The recent spate of arrests in China of US-trained Chinese scholars on charges of spying for Taiwan is gradually drawing to a close following China's successful bid for the 2008 Olympic Games and President George W. Bush's promise to visit Beijing.
Among those arrested, Li Shaomin (李少民) and Gao Zhan (高瞻) benefited from US intervention and were allowed to return to the US. Both denied being spies for Taiwan, while Taipei denied having engaged them as spies. Gao revealed that Chinese officials had claimed that a pro-unification organization in Taiwan with which Gao had contact was a spy organization. But the inability of the Chinese authorities to provide evidence that the scholars are spies for Taiwan shows that this is a case of the scholars being used as "hostages" who can serve as bargaining chips in negotiations with the US.
Li, who taught in Hong Kong prior to his arrest, was held up at the airport for five hours when he returned to Hong Kong while the territory's government sought instructions from Beijing and got permission to admit him. Two officials from the US Consulate General in Hong Kong were also there to meet him at the airport. It would appear that an agreement had been arrived at beforehand between China and the US. Moreover, the fact that Beijing didn't have any dealings with Taiwan, the country supposedly employing these alleged spies, but instead went directly to the US, also shows that China's real purpose lay elsewhere.
China didn't dare treat the crew of the US EP-3 reconnaissance plane the same way. After holding them for 10 days, Beijing hurriedly sent them back. It detained ethnic Chinese scholars for many months. As a result, they had to rely on pressure from the US before they could obtain their freedom.
The rogue states of the Middle East frequently take US citizens hostage in order to blackmail Washington, but China detains fellow ethnic Chinese in order to do so. Doesn't that make it more roguish than the rogues? What kind of "nationalism" is that?
China has long been a master of "hostage diplomacy." It was used from the time of former president George Bush's admin-istration -- when Beijing allowed Fang Lizhi (
While toying with "hostage diplomacy" once again, Beijing also promised that if its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games were successful, China's human rights record would improve and the media would enjoy freedom. Time will tell whether these claims are false or not, but there have been at least two occasions recently when China's lies have been exposed.
The first occasion was the recent hoodwinking of US Secretary of State Colin Powell. When Powell visited Beijing, he gave an exclusive interview with the China Central Television Station on the condition that the entire interview would be broadcast. When it was aired, however, 20 percent of the interview had been out. Everything relating to the Taiwan Relations Act and to the problems of human rights and religion had been edited out. The State Department raised strong objections to this. Powell's tone in the interview had been extremely moderate and accommodating, but since China is a rogue regime that bullies the weak and fears the strong, when the US put forward a softer image, it was im-mediately exploited to the hilt.
There are precedents for this. When NATO mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Clinton called Jiang, but Jiang refused to answer his call. Although Clinton apologized six or seven times, Beijing still expressed dissatisfaction. After President George W. Bush took office, on the other hand, he made calls to quite a few heads of state, but he held out against calling Jiang, which made Jiang extremely anxious. When Bush finally did call Jiang recently, China's "news sources" made an effort to publicize the importance of this call.
The pity is that certain politicians in the US don't clearly see China's rogue nature, and they relate to China as though it were a normal country. For this reason, they don't learn from these experiences and often get cheated.
The second occasion relates to the Yuan Hua Group (
In order to silence Lai once and for all, Beijing has used every trick in the book to get Canada to extradite him. Recently, when the Canadian court was hearing Lai's application for political asylum, news broke that three Chinese agents impersonating businessmen had illegally obtained Canadian visas and entered the country, bringing along Lai's older brother in an attempt to make Lai return home. The Canadian embassy in Beijing expressed strong displeasure over this matter to China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministry, however, merely stated its"regrets." Were those regrets about the displeasure of the Canadian government or about their scheme being exposed?
Of course, China's deceptive behavior on the international stage isn't limited to these two cases. For example, by signing parts of the International Bill of Human Rights three years ago, China won praise from the international community, but from day one never had any intention of carrying out its obligations. Instead, they continued to round up dissidents en masse.
China's smuggling of missiles and nuclear weapons technology to rogue states is also frequently discovered by the US. When denial becomes no longer possible, China is forced to admit fault, but later continues to act in the same vein.
This sort of deceptive behavior is already deeply ingrained but is becoming more and more brazen. This is an inevitable result of the leniency of the policies adopted by the international communitytoward China. The leniency comes in part from oversight, but it must also be admitted that certain people have already been bought by China. If such deceptive behavior succeeds again and again, what will the world be like in the future?
Paul Lin is a political commentator based in New York.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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