very well ridicule.

When people and even scholars have a shallow understanding of the differences between these two types of "parties," they often ignore them. For example, in a recent debate of the differences between the two conflicting worldviews exemplified by the United States and the Soviet Union, some people said, "America gives its people one vote per person, while Russia gives one piece of bread to every one of its people." This is certainly an unfair and inappropriate comparison. The American people do not necessarily lack bread, while the Russian people do have votes. Yet the fundamental difference between these two worlds lies in how each vote is used. In 1936, because there was no opposition party, under the new constitution, Russia witnessed a unanimous or over 99% vote for the Communist Party. In contrast, with free competition from opposition parties in the United States, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won 60% of the vote in the 1936 election, it was considered a great victory. In the 1932 and 1940 elections, he won 57% and 54% respectively. The great victory of 60% represented free politics. It represented independent thought and action as well as great tolerance for opposition parties. What differentiates the "two worlds" are the differences between freedom and no freedom, independence or dependence, tolerance and intolerance.
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Mr. Sun Yatsen, the founder of China’s Kuomintang (Nationalist Party), was a politician who embraced freedom and tolerance. During the most difficult time of his revolutionary cause, however, feeling the need for an "organized and powerful revolutionary party," he reorganized the Kuomintang and turned it from a Type I party into a Type II party. Nevertheless, since he embraced freedom and tolerance, Mr. Sun pictured the one-party dictatorship as a temporary, interim solution to the constitutional government, not the final solution.

Recently the Kuomintang has been preparing to end one-party politics and to begin governing by constitutional law. Such a move not only comes from the need to accommodate the current situation but is the inevitable result of Sun Yatsen’s political principles. It is very rare in China’s modern political history for a governing party to invite other political parties to participate in politics and give away some of its power. Therefore, members or non-members of the Kuomintang should think about the significance of such a change. In my own opinion, this is a move to turn a Type II party into a Type I party. It signifies a fundamental reform in the party’s content and style. It is not just a redistribution of the various votes among a few parties or the rebalancing of power between the central and local governments. If the end of Type II party politics leads to a new political style of embracing freedom, advocating independent thinking, and tolerating opposition, it certainly signifies the beginning of a great revolution in China’s politics.

For about the past 13 years, Chinese-speaking media outlets have seen a steady and systematic expansion in the United States. This development is mostly attributed to investments by the Chinese government since the majority of these outlets, especially for TV programs and newspapers, are either directly backed by the Chinese government or carry content that is in line with the Chinese government’s agenda.

It appears totally legal for the Chinese government-backed media groups to acquire a foothold in the United States and continue to expand. Of course, while these media outlets are free to spread Chinese government rhetoric and propaganda in the United States, the Chinese mainland has remained closed to outside news sources.

With state-owned media monopolizing the news sources in China itself, the Chinese government is able to carry out anti-American campaigns in China without any check-and-balance from independent news sources outside of China. At the same time, it is able to continuously broadcast pro-government propaganda and anti-American sentiment in the United States through its overseas media outlets, without interference from the U.S. government.

What’s more, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in the United States have been able to gain dominance within the Chinese communities on American soil and promote the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) agenda.

Global Expansion of CCTV

During the last decade, the systematic expansion of Chinese propaganda began to occur in communities abroad at an accelerated pace. Take China Central Television (CCTV) as an example. According to its Chinese language web site, "CCTV is the important news agency of China. It is an important mouthpiece of the [Chinese Communist] Party, government and people. It is an important base of mind and culture." "The safe broadcast of CCTV is an important political task." CCTV is a state monopoly. It offers 16 channels, delivered terrestrially and by satellite, broadcasting 329 hours of programming a day, 596 hours per day if paid channels are included. In China, it oversees 36 provincial stations and more than 700 city stations. These stations mix their own local programming with CCTV’s. Through 10 satellites, its broadcasting covers the entire globe. The CCTV website, cctv.com, has a daily page views of over 15 million, and is one of the top six strategically important government websites in China. In America, CCTV is on nationwide satellite network and cables in at least 15 metropolitan areas (see Table 1).

CCTV began its global expansion in 1992 by carrying out a systematic, global growth plan aimed at reaching Chinese audiences around the world. The focus from 1992 to 1995 was Asia Pacific, United States, and Middle East. The target group in 1996 was European overseas Chinese. The year 1997 saw the expansion into Africa; and in 1998, more expansion into the United States. Currently, CCTV plans to establish a 24-hour news channel and make itself available on satellite and cable TV systems. The expansion steps completed within the United States (see Table 2) are as follows:

• Establish global satellite channels: CCTV-4 (Chinese) and CCTV-9 (English), CCTV-E&F (French and Spanish, 12 hours programming each per day)

• Purchase cable channels or hours in major U.S. metropolitan areas

• Provide CCTV programs, especially news, to public and private stations for free

• Contribute to TV stations on campuses of American universities

Infiltration of Chinese-Language Media in America

The method of infilitrating the American Chinese-language media is twofold: One is to sponsor local Chinese media groups that are registered as independent media, and then impose news censorship through direct and indirect financial control or ownership; the other is to suppress independent Chinese-language media in the United States through political and economic pressure.

In the Boston area alone, five out of the eight local Chinese-language newspapers are either controlled by, or under the heavy influence of, the Chinese government. Dr. Pengfei Wei, a physicist working at MIT who is familiar with the Boston-area Chinese community, revealed:

"Beginning with the Sino American Times, this is a free weekly newspaper previously called the Boston Chinese Report. It is believed that the Chinese government funded its expansion in August 2002. The director of this newspaper, Mr. Liping Liu, had worked for the Xinhua News Agency for many years before he and his wife came to the United States. From different sources I learned that the editing and typesetting of the Sino American Times main pages are conducted in mainland China and then forwarded to Boston for publishing."

Daily newspapers in the Boston area include China Press, Mingpao, Singtao Daily and World Journal. These newspapers are distributed across the United States, and are known to be influenced by the Chinese government, as revealed by a report in an issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief (How China’s government is attempting to control Chinese media in America, by Mei Duzhe, CHINA BRIEF, Volume 1 , Issue 10, November 21, 2001).

Inside sources revealed that the news of China Press is directly from the Xinhua News Agency or the China News Agency, which are the two major official government news agencies. "Mingpao and Singtao Daily did not have the authority to report on Hong Kong’s Article 23 legislation or SARS in a timely manner," observed by Ms. Jiang Zhu, a local reporter for The Epoch Times. Managers of these newspapers told Ms. Zhu that news is censored, such as the news about Jiang Zemin and other Chinese government officials being sued in the United States and in other countries. They also told her that, as ordered by their headquarters office, they cannot report any positive information with the words "Falun Gong," in it, or run any advertisements provided by a Falun Gong group in their newspapers, Ms. Zhu went on to say.

Dr. Samuel Zhou, Vice President of Programming at New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) and a prominent scholar on media policy in China, summarized the Chinese government’s methods for infiltrating and dominating the overseas Chinese-language media as such:

"One popular way is to build up a ‘United Front’ by inviting selected overseas media to contribute at overseas Chinese media forums. The Chinese government runs these types of conferences every year or two, and invites over 100 overseas media to attend. Individual meetings are arranged with some of the owners and/or chief editors of the local newspapers, television stations, and radio stations. Through purchasing shares, the government can gain complete ownership or own the majority of shares."

One typical example is the Singtao Newspaper Group (STNG). STNG was established in Hong Kong in 1938. In the 1960s, regional offices were established in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles to publish Singtao Daily in North America. In the late 1980s, the Chinese government bought shares from STNG’s owner Sally Aw Sian. The past decade or so has seen the transformation of Singtao Daily into a pro-Communist newspaper. Sally Aw Sian has since become a member of China’s National Political Consultative Conference. The current owner, Global China Group, established Greater China Media Services Limited, a joint venture with People’s Daily’s Da Di Distribution Center in September 2002.

"Other strategies include purchasing broadcast time and advertising space from existing independent media and to influence what they can and cannot report," said Dr. Zhou. "They also deploy government personnel to work in independent media, achieving influence from within their ranks."

Suppression of Independent Overseas Chinese Media

As for those few Chinese-language media agencies independent from the control of the Chinese government, the Chinese Embassy and Consulates have used political and economic means to suppress them. According to John Yu, a cameraman for NTDTV, during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to the United States, a staff member at the Chinese Embassy pressured White House officers to block his team of reporters from entering a U.S.-China joint press conference on December 9, 2003. On December 10, 2003, Chinese Consulate staff members from New York tried to block Radio Free Asia and The Epoch Times reporters from attending a seminar at Harvard University in Boston.

The Epoch Times has also encountered theft that specifically targeted the newspaper’s distribution. According to the newspaper’s reports, in late February 2005, The Epoch Times’ Los Angeles staff noticed that a man was stealing hundreds of copies of the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times, which was free at distribution sites in Chinese communities throughout the L.A. area. They began following this man, whom they learned was named Mr. Lum, and found the situation was far worse than they had imagined. Mr. Lum spent full time, every day, driving to distribution points throughout L.A., and stealing every single paper at each location, totaling thousands of copies each day. After finishing his route, Mr. Lum would take his pick-up truck full of papers to a recycling center, where he would earn a few extra dollars by selling those collected papers. He would only steal The Epoch Times, although other free Chinese newspapers were just as easy to take. When a reporter from The Epoch Times attempted to videotape him at the recycling center, Mr. Lum saw him and drove his truck into the reporter’s leg. Later that day, Mr. Lum was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.

Infiltrating the Chinese Community

Media infiltration goes hand-in-hand with the CCP’s effort to control the Chinese communities in the United States.

Again, we can use an example from the Boston area. At the same time when Sino American Times expanded in August 2002, the Boston Asian Culture Center (BACC) was also founded. It turns out that the Sino American Times and the BACC belong to the same parent company. Officials from the Chinese Consulate in New York are often present at BACC-held activities.

Besides business entities, community-based Chinese associations are the main targets for the Chinese Embassy and Consulates to infiltrate in order to extend CCP influence. There are many types of Chinese associations in the United States, such as student and scholar societies, cultural exchange organizations, business groups, alumni associations, and even associations of people who come from the same hometown in China. The Chinese Embassy and Consulates actively support, organize, and finance the establishment and activities of such associations in order to gain control over them. For example, on the CSSA (Chinese Scholars and Students Association) Union website (http://www.cssa-union.org/aboutus.html), it says, "This web site has signed an official agreement with the magazine Shen Zhou Xue Ren (Chinese Scholars and Students, an official magazine by China’s Department of Education), and has obtained great support from the Chinese Embassy and Consulates." Three out of the five named advisory board members are Chinese Consulate officials. Another one was formerly a high-ranking government official in mainland China. During the second meeting of CSSA’s Presidents in the areas serviced by the Chinese Chicago Consulate (http://www.chisa.edu.cn/newchisa/web/2/2003-11-24/news_13539.asp), student leaders hoped to have more financial support from the Consulate, and vowed to continue supporting the Consulate in its struggle against anti-China forces.

Regional Chinese associations in the United States often attract their members along lines of origin. People originally from Taiwan, people from Hong Kong, and new immigrants from the mainland, for example, have their own separate associations. These associations have come to understand that they can receive funding, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from the Chinese Embassy or Consulates, as long as they are willing to maintain "friendship" with the Embassy and observe the Party line laid down by the CCP. The Chinese Embassy and the Consulates in general tend to dominate the mainland associations, while further expanding into the other associations.

Leaders of these associations are motivated by various benefits that the Chinese Embassy or Consulates offer, ranging from dinner party banquets and free movies, to cheap housing for student leaders and special treatment or business favors in mainland China. A regional union of associations is formed when the number of local associations has grown sufficiently large. Once under the Embassy and Consulates’ wing, these types of associations can serve as effective tools for the Chinese government in influencing the Chinese American communities.

Mr. Jingning Li, former president of the Chinese Student Association in the Catholic University of America said:

"The system of ‘uniting’ Chinese Americans around the Chinese Embassy has already been consolidated and is achieving great efficiency. For instance, since the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, the Chinese Embassy organized and sponsored many dinners, parties, and forums through which to defame Falun Gong. Their influence in the associations guaranteed attendance of such activities and reinforced the extension of Communist policies in mainland China into U.S. territory."

One example can be taken from a criminal case tried in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago in 2002. Mr. Bill Fang, a victim in the case, told this story:

"The Chicago America-China Fujianese Association (CACFA) has close ties with the Chinese Consulate of Chicago. Its president, Zhang Liguang, said at a celebration party for CACFA’s third anniversary that the Association had been like an infant in its cradle, and thanks to the care from the Chinese General Consulate in Chicago, the Association was able to grow healthily and fast. When the Chicago Consulate was working on defaming Falun Gong, Zheng Jiming and Weng Yujun, respectively listed as the Standing Vice President and Vice President of the Association, assaulted Falun Gong practitioners in front of Chicago’s Chinese Consulate, and the two were subsequently sentenced in the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago on Nov. 13, 2002, and on January 14, 2003.

"A similar incident happened in July 13, 2001. Alexander Hugh (also named Chaolian Qiu), who was the Vice President of the Chinese American Association of Greater Chicago (CAAGC), was involved in attacking Falun Gong practitioners in front of the Chicago Chinese Consulate. After the incident, Hugh was appointed in 2003 by the Chinese Consulate in Chicago to be the overseas consultant for the National Association of Returning Overseas Chinese. This National Association of Returning Overseas Chinese is led by the Chinese Communist Party and its first source of funding is from the Chinese government budgets."

Student associations in U.S. universities usually serve their members by providing social activities to promote diversity and take care of students’ interests. Yet in the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) of American University, Mr. Jun Yu, the person in charge of CSSA, told all CSSA members that they must abide by China’s law. When a student posted an email on the Listserv to initiate an activity that sought to promote freedom of belief, Mr. Jun Yu told her that she would be de-listed, and that, "We also report our situation to the Chinese Embassy by memorandum."

If the Chinese Embassy and Consulates rely only on their own staff, it is impossible to control the entire Chinese community in a country. The number of ethnic Chinese totals more than 2.4 million according to U.S. Census 2000 data. The Embassy must rely on agents and informants to monitor the Chinese community. Chen Yonglin, the former consul for political affairs at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney who defected in late May, disclosed to media that the Embassy and the Consulates "have over 1,000 agents in Australia." Mr. Chen’s claim was confirmed by another recently defected Chinese state security officer, Mr. Hao Fengjun, who arrived in Australia at the beginning of this year from his station city of Tianjing. Mr. Hao told The Epoch Times reporters, "What Chen Yonglin said about 1,000 Chinese agents in Australia is true. If we take all types of agents into account, the number is even larger."

The Chinese Embassy has various ways to punish those who object to the Chinese government’s control. From denying passport renewal for Chinese students and scholars to rejecting visa applications for Chinese Americans wanting to visit China, the Chinese Embassy has a lot of leverage against the Chinese people. In extreme cases such as the one against Ms. Jun Guo, described later in this article, relatives in China are harassed and family safety is threatened.

The degree of control that the Chinese Communist government can exercise is illustrated in another example, which occurred in October 2002. At the request of the Chinese Consulate in Houston, the Friendship Association of Chinese Students and Scholars (FACSS) at the University of Houston organized a welcome team for the visit of then CCP General Secretary and PRC President Jiang Zemin. FACSS required all participants to sign a legal agreement. The agreement: 1) asked participants to report on activities of Falun Gong; 2) asked participants to waive their legal rights in connection with Jiang’s visit; 3) threatened to sue those who violated the "agreement."

The following is the "agreement" that the FACSS asked members to sign.

Totalitarian Control on the Mainland Extended Overseas

The gradual take-over of American Chinese media is no surprise to some Chinese Americans who have been on the receiving end of the Chinese Communist government’s tactics. Chinese Embassy and Consulate activities in the United States demonstrate that they are run by people who are not hesitant to use strong-arm methods to get their way even on the free soil of the United States. Here are two instances.

Case One

Anne Yang, an economist working at The World Bank during the day, and an amateur independent documentary film producer at night, is a woman without a nation.

"The Chinese Embassy refused to renew my passport, and I cannot go back home," Anne Yang said in an interview in Washington DC on June 4, 2005. She is not alone. Since 1999, there are 140 written cases of Chinese citizens being denied passport renewal by the Chinese embassies and consulates in more than 20 countries, according to a report by The Epoch Times. In 2004 alone, 12 written cases were denied passport renewal in the United States. Among the applicants were electrical engineers, accountants, as well as students from Stanford, Ohio State, and the University of Southern California. The reasons given by the Chinese Embassy and Consulates in the United States were the applicants’ political opinions, religious beliefs, and sometimes just a blunt answer of "no reason."

Case Two

In February 2005, Jun Guo, The Epoch Times Chief Editor, was threatened. Her family in Guangzhou, China, was visited by agents from the Chinese National Security Bureau, which functions like America’s FBI. During the conversation with Jun’s sister, who is a Psychology Professor and the Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychology at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, the agents told her that their visit was a direct order from the central government in Beijing. They told Professor Guo to tell her sister in the United States to pay attention to her safety and the safety of her own family. The agents was very specific: "Jun’s four children go to school in Washington DC, and we are very clear about that."

This is not an isolated case either. In the greater Washington DC area, there are more than a dozen people who had similar experiences. Their parents or family members in China were visited and threatened by agents from the Chinese National Security Bureau.

June 4, 2005, marks the 16th anniversary of the massacre of pro-freedom activists at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. For the past half century and even before the take-over in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has engaged in violence to rule China. In The Black Book of Communism, a 1999 Harvard University Press release, socialist researchers established that Mao Zedong and his successors murdered 65 million Chinese. This number was based on recently opened archives from former Communist countries.

How Propaganda Brainwashes the Chinese People

How can the Chinese people live under a regime like this? Dr. Samuel Zhou said in a recent interview:

"The Communist government stresses the need to maintain stability and social order, and is committed to perpetuating the rule of the CCP and its hierarchy. To achieve this goal, it has continuously utilized propaganda that brainwashes the Chinese people. In recent years, the CCP-controlled media spread anti-American propaganda worldwide to discredit values such as freedom and democracy. This propaganda has been disseminated through Chinese-language media in mainland China, as well as Chinese media in the United States and throughout the world. Such propaganda is designed to block the Chinese people from knowing the facts and keep them away from ideas of freedom of speech and democracy.

"Along with its propaganda, the Chinese government has successfully influenced and infiltrated American societies, especially the Chinese community and Chinese—language media. Such infiltration secures an audience for the propaganda outside of China. The United States—as leader of the free world-has not done very well in penetrating the political ‘Firewall’ to reach the Chinese people with uncensored news and information and to urge them toward political reform."

The Insidious Influence of Propaganda on American Chinese

While it is hard to assess the impact of media, the influence of propaganda on people’s viewpoints can certainly accumulate and has manifested in some incidents in the past.

During the Iraq War, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) used footage provided by major foreign media, but associated the footage with a different story than what the rest of the world heard. CCTV fabricated the death tolls of Iraqi citizens and quoted many media articles from the Arab press against the Iraqi War to make it appear to the Chinese audience that the war was being supported by no one and causing tremendous death of Iraqi people.

According to a Voice of America report by Dong Fang on Feberury 2, 2003, some Chinese people who were influenced by the government-controlled media, rejoiced over the Columbia Disaster, calling it the most beautiful fireworks of the New Year (Analysis of some Chinese’ Anti-American Sentiment by Dong Fang, Voice of America, February 2, 2003).

Another example comes from an official survey conducted by the Chinese government shortly after September 11. In the survey, while 98% were sympathetic to the victims of 9/11 in the United States, 80% of the people thought the United States was a hegemony. In many of the chat rooms on the Internet, many young people expressed the opinion that it "serves the U.S. right."

Dr. Samuel Zhou commented:

"These people are not bad people; their thoughts reflect what they see and hear from state-controlled media. Unless the United States, as the leader of freedom and democracy in the world, provides an alternative, making available objective, accurate and timely information, the Chinese people will probably continue to believe the hateful anti-American propaganda that targets the United States by the Communist Government."

As to community infiltration and control, the consequence can be even bigger. For example, when the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade happened in May 1999, over 120,000 Chinese in America were mobilized in the streets on the east coast, protesting on the same date. The event was selected for the Ten Top International News of that year by CCTV and the Xinhua News Agency.

The influence and control over the community associations by the Chinese Embassy and Consulates guarantees attendance of such activities and consequently extends CCP policies into U.S. territory. The Chinese government also uses such networks to influence American policy, as evidenced by its instruction to lobby the U.S. Congress in March 2004.

At issue was a "Dear Colleague" letter circulated in Congress that called on lawmakers to go on record supporting Taiwan’s March 10th referendum. The referendum called for peaceful means to settle the China-Taiwan issue. The Chinese Consulate organized the lobby starting with an email in Chinese, dated March 12, 2004, marked "Urgent" to Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) chairpersons in universities throughout the United States. The letter started with "The Consulate General has an important task to assign," and asked Chinese students and scholars to personally email each state’s Congress persons, urging them not to support Chen Shuibian’s "wrong action." A copy of the email is shown below.

Each Chairman,

The Consulate General has an important task to assign below:

We heard recently, Florida Congressman Peter Deutsch is trying to convince all Senators and House Representatives in the United States to co-sign and support the so-called "Defense Vote" on March 20 held by Chen Shuibian. Now please write on behalf of the Chinese Scholar/Student Associations, and also encourage Chinese students and scholars to personally write to each State’s congresspersons with e-mail, and urge them to not support Chen Shuibian’s wrong action, and hurt Chinese people’s feelings. (I put the outline of letters to congresspersons in the attachment. You can read carefully, do necessary editing, make sure your tones are sincere. Congresspersons’ e-mail addresses are also included in the attachment).

Please finish this task before March 20, definitely, and e-mail me about the situation before March 16 (especially tell me how many Chinese students and scholars you mobilized to write their personal letters to Senators and Representatives of U.S. Congress).

Hope all work with our love to the country, express our strong wish to unite our motherland with peaceful means.

Zhang Zhigang

3/12/2004

The email was forwarded to CSSA/FACSS members in several states, and many members followed the instruction and reported to leaders in CSSA/FACSS that "Action is taken."

Moreover, the freedom offered by the U.S. political system is at great contrast to the totalitarian control in China. Free society may fail to differentiate political propaganda from cultural programs. For instance, the CCTV channel or programs on different cable networks in major metropolitan areas are treated as cultural programming and often shown on public access channels. Yet, given the content and the news manipulation in CCTV programming, it is more political than cultural. However, according to Dr. Samuel Zhou, "Oftentimes news from China’s state-owned media is considered just another point of view, and enjoys freedom of speech in the United States."

An Unequal Contest

The Chinese government is actively taking advantage of freedom of speech in the United States to spread Communist propaganda, but it does not grant U.S. media the same rights in China.

The United States is fighting its opponent with one hand tied behind its back.

Several other asymmetries are notable in China and U.S. engagement, or, competition.

Aggression vs. Reluctance

The Chinese Communist regime made systematic and consistent efforts in the past 10 years to utilize and increase its propaganda influence. By contrast, there lacked concrete policy and financial support by U.S. administrations to seriously influence China in becoming a democratic society (see Table 3).

Progressive vs. Reactive

WorldNet TV was first launched in June 1989 as a response to the Tiananmen Square Massacre (U.S. International Broadcasting Chronology: http://www.ibb.gov/bbg/chron.html). However, its current broadcasting power from the United States to China falls short compared to that of CCTV. While CCTV broadcasts 24-hour programming every day in China, WorldNet TV has only 30 hours of Mandarin programming each week. CCTV also has significant influence over the broadcasting and programming of local U.S. Chinese-language cable TV stations by providing free programs or other financial support. By contrast, WorldNet TV programs do not even focus on promoting democracy in China. The station fails to act as an alternative information source, as it does not have a news program. The impact of WorldNet TV is further diminished given the fact that the Chinese government effectively bans personal ownership of C-band receiver dishes, which are needed to pick up WorldNet TV’s signal.

State-Sponsored Infiltration vs. Insufficiently Protected Independent Media

The Chinese Communist regime’s effort to spread propaganda worldwide is backed up by its state resources, including its political, financial, and human power. The few independent Chinese-language media groups in the West are often created and run by traditional businessmen, political dissidents, and new immigrants who seek to promote education and American values to the Chinese people. These groups often lack financial resources for large-scale operations, often find it difficult to make ends meet, and are much less equipped to battle state-sponsored suppression. Independent media also lack resources for public relations and political lobbying activities. Furthermore, they are not in a very strong position to acquire legal protection when their businesses are interfered with. The consequence is that many Chinese media organizations that intended to be independent at the beginning have eventually been bought up or influenced by the Chinese government (see Table 4).

So far, it’s been a big victory for a totalitarian regime when China’s propaganda machine is allowed to freely exploit the freedom of speech in the United States and influence American citizens. In doing so, the United States is unwittingly legitimizing Beijing’s power over its own people as well as the Chinese people residing in the States.

Footnotes:
[1] Seven days a week unless specified.
[2] Regular 24 hr. program unless specified.
[3] From CCTV International web site.
[4] "CHINA BRIEFS: CHINA CENTRAL TELEVISION" by Telenews Asia, May 18,1995 published by 3rd Wave Communications Pty Ltd.
[5] "Worldwide Chinese TV service" by Music & Copyright: February 15,1995, published by FT Information Online Ltd.
[6] "PanAmSat, CCTV Eye Expansion" by Space News, April 8,1996, published by Army Times Publishing Co.
[7] "CCTV to Africa" by Hollywood Reporter, June 10,1997, published by BPI Communications, Inc.
[8] CHINA’S CCTV-9 TO BE LAUNCHED IN PHILIPPINES" by Asia Pulse News, November 8, 2000, published by Asia Pulse Pte Ltd.
[9] "MTV’s clearance for 24-hour China channel" by Television Asia, April 4, 2003, published by Cahners Business Information.
[10] "China Central Television Chooses GlobeCast’s DTH Platform" by Satellite Today, March 13, 2003, published by PBI Media, LLC.
[11] "CCTV extends Latin American influence" by Asia Image, June 10, 2003, published by Reed Business Information.
[12] CCTV Chinese language web site.
[13] "AUDIOVISUAL SECTOR: CHINESE TELEVISION POSTS INTERNATIONAL AMBITIONS" by Tech Europe, December 10, 2004, published by Europe Information Service.
[14] "China’s media: radio, TV expand and newspapers hold readers" by Market Asia Pacific, December 2000, published by PRS Group.
[15] From CCTV International web site.

Over the past four years, Chen Yonglin, a senior Chinese diplomat from the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney, had attended every rally commemorating the June Fourth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Sydney. Chen would normally stay behind the crowd, covertly taking photos of participants and then sending them back to the security department in China. This year, however, Chen stepped forward to the front, publicly announcing his defection and criticizing the Chinese Communist government.

"The current regime is just a power representing those who already have power. All those people who join the Communist Party, it’s not for the people, it’s for their own individual purpose," Chen said, "I believe this undemocratic government will finally be overthrown by the people in China."

A week ago, Mr. Chen left his consulate post as "consul for political affairs" and sought political asylum in Australia, saying that he could no longer support his country’s refusal to embrace democratic reform or its persecution of Falun Gong members. He said that his job in Sydney had been to "monitor" political dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners in Australia and implement countermeasures against those groups.

The Australian government didn’t extend a warm welcome to Mr. Chen, turning down his application for political asylum almost immediately. Before granting Chen any protection, the immigration official even contacted Chen’s consulate for an identity check, effectively informing them of Chen’s defection.

Fearing for the safety of his wife and 6-year-old daughter, Chen went into hiding and then made his position public at the rally.

Chen revealed that there are 1,000 Chinese spies in Australia. He said that Chinese spies had previously kidnapped critics of Beijing in Australia and returned them to China.

"They have successfully been kidnapping people in Australia back to China," he said. "Each year they have kidnapped a good number." He detailed several cases of what he described as confidential consular information, including the case of former vice mayor of Xiamen City, Lan Fu, who entered Australia on November 27, 1999, on a tourist visa.

To get Lan back to China, Chinese security agents kidnapped Lan’s son, who was studying in Australia. Lan’s son was drugged and put on a boat for the "high seas," where a Chinese cargo ship took him back to China. Mr. Lan eventually went back to China in January 2000, and was tried and sentenced to death three months later.
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The information provided by Chen didn’t generate much interest from the Australian government. "I told this to the Australian government when the immigration and foreign affairs officials interviewed me on the 31st of May, but they didn’t care," he said at the rally.

In contrast to the government’s indifference, the public showed great interest in Chen’s defection and his exposure of China’s overseas espionage. In the following week, a number of major media interviewed Chen or published articles about his story.

Many private groups also expressed support for Chen’s defection. In Chen’s daughter’s school, parents signed a petition letter asking the government to provide help for Chen’s family.

Chen’s public appearance prompted another Chinese official, Hao Fengjun, to break his silence. Hao was a police officer of the 610 Office (an agency set up to handle Falun Gong issues) in the Tianjin Bureau of State Security and sought political asylum in Australia after he fled China in February 2005. He backed Chen’s claim of Chinese spies in Australia and revealed that he personally handled Australian Falun Gong practitioners’ information collected by agents in Australia. Hao left his work because he no longer wanted to be involved in the persecution of Falun Gong and other religious groups.

A third, anonymous defecting official now seeking asylum in Australia also made similar statements through his attorney.

Australia’s handling of Chen’s case has drawn concern and criticism. Bob Brown, the leader of the Australian Green Party, criticized the government for not giving Chen immediate protection and requested a hearing of the event, saying that the government had put trade above human rights.

In recent years, China has become the third largest trade partner of Australia, and now the two nations are seeking to hammer out a free trade deal they say would be worth billions more.

Professor Hugh White, head of the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defense Studies Center, said China has made it clear that the development of the economic and trade relationship was dependent on Australia being sympathetic to China’s concerns on political and security issues.

"I think it does potentially put the government in a tough diplomatic position," he told ABC, "The concerns in the Australian community about the human rights of this individual are significant and valid; on the other hand, China I think will want this guy back and would tend to view a decision by the government to grant him political asylum or even refugee status … as a fairly adversarial thing to do."
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As the government’s human rights obligation comes under public scrutiny, more news in connection with China’s vast network of spies broke out. It was reported that almost 50 Chinese people held in Australian immigration centers were put in isolation for more than two weeks last month and interrogated by Chinese government officials from the embassy.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said smuggled letters had revealed some of those interviewed were asylum seekers who now feared persecution. "If it is not illegal, it is certainly reckless," he said.

The agents are targeting Chinese dissidents and are also being used to influence political thought "to turn Australia into a political colony of China," former Beijing University law professor Yuan Hongbing, the fourth Chinese defector to surface in Australia in the past month, told ABC radio.

"The term ‘political colony’ means the Chinese Communist Party will use its ideology to influence Australia’s politics and gradually turn Australia to betray its fundamental principles of freedom and democracy," Yuan said.

Along these lines, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has issued certificates each month over the last two-plus years to prevent Falun Gong members from using banners in their human rights appeal outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. Mr. Downer indicated that the banners "impair the dignity of the [Chinese] mission."

After repeated requests to Mr. Downer to reconsider the decision fell upon deaf ears, Falun Gong practitioners lodged a lawsuit against Mr. Downer in the Australian Capital Territory’s Supreme Court. The lawsuit is seeking a ruling from the court that deems Mr. Downer’s certificates to be illegal and to have infringed upon their right to freedom of expression.

So far, public reaction in Australia to the moves by the local government has been quite negative. By siding with the Communist government in the balance between trade and human rights, Sydney is taking a big gamble that the Communist regime will continue to prevail in China for the years to come, or that changes, if any, will only happen from within the Party.

The surprising defection of senior Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin to Australia sent shockwaves from Sydney to Beijing. Chen subsequently gave insight to a vast Chinese spy network in Western countries and its inner workings. Many elements of his statement were later confirmed by a couple of other former Chinese security officers who were also seeking asylum protection in Australia.

In a friendly environment, spying can be achieved completely "legally," as in the case of Mr. Chen. He professed to work as an agent to monitor pro-democracy activists, Falun Gong, and various dissident groups. It was revealed that many espionage activities are carried out with the assistance of students and pro-government individuals in the ethnic Chinese community, and collected information is sent to the Chinese consulates and embassies or directly transmitted to the security department on the mainland.

With the help of international investment, China is gaining increasing economic clout, but has not brought about the political reform the world has been hoping for. Instead, the Communist government is utilizing its growing economic power as leverage to consolidate control domestically, silencing critics from democratic countries and using international corporations to help its cause. Australia’s reluctance to offend Beijing in handling Chen’s asylum application is a prime example. Another good example is the fact that Microsoft recently complied with Beijing’s demands to install filters in its Internet blogging portal MSN Spaces in China, blocking users from using "democracy," "freedom," "human rights" and other sensitive words.

Domestic control is only the first step, as overseas infiltration and expansion has always been a part of the CCP’s long-term goal. Ideology control has traditionally been first and foremost. Fully exploiting the freedom of speech in democratic countries, the Chinese authorities are dominating the overseas Chinese media market, including Chinese-language TV programs and newspapers. English-based programs can also be viewed 24 hours a day through satellite and some cable channels, as well. All in all, this media blitz signals an alarming trend, and the current issue will be focused on this topic.