Control, control, control: China's autocratic, one-party state continues to want control, but its reach continually exceeds its grasp. That is why it needs police, extra police, police not only from within but also from outside its country.
In our age of dwindling resources and increasing global communications, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) small cadre of self-appointed elitists sees the future only as one of control.
It has its goal set not only on controlling the resource-rich territories that belong to the people of Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and others, but also seeks to control democratic Taiwan as well as prevent its own people from entertaining any ideas of participation in self-government.
This is a daunting task, a task that can only be accomplished if it regularly enlists the services of outside police.
The most recent example happened ironically in the small city of Irvine, California. This seemingly minute incident is in reality the tip of a mammoth iceberg.
Under the guise of a sister-city program, CCP officials either hoodwinked or bought off selected Irvine city officials to agree to a politically charged memorandum.
This memorandum would constrain city officials from visiting sister city Taoyuan in Taiwan and participating in any National Day celebrations in Taiwan.
It would oblige them to enforce China's interpretation of the Shanghai Communique and would prevent the flag of the Republic of China being flown in Irvine or used in demonstrations. Irvine was required to do China's dirty work for them.
This is by no means an isolated incident. The same dictate is being repeated over and over again. To Yahoo: If you want a piece of the China pie, you must help China monitor and control the flow of free information to its people. If anyone voices an opinion contrary to the party line, you must give China his or her name for prosecution.
To Google: If you want to provide services in China you must follow suit and block references to words like democracy, Tiananmen Square and any others China chooses.
The China dictate crosses religious and spiritual boundaries. To the Catholic Church: If you want to preach your gospel in China, you must allow it to appoint the bishops who will influence the people's thinking and spiritual direction. To the Buddhists: You must allow China to appoint the Panchen Lama and any other lamas that it sees fit so that it can control Buddhist spiritual thinking. Anyone who does not agree will suffer the same fate as the Falun Gong, whose followers fill the prisons.
The dictate extends into academia. To academics: If you want to do research in China, you must write only on how China is progressing; you must not publish anything that interprets its past in a derogatory way or jeopardizes China's claims to all these territories and its control over its people.
The World Health Organization has long bowed to this dictate. Despite Taiwan having a population larger than nearly 75 percent of its member nations, Taiwan is forbidden participation; it is not even allowed observer status.
Consciously or not, a large number of organizations, businesses and even nations continue to agree to be policemen for this autocratic regime.
The United States has done its share of police work. It was only recently that members of the US House of Representatives realized how they too had been drawn into China's web by curtailing contacts with Taiwan. They finally voted to change that policy.
Following suit, on June 27, the two co-chairs of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, Senator Tim Johnson, a Democrat, and Senator George Allen, a Republican, introduced bi-partisan Resolution SCR 106, calling for the lifting of restrictions on high-level visits from Taiwan.
This resolution states that US policy has not kept up with the democratic changes in Taiwan and maintains archaic guidelines from the late 1970s that bar Taiwan's president, vice president, premier, foreign minister and defense minister from coming to Washington.
The resolution requires that the US allow direct high-level exchanges at the level of the Cabinet to strengthen policy dialogue with the Taiwanese government.
As for Taiwan, one does not have to look far to see which party avoids the subject of democracy in discussions with China. At least the rest of the world is waking up to how it is being used as China's police force.
Jerome Keating
Taipei
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