“Freedom democracy for China; end one-party dictatorship”

Activists target China’s human-rights record with new ad campaign in Vancouver

By XIAO XU

Louis Huang sits next to an ad he designed at a bus stop in Richmond, B.C., on Aug. 11, 2018.
An activist group made up largely of Chinese immigrants is launching an advertising campaign in the Vancouver region to criticize China’s human-rights record, with an aim to raise awareness among people from that country who are now living in Canada.
The campaign began in late July with a bus shelter ad, located along one of the busiest roads in Richmond, B.C., but the Vancouver Chinese Human Rights Watch Group plans to purchase billboards and other forms of advertising to bring attention to poor human-rights conditions in China.
“The ad may raise awareness among people from the Chinese community and make them realize, in our country of birth, the human-rights situation is getting worse and worse," Louis Huang, co-ordinator with the group, said in an interview. 

"They may pay more attention to it in the future, which could push China’s human rights to improve.”
The Richmond bus ad features a picture of an eagle flying in the sky. 

It says “Freedom democracy for China; end one-party dictatorship” in English, and “End one-party system; build democratic China,” in Chinese.
Mr. Huang said he and his group’s more than 20 members, mostly immigrants from China, covered the cost of the ad. 

He said future ads will touch on topics ranging from jailed dissidents to the Chinese government’s foreign influence.
“We hope more overseas Chinese will have courage to express their opinions when they see these ads. Because they’re still afraid to discuss politically sensitive topics related to China, even though they are living abroad,” he said.
The Chinese consulate in Vancouver didn’t respond to The Globe and Mail’s interview request.
Mr. Huang, who moved to Canada in 2002, has been fighting for China’s human rights for about a decade. 

He said since Xi Jinping took power five years ago, the country’s human-rights situation has been worsening.
The group has previously protested outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver, urging the government to release activists and rights lawyers who have been held in custody since the nationwide crackdown in 2015 and then-imprisoned Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died in jail last year.
Pitman Potter, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, said China has tightened its grip on freedom of expression, religious freedom and people’s private rights under Eleven’s leadership.
“There has been a dramatic increase of oppression in East Turkestan in particular, but also in Tibet," Dr. Potter said. 

“When you look at the social-credit system that basically keeps track of people’s behaviour electronically and create files on them … all those are recent indicators of very serious declines in human-rights conditions.”
Shawn Zhang, a Chinese-born UBC law student, has been using satellite images to track down suspected locations of camps in the East Turkestan colony of China, where scholars estimate hundreds of thousands of mainly Muslim people have been forced to undergo political indoctrination.
Mr. Zhang said the overseas Chinese community cannot be apathetic towards human-rights issues in China.
“If the overseas Chinese community did nothing to address the human rights conditions in our home country, we are communicating that we don’t care about the importance of human rights in our own," he said in an e-mail. 

"It is dangerous because when other people realize that you do not care about human rights, why should they protect you when your own human rights are violated?”
Guo Ding, a current-affairs commentator in the B.C. Chinese community, said Canada should champion human rights, but any foreign country can hardly change the human-rights condition in China.
“The change of a [country’s] system and social value has to happen within its own society,” he said.
Alex Neve, secretary-general at Amnesty International Canada, said members of Canada’s Chinese community who are actively involved in human-rights protection in China can play a significant role in improving such issues in China.
“The Chinese government clearly understands that their voices can be very powerful within the community," he said.
"It’s something very different to have your own neighbours and some of the community members who are speaking out of these concerns than it is to hear those criticisms or concerns raised from the outside of the community.”

Chinese Paranoia

China releases new ad campaign offering massive cash reward to rat out international spies
By Matt Young and AFP

Chinese Government issued video shows citizens how they can catch spies

IN A sign of rising paranoia, city officials in China have urged the public to “slowly construct an iron Great Wall in combating evil and guarding against spies”.
Budding Chinese sleuths could start stalking foreigners as suspected spies in Beijing after authorities offered huge cash bonanzas for information on overseas agents, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
It comes as the Beijing National Security Bureau posted an animated “how-to” video on how to spot a spy and what to do should you see one in action.
“Steal state secrets with me and make a fortune by selling them abroad!” a bearded foreigner with a robber’s mask tells a little boy.
“Uncle policeman, he’s the one!” the boy tells an officer.
The boy receives a lollipop from the policeman, but the video says whistleblowers will receive much more than just a sweet.
The video finished with a line that nice guys don’t have to finish last.

“Foreign intelligence organs and other hostile forces have also seized the opportunity to sabotage our country through political infiltration, division and subversion, stealing secrets and collusion,” the Beijing Daily newspaper reported.
“There are some people out of personal interests, selling national interests, to foreign intelligence agencies to take advantage of intelligence.”
Members of the public can report suspected espionage through a special hotline, by mail or in person and will be rewarded with up to 500,000 yuan ($72,460) in compensation if their intelligence is deemed useful.
Beijing “is the first choice among foreign spy agencies and others who are fiercely carrying out infiltration, subversion, division, destruction and theft,” according to authorities.
The average annual wage in Beijing in 2015 was 85,000 yuan ($12,300), according to the most recent data available from the city government.
Some Chinese have joked on social media that they would only have to catch two spies a year over a five-year period to buy a house. 

Others, sceptical of the campaign, said, “We should clean up corrupt officials first”.
“Citizens play an important role in spy investigations,” said a statement from the city’s security bureau, in the latest sign of concern about foreign agents in the capital.
The new incentives for whistleblowers will be implemented ahead of China’s second annual National Security Education Day on April 15.
Sources can choose to remain anonymous and request police protection for themselves and their relatives.
Those who deliberately provide false information will be punished, the security bureau said.
The Beijing Morning Post wrote on Monday that the “extensive mobilisation of the masses” will contribute to the construction of an “anti-spy steel Great Wall.”
But one expert claims the campaign could indiscriminately target foreigners. 

Li Fan, founder of the private think tank World and China Institute told the Washington Post, “if you take a photo on the street, somebody will report you as a hostile foreign spy. People will be more cautious to talk to foreign media.”
Cartoon posters began appearing in Beijing public offices last year warning Chinese women against falling for the romantic wiles of foreign men with undercover motives.
A 16-panel poster titled Dangerous Love showed a blossoming relationship between a Chinese government worker named Xiao Li and a visiting scholar, “David”.

A poster warning against foreign spies is displayed in an alleyway in Beijing, China, Wednesday, April 20, 2016. 

Friend: A foreign friend has organised a gathering tonight ... You’re always trying to increase your foreign language level, why don’t you go with me? Xiao Li: OK.

Their thwarted happy ending takes the form of a visit to the police station when the pair is arrested after Xiao Li gives David secret internal documents from her government workplace.
The newspaper reported that a fisherman in eastern Jiangsu province received a “heavy” reward after notifying the authorities of a suspicious device in the water bearing a “foreign language.” 

The device was being used to collect data for a foreign party, according to the Beijing Morning Post.
The Chinese government often declares threats from “hostile foreign forces” as a justification for censorship and crackdowns on civil society.
Peter Dahlin, a Swedish human rights activist operating out of Beijing, was detained for 23 days and then expelled from the country in January 2016 for allegedly posing a threat to national security.
Mr Dahlin’s group offered training to lawyers who have tried to use the tightly-controlled judiciary to redress apparent government abuses.
The most recent national census, held in 2010, recorded 600,000 expats living in China.
Since taking office in 2013, Xi Jinping has overseen a raft of laws and campaigns to secure China’s "national security" against both domestic and foreign threats, Reuters reports.

David: Great! Lend me those internal references so I can take a look. This will really help me write academic articles. Xiao Li: I can’t, we have a confidentiality system.

Xiao Li: “I didn’t know he was a spy; he used me! Officer: You show a very shallow understanding of secrecy for a State employee. You are suspected of violating our nation’s law.