Regime Watch: Beijing

The China Post describes the first day of a new cross-strait commercial air travel arrangement between Taiwan and Mainland China:

More than 700 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan while about an equal number of Taiwanese passengers flew to China yesterday in the first wave of regular cross-straits commercial flights in nearly six decades that could transform ties between the old foes.

On the first day of the operation, a total of 753 Chinese people, including 622 tourists, 31 officials and 60 news reporters and photographers, arrived in Taiwan on nine flights from China.

This is pretty significant. Keep in mind that the communist regime in Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan, even though is is plainly obvious that Taiwan functions as an independent state, and that Taiwanese go about their daily lives under threat of annihilation by Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at the island. So what good can possibly come from this? Well, hopefully a great many Chinese tourists will decide that life in a liberal democracy beats life under communism. Or as Michael Turton notes his blog, The View From Taiwan:

No doubt China is pondering the consequences of letting loose thousands of middle and upper class Chinese on a nation where Asians refute every day the lie that Asians are not suited for democracy.

In fact, that refutation may have already begun. From Saturday’s Taipei Times:

Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and unificationists took the opportunity to highlight their causes yesterday as the first cross-strait charter flights arrived.

The groups welcomed Chinese tourists with placards proclaiming their views outside Taipei Songshan Airport on Dunhua N Road.

“Human rights for China, independence for Tibet,” Tibetans and their supporters shouted, waving the Tibetan flag as buses carrying Chinese tourists passed by. “We welcome Chinese tourists to breathe the air of freedom in Taiwan!”

Chinese visitors waved at the Tibetan demonstrators and took pictures.

As has been on display to the world recently, under Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet, advocating Tibetan independence (or even going on about human rights) gets you beaten down or killed in the streets by Chinese security forces. In contemporary Taiwan, an Asian nation that only a few decades ago was a one-party dictatorship, Tibetans and advocates for independence can invite Chinese to “breathe the air of freedom.”

That’s great stuff.

The latest Taiwan Communique, published by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, has an interesting essay by Charles Tannock of the British Conservative Party. Tannock notes that while China’s thuggish occupation of Tibet gets much (and well deserved) international attention, “the injustice of Taiwan’s ongoing international isolation has barely stirred a flicker of interest despite Taiwan’s recent presidential election and referendum on UN membership.”

As Tanner explains:

This seeming double standard can be explained partly by a sense of guilt. The West has, for the most part, embraced Kosovo’s independence in an effort to assuage its own culpability for not preventing late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing there. Similarly, much of the world is protesting on behalf of Tibet because countless millions have witnessed China’s brutal suppression of Tibetan culture.

Taiwan, on the other hand, does not grab our attention, because it is stable and flourishing economically. But it has never been part of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is an unrecognized independenct state with a vigorous democracy and high standards of human rights. Because Taiwan has not allowed itself to become a victim, the world simply does not feel guilty about it, and so ignores it.

Tanner may have a point about Western guilt, but could there be a worse reason to protest Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet than to simply try and make one’s self feel better? Even worse is to ignore Taiwan’s international marginalization at the hands of Beijing because it doesn’t make one feel “guilty” enough to care.

Note that Tanner says guilt only partially explains this situation…here he gets to the good stuff:

The campaigns that the West waged throughout the 1980s in solidarity with democratic forces in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe helped bring about the end of communist domination. A similar commitment to the democratic rights of Taiwanese could have salutary effects in China. Moreover, Taiwan is a natural ally of any party that espouses the values of pluralistic politics, free markets and human rights.

It seems particularly shortsighted, indeed hypocritical, for the US and Britain to seek to spread democracy and human rights throughout the world while failing to recognize and reward the Taiwanese, a people who have embraced these concepts wholeheartedly.

Unquestioning recognition of the “one china” policy sends the message that we appreciate more a country that is a big, communist dictatorship rather than a small multiparty democracy.

Indeed, the U.S. does stubbornly cling to the antiquated “one China” policy. The lack of formal recognition of Taiwan by the U.S. actually lends support to Beijing’s remarkably successful efforts at marginalizing Taiwan internationally. This doesn’t mean there isn’t support for Taiwan in the U.S. government. The U.S. Senate has a Taiwan Caucus with twenty five members and the U.S. House of Representatives Taiwan Caucus has 151 members.

Still, at the end of the day, U.S. policy can be boiled down to appeasing the communists in Beijing at the expense of democratic Taiwan.

This morning regime watch hit two thousand page views. As I said when the blog hit one thousand page views, I don’t really know what this means considering the many thousands of blogs out there…but it seems like a pretty hefty number to me. The majority of visitors continue to come from within the United States, followed by the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada. About twelve percent of visitors come from “other” countries. Welcome and thanks to you all.

The first post on regime watch was about my article “Misery: China’s Main Export,” which describes Communist China’s moral illegitimacy to host the 2008 Olympics, and which was first published in the excellent weekly Colorado newspaper, Johnstown Breeze. Here it is, re-printed in its entirety. And again, thanks to everyone who found their way to this blog…hope you come back from time to time.

In 2005, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives calling on the U.S. Olympic Committee to change the venue of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, citing among other things, the “egregious violations of human rights” by China.

And indeed, while Communist China is well qualified to host an international gathering of thugs and tyrants, the regime’s moral legitimacy as host of the Olympics is another matter entirely.

In May 2007, The Hill—a Washington, D.C. newspaper that covers Congress—reported on “a quiet lobbying campaign” in Washington by China in an attempt to “deflect threats that the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing will be boycotted because of what critics say is a Chinese failure to help end genocidal violence in Darfur.”

Actually, far from simply failing to help end the slaughter, China’s outright complicity in the genocide being perpetrated by the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum against non-Arab tribes-people in the Darfur region of Sudan is well established

A March 2007 report from the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation notes that China’s huge investment in Sudan oil in turn helps fund the genocide in Darfur, “Khartoum has doubled its defense budget in recent years, spending 60 percent to 80 percent of its estimated $500 million in annual oil revenue—half from China—on weapons. Some of these weapons find their way to the conflict in Darfur.”

Beijing has also helped subvert international arm embargoes against Khartoum. As the Heritage report continues, “Moreover, with Chinese assistance, the Sudanese government recently built three weapons factories.”

So with China’s help, the Janjaweed militias carrying out the genocide in Darfur are not only well-armed, but have also received military transportation and helicopter gunship support from Khartoum, making the slaughter all the more efficient.

In 2006, China not only abstained from a United Nations Security Council Resolution authorizing the deployment of troops and civilian police into Darfur to provide security against the genocide, but also used its veto power to force language into the resolution requiring the consent of the same Khartoum regime whose mass-murder in Darfur created the need for an international security force in the first place.

But the lobbying campaign didn’t work out as Beijing may have hoped. In May 2007, Congressman Tom Lantos (D-Ca.) released a letter to the Chinese President signed by over 100 members of Congress, including Colorado’s Tancredo stating, among other things, “…unless China does its part to ensure that the government of Sudan accepts the best and most reasonable path to peace, history will judge your government as having bank-rolled a genocide.”

The letter continues, “If China fails to do its part, it risks being forever known as the host of the ‘Genocide Olympics.’ ”

Besides enabling genocide in Darfur, China is also well into its fiftieth year of a military occupation of Tibet. Many thousands of Tibetans—including Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama—are forced to live in exile around the world

Last year, Beijing showed its hyper-sensitivity to having its thuggish occupation of Tibet tied to the Olympics by detaining and then deporting Colorado resident Kirsten Westby and four other Americans for peacefully displaying a banner saying “One World, One Dream, Free Tibet 2008” on the Tibetan side of Mount Everest.

The slogan was a clever play on Beijing’s own cynical slogan for the 2008 Olympics, “One World, One Dream.”

In addition, Beijing is again threatening violence against the peaceful and democratic island nation of Taiwan, over which China claims sovereignty—even though it is plainly obvious that Taiwan function as an independent state—and that only Beijing may represent Taiwan’s 23 million citizens in international organizations.

In 2005, Beijing enacted an “Anti-Secession Law” which codified China’s already long-standing threats against Taiwan. Article eight of the law mandates the use of “Non-peaceful” means against Taiwan if, among other things, “a major event occurs which would lead to Taiwan’s separation from China.”

After more than a decade of being turned down for United Nations membership under its traditional name “Republic of China,” Taiwan is planning a national referendum this year over whether to formally apply for UN membership under the name “Taiwan.”

Beijing recently stated that Taiwan’s referendum represents the kind of “major event” that would allow the regime to invoke article eight against Taiwan.

So Communist China is desperately trying to put on a friendly face for the Olympics while at the same time threatening one of Asia’s most dynamic representative democracies.

The eyes of the world will be on Beijing for the summer games, making the 2008 Olympics a unique opportunity to shine an international spotlight on the misery China exports around the globe.

No surprise here, but Tibet’s thuggish communist occupiers recently used the Olympic torch relay to “politicize” the Olympics and remind the world of their true colors. From Rueters (June 21):

Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of restive Tibet used the passing of the Olympic torch relay through the capital Lhasa on Saturday to defend their control and denounce the exiled Dalai Lama.

The torch procession ended under tight security below the towering Potala palace after having been run for just over two hours before a carefully-selected crowd, some three months after the region was convulsed by bloody anti-Chinese protests.

“Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it,” Tibet’s hardline Communist Party boss Zhang Qingli said at a ceremony marking the end of the two-hour relay through strictly guarded streets.

“We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique,” he added, in front of the Potala, traditional seat of the Dalai Lama, the most powerful figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

The Associated Press covered the torch passing through Lhasa, Tibet’s capital city. Here’s a part of the AP’s description of how an authoritarian communist regime celebrates the Olympic spirit:

Officers lined the route through the historic city at intervals of as little as 10 feet, while badge wearing onlookers, who had been carefully screened and individually approved beforehand, waved flags and chanted “Go China.”

A few dozen foreign reporters given special permission to cover the Lhasa leg were required to travel in a closely guarded convoy. They were only allowed to cover the opening and closing portions, isolating them from contact with ordinary residents.

Almost all foreign visitors have been banned from the region since the protests, hamstringing the local tourism industry.

These guys actaully get to host the Olympics?

The International Olympic Committee made a staggeringly bad decision by allowing Communist China to host the 2008 Olympics. Here’s a snippet from a recent New York Times editorial describing Beijing’s “list of Olympic dont’s” for international visitors:

On its Web site last week, the Chinese Olympic organizing committee listed a set of restrictions for the 500,000 overseas visitors expected in August. Olympic spectators are being told not to bring in “anything detrimental” to China, including printed materials, photos, records or movies. Religious or political banners or slogans are banned. So are rallies, demonstrations and marches — unless approved by authorities in advance. It also says that visitors with mental illnesses and sexually transmitted diseases will be barred from the country.

We shudder at how those judgments — many of them highly subjective or intrusive — will be made.

The International Olympic Committee has long prohibited political activities at Olympic venues, and we respect the goal of trying to put aside divisions while celebrating a common humanity. But Beijing is using those restrictions for its own authoritarian ends.

The sensitive souls at the Times editorial board seem a bit surprised that an authoritarian communist regime could be granted the Olympics… and then continue to act like an authoritarian communist regime. Shocking.

I’ve posted on several fine reports concerning China’s cyber attacks against U.S. government and private sector information systems. One from National Journal here, and another from the Heritage Foundation here.

Now comes this article on some members of the U.S. Congress claiming their office computers were hacked from within China. From the Asociated Press:

Multiple congressional computers have been hacked by people working from inside China, lawmakers said Wednesday. They suggested the Chinese were seeking lists of dissidents.

Two congressmen, both longtime critics of Beijing’s record on human rights, said the compromised computers contained information about political dissidents from around the world. One of the lawmakers said he had been discouraged from disclosing the computer attacks by other U.S. officials.

Republican Rep. Frank Wolf said four of his computers were compromised, beginning in 2006. Rep. Chris Smith, a senior Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, said two of his computers were attacked, in December 2006 and March 2007.

Sounds pretty outrageous. But the really strange part of the story is this:

Wolf said the FBI had told him that computers of other House members and at least one House committee had been accessed by sources working from inside China. The Republican suggested that Senate computers could have been attacked as well.

He said the hacking of computers in his Capitol Hill office began in August 2006, that he had known about it for a long time and that he had been discouraged from disclosing it by people in the U.S. government whom he refused to identify.

“The problem has been that no one wants to talk about this issue,” he said. “Every time I’ve started to do something I’ve been told ‘You can’t do this.’ A lot of people have made it very, very difficult.”

I hate to be the one to have to break the news to you Representative Wolf, but you are a member of the U.S. Congress, not some functionary in the bowels of a Washington D.C. Beijing appeasment bueracracy. If you haven’t been willing to “do something” about a communist regime hacking your taxpayer owned computers and making off with sensitive information because someone in the U.S. government said “You can’t do this” then you really should go sit in the dugout and let someone with a bigger bat step up to the plate.

The Heritage Foundation’s John Tkacik has some advice for the Bush Administration about how to deal with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing:

In August, President Bush and his retinue of more than 500 high officials, aides, factotums, security and communications specialists, and drivers will descend upon Beijing. The President’s presence in Beijing, and all its attendant hoopla and media coverage, will make quite an impression on the world’s newspaper readers and CNN-watchers. In short, he will not have the luxury of anonymity at the Beijing Olympics.

But the President of the United States need not lend his prestige to China’s global debut as host of the Olympic Games—prestige that China craves. If President Bush hopes to influence China’s behavior, not just with Tibetans, but with Beijing’s many friends around the world that are “America’s adversaries,” he must leverage his attendance and that of his family and even his father. He should also have a confidential chat with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also plans to be in Beijing, and the leaders of other democracies. Nothing flashy need be arranged.

President Bush needs only to let it be known, quietly, that he is rethinking his participation in the Beijing Olympics, and his press spokesmen need only respond to questions with a shrug of the shoulder and a noncommittal grunt.

China will get the message.

Numerous sites re-printed my recent Denver Post article on some of China’s other (other than Tibet) captive peoples and nations.  These sites offer a lot of good information about Beijing’s oppression of Tibetans, Uighers, Mongolians, and people of faith in general.

A big thank you to the following, and apologies to any sites left off the list.

Phayul.com:  News, opinion and other information (including travel information) concerning Tibet

Canada Tibet Committee: Website of a pro-Tibet organizatzion in Canada

Uyghur American Association: An Uygher organization in Washington, D.C., USA

China Aid Association: An organization that monitors the persecution of Christians in China

Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center:  An Inner Mongolia human rights organization located in the U.S.

I posted earlier on National Journal’s excellent article on China’s “cyber-militia” penetrating U.S. government and business information systems.   The Heritage Foundation has also been on top of this story.

From the February 2008 Heritage report, “Trojan Dragon:  China’s Cyber Threat” 

The U.S. military has been the primary target of Chinese cyberattacks, followed closely by the Departments of State, Commerce, and Homeland Security.  Academic, industrial, defense, and financial databases are also vulnerable.  Regrettably, American officials tend to be very sensitive to China’s feelings and refrain from public allegations that the attacks are launched by Chinese agents, even though, as one U.S. cybersecurity expert points out, “the Chinese are in half of your agencies’ systems” already.

But it is not just the U.S. under cyberattack by Beijng, the Heritage report has sections on Chinese hacker penetration of systems in the United Kingdom and Taiwan:

According to an offical of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, in 2006, Taiwan detected 13 PLA [People's Liberation Army] zero-day attacks launched within Microsoft applications and experienced a total of 178 days days of vulnerability between notifying Microsoft of the attacks and receiving  the appropriate patches.

The first paragraph of National Journal magazine’s recent article on the growing threat posed by Chinese computer hackers:

Computer hackers in China, including those working on behalf of the Chinese government and military, have penetrated deeply into the information systems of U.S. companies and government agencies, stolen proprietary information from American executives in advance of their business meetings in China, and, in a few cases, gained access to electric power plants in the United States, possibly triggering two recent and widespread blackouts in Florida and the Northeast, according to U.S. government officials and computer-security experts.

Sounds like a good plot line for a spy thriller.  Hopefully someone, somewhere in our vast federal government, is working on this.