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Beijing compiling lists of party-pooping foreigners

Police and special forces take part in a security exercise at a training base in Beijing on Nov. 25, 2005. Chinese security planners for next year's Beijing Olympics are worried about a new threat: foreign activists who want to bring protests to Beijing. PHOTO: AP

China's intelligence services are gearing up for next year's Beijing Olympics, gathering information on foreigners who might mount protests and spoil the nation's moment in the spotlight.

Government spy agencies and think tanks are compiling lists of potentially troublesome foreign organizations, looking beyond the human rights groups long critical of Beijing, security experts and a consultant familiar with the effort said.

They include Christians eager to end China's religious restrictions, activists wanting Beijing to use its oil-buying leverage with Sudan to end the strife in Darfur, and environmental campaigners angry about global warming.

The effort is among the broadest intelligence-collection drives that Beijing has taken against foreign activist groups, often known as non-governmental organizations, or NGOs. It aims to head off protests and other political acts during an Olympics the communist leadership hopes will boost its popularity at home and China's image abroad.

"Demonstrations of all kinds are a concern, including anti-American demonstrations," said the consultant, who works for Beijing's Olympic organizers and asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The government, he said, was "trying to find out what kinds of NGOs will come. What are their plans?"

While foreign governments often monitor potentially disruptive groups ahead of big events, Beijing this time is ranging farther afield, targeting groups whose activities would be considered legal in most countries.

As such, the move carries risks for Beijing. Evidence that the communist government is withholding visas or engaged in heavy-handed policing to suppress protests would likely draw negative press and could unnerve the International Olympic Committee and corporate sponsors.

The Ministry of Public Security, the national police agency which runs some domestic spying networks, declined to comment, as did the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. Phone numbers for the main spying agency, the Ministry of State Security, are not published, and the Cabinet's main information office would not provide them.

Concerns about foreign protesters are a reminder of how the Beijing games differ from most previous Olympics. Aside from the hefty US$40 billion price tag and the government's outsized political ambitions, security poses a different challenge, complicated by Chinese leaders' repressive policies at home and growing profile abroad.

Like all Olympic hosts since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, China's security services are concerned about terrorism. Attacks by militant Islamic groups, some of them homegrown, top the list of scenarios the police and the military are preparing for, Chinese and foreign security experts said.

Yet China also faces a plethora of disaffected domestic groups -- Tibetans eager to cast off Chinese rule, farmers upset at land confiscations and Falun Gong members.

"Africa, global warming, Darfur," the security consultant said, "without the Olympic Games, Beijing would not be paying attention to these things."
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