Chinazism: State Terrorism

'Think of your family': China threatens European citizens over East Turkestan protests
Uighurs living in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and France have complained of intimidation by Beijing
By Benjamin Haas in Munich

Demonstrators holding Uighur flags in Berlin before a meeting between German chancellor Angela Merkel and Li Keqiang. 

Two days after Abdujelil Emet sat in the public gallery of Germany’s parliament during a hearing on human rights, he received a phone call from his sister for the first time in three years. 

But the call from East Turkestan, in western China, was anything but a joyous family chat. 

It was made at the direction of Chinese security officers, part of a campaign by Beijing to silence criticism of policies that have seen more than a million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities detained in concentration camps.
Emet’s sister began by praising the Communist party and making claims of a much improved life under its guidance before delivering a shock: his brother had died a year earlier. 

But Emet, 54, was suspicious from the start; he had never given his family his phone number. 

Amid the heartbreaking news and sloganeering, he could hear a flurry of whispers in the background, and he demanded to speak to the unknown voice. 

Moments later the phone was handed to a Chinese official who refused to identify himself.
By the end of the conversation, the façade constructed by the Chinese security agent was broken and Emet’s sister wept as she begged him to stop his activism. 

Then the Chinese official took the phone again with a final warning.
“You’re living overseas, but you need to think of your family while you’re running around doing your activism work in Germany,” he said. 

“You need to think of their safety.”
In interviews with more than two dozen Uighurs living across Europe and the United States, tales of threats across the world are the rule, not the exception. 

Uighurs living in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and France all complained of similar threats against family members back in East Turkestan, and some were asked to spy for China.
More than a million Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic ethnic group, and other minorities are being held in concentration camps, according to the UN, with some estimates saying the number is “closer to 3 million”.
Emet, originally from Aksu in East Turkestan, has lived in Germany for over two decades and is a naturalised citizen. 

He does volunteer work for the World Uyghur Congress and is a part-time imam in his community. He has never told his family about his activism, hoping the omission would protect them.
“I will not keep my silence and the Chinese government should not use my family to threaten me,” Emet said. 

“I was clear with them on the phone: if they harm my family, I will speak out louder and become a bigger problem for the government.”

‘China threatening people in Germany should never become normalised’
Most Uighurs remain silent, and have found little help from European authorities. 

But Margarete Bause, a member of the German parliament representing Munich, said Chinese interference was unacceptable and urged Uighurs to contact their MPs.
“We need to protect visitors to the Bundestag. Observing parliament is a fundamental right in any democracy,” she said. 

“It’s also important for the German public to know how China is trying to exert influence here. The Chinese government threatening people in Germany should never become normalised.”
Bause has been interested in Uighur issues for over a decade, after she was admonished by Chinese diplomats in 2006 for attending an event hosted by the World Uyghur Congress. 

In August she was denied a visa as part of a parliamentary visit to China and the trip was eventually cancelled in response.
Beyond discouraging activism, Chinese officials have also tried to recruit Uighurs living abroad to spy on others in their community, asking for photos of private gatherings, names, phone numbers, addresses and licence plate numbers. 

Some are recruited when they go to Chinese diplomatic missions in Europe to request documents, and others are contacted by security agents over WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging app. 

Emet’s number is likely to have been leaked to Chinese security agents this way, he said, with his number well known in the Uighur community in Munich.
Chinese agents offer cash, the promise of visas to visit East Turkestan or better treatment for family members as a reward, but also dangle the threat of harsh consequences for those same family members if their offers are refused. 

Uighurs described having crucial documents withheld from Chinese embassies and consulates unless they agreed.
One Uighur living in Germany who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation said a Chinese agent asked for photos of Eid and other celebrations, and specifically asked for information on Uighurs who had recently arrived in Europe.

A group of people stage a protest against China’s human rights violations against members of the Turkic Uighur minority.

The recent surge in activism among Uighurs overseas is mostly a direct response to the increasingly repressive policies in East Turkestan, and as more people speak out China has doubled efforts to silence them and control the narrative over what it calls “re-education camps”.
There are some signs China’s campaign to silence Uighurs in Europe is working. 

Gulhumar Haitiwaji became an outspoken critic of policies after her mother disappeared into one of the camps in East Turkestan, appearing on French television and starting a petition addressed to French president Emmanuel Macron that garnered nearly half a million signatures. 

But after threats from Chinese officials targeting her mother, Haitiwaji cancelled a planned appearance in March at a human rights summit in Geneva, according to two sources familiar with her plans. 

Haitiwaji and the organisers of the meeting did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Adrian Zenz, an independent researcher who focuses on East Turkestan, said European governments needed to do more to protect their citizens from Chinese intimidation.
“The biggest mistake European Union countries make is that once they allow China to get away with something, that emboldens Beijing,” he said. 

“China has systematic strategies in place and the threats to Uighurs in exile show that. Europe needs its own unified strategy to stand up to China and respond to these threats.”
The Chinese embassy in Berlin did not respond to requests for comment.

China is showing its true nature in Hong Kong. The U.S. must not watch from the sidelines.

By choosing violence and intimidation to silence Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party is once again showing its true nature. 
By Marco Rubio

Demonstrators at Tamar Park in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Beijing recently reinforced its People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong with thousands of troops and authorized a new wave of arrests to intimidate peaceful demonstrators. 

In parallel, it blocked the Hong Kong government’s proposal to work out a compromise with the city’s massive and grassroots pro-democracy movement.
What began as a protest against an unjust extradition bill backed by China has now become a fight for Hong Kong’s autonomy and future. 

Yet what’s happening in Hong Kong is not simply China’s internal affair. 

The United States and other responsible nations are not watching from the sidelines.
The extradition bill is only the latest example of China’s many broken promises to the Hong Kong people and the world. 

Most obviously, the Chinese Communist Party is preventing the city’s government from acting with the autonomy that Beijing had promised it in a legally binding 1984 international treaty with Britain, under Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and in China’s diplomatic outreach to the United States and other nations.
In 2014, Beijing also backed off its commitment to allow Hong Kong citizens to choose their city’s chief executive through universal suffrage, a provocation that sparked the city’s massive Umbrella Movement protests. 

And in 2016 and 2017 , the High Court disqualified a total of six democratic lawmakers from their Legislative Council seats using a controversial interpretation of Hong Kong’s constitution.
Thirty years after People’s Liberation Army troops massacred reform activists and ordinary Chinese citizens on the way to Tiananmen Square, Beijing now appears poised to intervene overtly and aggressively in Hong Kong.
The paramilitary People’s Armed Police — built up in the aftermath of the Tiananmen massacre — has thousands of personnel and vehicles in Shenzhen, just across the boundary between mainland China and Hong Kong.
Chinese officials and state media have steadily escalated their warning rhetoric and outlined what they describe as the legal case for intervention based on “signs of terrorism.”
An unsigned editorial in Xinhua, a state-run news agency reflecting the institutional voice of the party center, claimed that Hong Kong is engaged in a “color revolution.”
The world ignores these warning signals at the peril of the Hong Kong people and the hundreds of thousands of foreigners — including roughly 85,000 U.S. citizens — living in the city.
China’s communists today are using the same messaging playbook that they have followed since they intervened in North Korea in 1950. 
We were surprised then; we should be prepared now.
The United States and the international community must make clear to Chinese leaders and power brokers that their aggression toward Hong Kong risks swift, severe and lasting consequences.
In particular, the administration should make clear that the United States can respond flexibly and robustly in Hong Kong.
Our options are much more than just a “nuclear option” of ending Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law.
The Hong Kong Policy Act, authored by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and enacted in 1992, allows the president to apply to Hong Kong those laws that address the People’s Republic of China.
The law’s power is selective and flexible, however, and not necessarily all-or-nothing for Hong Kong’s special status.
For example, the Tiananmen sanctions could be applied to target the city’s police force, which has collaborated with organized crime, instigated violence and now is torturing detained demonstrators.
Hong Kong’s special status — and therefore Beijing’s ability to exploit and benefit from it — depends on the city being treated as a separate customs area, on open international financial connections and on the Hong Kong dollar’s peg to the U.S. dollar.
The United States both administratively and diplomatically can constrain these conditions.
The administration also can impose sanctions against individual officials who have committed serious human rights abuses under the Global Magnitsky Act, which enables sanctions against foreign individuals or entities.
In addition, Congress should pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, a bill that I co-authored with Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), James E. Risch (R-Idaho) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).
The bill, among other things, would mandate that officials in China and Hong Kong who have undermined the city’s autonomy are vulnerable to such sanctions.
The United States and other nations have options precisely because Beijing benefits from Hong Kong’s special status. 
Indeed, the city has proved irreplaceable as a gateway for international finance, even as China attempts to build up a mainland alternative.
China’s leaders must either respect Hong Kong’s autonomy and rule of law or know that their escalating aggression will inexorably lead them to face swift, severe and lasting consequences from the United States and the world.
Today, that choice is theirs.

China is treating Islam like a mental illness

Uighurs Can’t Escape Chinese Repression, Even in Europe
By ELLEN HALLIDAY
Uighur demonstrators in Turkey wave East Turkestan flags in a protest against China.

BRUSSELS—In the comfortable living room of a family home near Antwerp, photographs from not so long ago recall the faces of the missing.

A business man sits proudly behind the desk of the company he owns. 

A party of women smile and laugh as they share a cup of tea. 

Four brothers in sharp suits, with their arms spread across one another’s shoulders, grin at the camera.
One of them is Ibrahim Ismael. 

He and his family fled their home in Hotan, East Turkestan, in 2011. 

They are ethnic Uighurs, a minority in China but the biggest group in East Turkestan, China’s largest and westernmost colony, which borders eight countries. 

They cannot go home, where at least 1 million Uighurs are detained in camps that Beijing says are for “reeducation” (human-rights groups label them “concentration camps”). 

Nor can they freely campaign for Uighur rights in Europe. 

Conversations with Uighurs in Belgium, Finland, and the Netherlands reveal a systematic effort by China to silence Uighurs overseas with brazen tactics of surveillance, blackmail, and intimidation. 

Many of the Uighurs I spoke with did so on condition of anonymity out of concern for their families in China.
Beijing claims that East Turkestan has always been part of China. 

Some of the province’s main cities—Ürümqi, Hotan, and Kashgar—have been strategically important posts on the Silk Road, the legendary trade route that connected China, the Middle East, and Europe for centuries. 

But the region’s history is more complicated. 

In 1949, Uighurs declared independence for East Turkestan. 

Although it didn’t last long—China took control shortly after the establishment of the communist state in Beijing that same year—the memory of self-governance and invasion lives on.
Most Uighurs, though not all, are Muslim, and speak a Turkic language rather than Chinese. 

In the 1990s, a major separatist insurrection in the province and the recent collapse of the Soviet Union encouraged China to increase its control in the region. 

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Beijing stopped talking about the Uighurs as separatists and started referring to its opponents in the region as "terrorists"; this discourse, linked to the Islamic faith of most Uighurs, helped China gain international support for its actions. 

When violence broke out in Ürümqi shortly after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the government cracked down harder than ever before. 

The state now monitors the individual trustworthiness of each person. 

Points are lost for owning a Koran, so-called extremist behavior such as fasting during Ramadan, simply being Uighur, or having a family member living in a foreign country. 

Those who lose too many points are sent to a camp, often for an indeterminate length of time.
The Uighur diaspora in Europe is relatively small—just a few thousand refugees, in addition to several thousand more in Turkey. 

Some came on student visas, to France, Hungary, and the Nordic countries, and then stayed. 

Others, knowing it was a one-way trip, put their safety in the hands of smugglers. 

Ibrahim and his family paid $40,000 for a journey through Guangzhou, Malaysia, Thailand, and Turkey, before they could start a new life in Belgium. 

‘I arrived with only $100 left in my pocket,’ he told me.
At first, many Uighurs in Europe were reluctant to speak out. 

Although Ibrahim and his friends live in European democracies where freedom of speech is promised, they feared that their advocacy would lead to retribution for their families.
One activist told me that when in the past he risked a snatched conversation on WeChat, the widely used Chinese social-media app, the state was listening. 

“You can hear that there is someone else there,” he said . 

“If we greet our families with Salaam Alaikum, they flinch and tell us to be quiet.” 

The Uighurs I met told me that as surveillance and arrests in East Turkestan increased since 2017, the calls from relatives stopped altogether. 

“I didn’t want to be an activist,” says Halmurat Harri, a Uighur campaigner and Finnish citizen, whose parents were detained in East Turkestan in April 2017. 

“I’m just a son, who wants to speak to his mother.” 

As the silence settled in, many in Europe began to feel they had no other choice but to go public.
Halmurat was one of the first to challenge the Chinese demand for silence. 

In August 2018, he set off on a “Freedom Tour” of Europe to raise awareness of the detention of Uighurs, including his parents.
Halmurat argued extensively and publicly that his parents’ case did not fit with any official Chinese-government excuses for detaining Uighurs. 

They are retirees, so they don’t need vocational training. 

They are secular, so can’t be called religious extremists. 

His father even speaks fluent Chinese. 

Halmurat used social media effectively—and in December 2018, his parents were removed from the camp and put under house arrest. 

He thinks it is “highly possible” that his activism pressured the government to let them go—though they were released just weeks before the Finnish president visited China.
His story has inspired others to follow suit. 

Activists are now more numerous, more organised, and more energized than ever before. 

They run workshops, public meetings, and social-media campaigns to hone their strategies and win the attention of politicians. 

They are eager to share their stories and their grief. 

But their efforts have not gone unnoticed by Beijing.
China wants to silence its critics, and so it confronts Uighur activists who live beyond its borders.
The EU’s border provides little extra protection: Uighurs in Germany, Finland, and Belgium also report being contacted by Chinese authorities. 

They say they are asked to spy or to reveal sensitive personal details including their home address, workplace, and national ID numbers. 

The offers, even if refused, breed distrust. 

Their friends, they are told, have accepted.
Other forms of intimidation are more public. 

One Uighur man I spoke with reported that he took part in a protest march in Belgium that was followed by a Chinese consular car with blacked-out windows. 

Halmurat reports that demonstrators in Helsinki have been photographed. 

According to the World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group that represents Uighur interests from Munich, Beijing uses such photographs to punish the families of the protesters who remain in China.
Beijing has also sought to silence a network of scholars in Europe, who are working with Uighur activists to help tell their story. 

Vanessa Frangville, a French scholar at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, has found her work targeted by Chinese authorities. 

In November 2018, two Chinese officials delivered a letter from the Chinese ambassador in Belgium to the university two weeks after it published an online statement in support of Uighur academics. “The Embassy hopes that the University will be able to avoid being misled by false information, and withdraw from its website the motion and other unfounded articles on East Turkestan, in the general interest of the Belgian-Chinese friendly cooperation,” the ambassador wrote.
In February 2019, two individuals dressed as students but identified, Frangville says, by police as Chinese consular staff,, disrupted an academic conference in Strasbourg, France, that she organized on the situation in East Turkestan. 

The individuals distributed propaganda and discredited the panel. 

“That was kind of a traumatic incident, because they spread doubt about what we were saying,” she told me. 

There have also been reports of similar disruptive incidents in Ireland and in Canada.
The Uighur activists want Western leaders to pressure China over its human-rights record in East Turkestan, in the hope that Beijing may loosen control. 

The EU has urged Beijing to respect freedom of religious belief, freedom of expression, and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. 

On May 3, as the U.S.-China trade war escalated, the Trump administration accused China of running “concentration camps” and subsequently called its actions in East Turkestan the “stain of the century.”
But European governments could also do more to safeguard activists living inside their borders. Authorities at times appear ill-prepared to protect Uighur activists. 

Shortly before he set off on his awareness-raising European tour, Halmurat’s car was vandalized. Upon his return, it began to emit white smoke from the engine. 

When he reported the incidents to the local police, he found that they did not take his concerns seriously.
In July, Halmurat traveled to Turkey to meet diplomats and discuss reported deportations of Uighurs to Tajikistan. 

Arriving at the Ankara airport after a flight from Istanbul, he noticed that two, then three, then four men were following him, always on their phones, in and out of the airport. 

They were Uighur, and spoke the Uighur language. 

When he came closer, he says, they switched to Turkish. 

Fearing for his safety, he called the Finnish Foreign Ministry and U.S. Embassy in Turkey. 

While U.S. officials gave information and reassurance, “I do not feel protected by my own country,” Halmurat told me.
While European Foreign Ministries are aware of the ways in which Chinese officials intimidate Uighur activists, they can do little to prevent it. 

In Europe’s open, democratic societies, China can legally pressure critics through academia, political lobbying, and the media. 

The European External Action Service, the EU’s foreign-policy arm, has a well-oiled operation tracking Russian influence in Europe, but has only more recently begun to pay more attention to the ways in which China makes use of these spaces to silence critics.
To some extent, Uighur activists are vulnerable because Western societies are not aware of their situation. 

Many Europeans have never heard the word Uighur, and refugees like Ismael and activists like Halmurat find it hard to generate public support for their cause. 

“We need people to see us as they see Tibet,” Halmurat said.
Only two European countries—Germany and Sweden—guarantee that they will not deport Uighurs claiming asylum. 

Germany only changed its rules after deporting 22-year-old Dilshat Adil in what authorities called an “administrative error.” 

He has not been heard from since. 

Rune Steenberg, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, says that Adil’s deportation is evidence of systemic apathy. 

“Don’t believe that Western governments are good, fair, or want your best,” he warns Uighur activists. 

“They’re not as bad as others, but they are not as good as you hope.”
For Ibrahim and his family, life in Europe is much better than it was in East Turkestan. 

He is employed as a long-distance truck driver, his three children are in school, and the family can practice their faith at home without retribution. 

But they are torn in two: between the opportunities of their European future and the pain of knowing that their new life may have contributed to the suffering of their family in East Turkestan.
Whether they are active campaigners or not, Uighurs living far from East Turkestan and farther yet from Beijing cannot escape Xi Jinping’s long arm of influence. 

Small gestures reveal the spirit of independence that will not be cowed. 

“The strong bully the weak,” Ibrahim tells me, as he puts on his shoes and heads out for work. 

“What China is doing is a test.” 

On the living-room floor, in the doorway of his home, Ibrahim treads on a barely visible photograph that bears the face of Xi. 

In Belgium, he has merely taken a step. 

In China, he would have committed a crime. 

Xi’s faded features stare blankly upward, his image worn away by the passing feet of those he tries to silence.

Chinese Peril

China's Media Interference Is Going Global

BY AMY GUNIA / HONG KONG 

China is actively attempting to influence the global media to deter criticism and spread propaganda, according to a new report released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Monday.
The report, China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order says Beijing is using a variety of strategies including ramping up international broadcasting, undertaking extensive advertising campaigns, and infiltrating foreign media outlets to spread its world view.
“You can see that what is at stake is not only the Chinese authorities trying to spread their own propaganda…what is at stake is journalism as we know it,” Cédric Alviani, East Asia Bureau Director of RSF told TIME.
According to the report, the Chinese government is investing as much as $1.3 billion annually to increase the global presence of Chinese media. 

With this investment, Chinese state-run television and radio shows have been able drastically expanded their international reach in recent years. 

China Global Television Network is televised in 140 countries and China Radio International is broadcast in 65 languages.
The government is also spending significant sums to promote Chinese views by placing paid advertorials in Western media publications. 

Alviani said in an era where news media is struggling with profitability, media outlets have been tempted by advertising dollars. 

China has paid up to $250,000 to place ads in leading international publications.
“If you’re a subscriber to big media you trust the contents they provide to you, you implicitly trust the content they provide, it’s quite dangerous,” Alviani told TIME. 

“In the long run they have to make a decision, do they want to keep their credibility? Or do they want to carry Chinese propaganda?”
The report says China is also attempting to control foreign media outlets by buying stakes in them. 

Chinese ownership leads self-censorship, and journalists have been fired for writing about the country critically.
A columnist for South Africa’s Independent Online, of which Chinese investors held a 20% stake, had his column cancelled in Sept. 2018, hours after a column about China’s persecution of ethnic minorities was published.
In addition to buying stakes in media outlets, Beijing has influenced foreign media by inviting journalists, especially from developing countries, to China for training. 

The report mentions one example where 22 journalists from Zambia were invited to visit China for specially-designed event called the 2018 Zambia Media Think Tank Seminar.
By inviting journalists on lavish, all-expense-paid trips to attend seminars in China, Beijing wins many of them over and secures favourable coverage.
Lack of press freedom in China is well-documented, with the country ranking 176 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index, but the report documents several cases of China is using the same tactics used to silence dissent at home to repress journalists overseas. 

China is “employing blackmail, intimidation and harassment on a massive scale,” says RSF.
“Chinese ambassadors extend their role outside of the regular diplomatic roles, they denigrate journalists anytime they write something that does not meet Chinese propaganda,” Alviani told TIME.
Despite China’s far-reaching influence into global media organizations, RSF hopes that journalists will work to document Chinese interference.
“It’s very likely that what we show in this report is only the tip of the iceberg. The purpose of the report is to stir interest for journalists so they’ll pay attention to the extent of Chinese influence in their regions,” Alviani said.

Chinese State Terrorism

Academics write in support of Anne-Marie Brady, urge PM to take action on China

By Anusha Bradley 

Canterbury University politics professor Anne-Marie Brady

The prime minister is being told she must make it clear to China that attempts to intimidate and silence academics here will not be tolerated.
Twenty-nine academics, researchers and human rights advocates have written an open letter to Jacinda Ardern in support of China critic and Canterbury University politics professor Anne-Marie Brady.
"We have been shocked and disturbed by the reports of intimidation and harassment suffered by Professor Anne-Marie Brady," the letter said.
"Attempts to intimidate and harass one academic in New Zealand have implications for freedoms of all the others -- and indeed, for the freedoms of all who live here."
The group also urged the prime minister to "make a clear statement in defence of academic freedom" in light of the case and to be "very clear that any intimidation and threats aimed at silencing academic voices in this country will not be tolerated".
It was revealed that Prof Brady had been burgled in February and the police, Interpol and the Security Intelligence Service were investigating the involvement of Chinese spies.
The investigation widened two weeks ago when, in a new twist, Prof Brady's mechanic discovered during a WOF examination, that two of her tyres had also been tampered with.
One of the 29 signatories to the letter, published today, was sociologist and commentator Tze Ming Mok, who said the prime minister was not doing enough to send a clear message to the Chinese government.
"The silence is very conspicuous."
"There is never a bad time to signal really clearly to all our trading partners that we are a particular kind of country, we have particular kinds of standards, and there are some things we will not stand for."
Prof Brady's experiences have already had a chilling effect amongst China-focused experts in this country with many unwilling to comment on the saga publicly, she said.
Margaret Taylor, a spokesperson for Amnesty International, which also signed the letter, said it was not only academics but the Chinese community in New Zealand who feared being targeted by their former government.
"People who have spoken to us, and they are very brave for doing so, are terrified that if they do speak out they will come under the attention of the Chinese authorities.
"Many of them don't speak to their family members, they're too scared to contact anybody at home."
Prof Brady said she felt "humbled" by the support, not only from her peers who signed the letter but from the wider public since the story about the burglaries broke.
But she was just doing her job, she said.
"The Education Act requires all political leaders and government agencies to protect and defend our academic freedom and uphold the critic and conscience role of the academic.
"So I do my job, and I expect the government to do their job."
A spokesperson for the prime minister said she supported and defended the legal right to academic freedom, as set out in law.
"The matters contained in this letter are under investigation by the police and it is not appropriate to comment on them before the investigation is finished."
But Prof Brady said the investigation was over, and the issue was now in the government's hands.
"The police have done a really great job and a thorough investigation has been completed. The next step now is the political will that needs to have the guts to face up to the situation."

Repressive Experiences in China Studies

First-of-its-kind survey of China scholars seeks to quantify just how frequently they encounter repressive actions by the Chinese state intended to stop or circumscribe their research. A majority say self-censorship is a problem.

By Elizabeth Redden

Anecdotes abound of scholars who write on controversial subjects being denied visas to enter China, having difficulty accessing archives on the mainland or being “taken for tea” by Chinese police or security officials during the course of their fieldwork. 

But just how common are these kinds of experiences?
A survey of more than 500 China scholars discussed Saturday at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Boston finds that such “repressive research experiences are a rare but real phenomenon” in the China studies field and “collectively present a barrier to the conduct of research in China.” 

Researchers found that about 9 percent of China scholars report having been “taken for tea” by Chinese government authorities within the past 10 years, to be interviewed or warned about their research; 26 percent of scholars who conduct archival research report being denied access; and 5 percent report difficulties obtaining a visa.
A majority of researchers believe their research is either somewhat sensitive (53 percent) or very sensitive (14 percent). 

Sixty-eight percent of scholars say that self-censorship is a problem for the China studies field.
“Our own conclusion is that the risks of research conduct in China are uncertain, highly individualized, and often not easily discernible from public information. The decision about whether or not to pursue a particular potentially sensitive research project is a therefore highly personal one. Scholars encounter real consequences for conducting certain research in China, and these risks are higher for both Chinese researchers, and the Chinese colleagues and interlocutors who interact with foreign scholars,” Sheena Chestnut Greitens, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, and Rory Truex, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, write in a paper outlining the results of their survey.

Greitens and Truex write that their survey provides “the first systematic data on the frequency with which China scholars encounter repressive actions by the Chinese government.” 

The researchers sent the survey to 1,967 social scientists they identified having expertise in China and received 562 complete responses, for a 28.6 percent response rate. 

Respondents include anthropologists, economists, historians, political scientists and sociologists. 

The researchers limited the sample to scholars working in Australia, Europe, Hong Kong, New Zealand and North America.
The survey focuses specifically on researchers' experiences, but it comes at a time of increasing concern about Chinese influence on Western academe more broadly. 

Reports last fall that academic publishers were censoring journal content in China raised widespread alarm, and Chinese-government funded Confucius Institutes, centers of Chinese language and culture education that are located on U.S. college campuses, are coming under increasing scrutiny.
Greitens and Truex divided the repressive research experiences they documented into three main categories:
Restrictions on access to China. Greitens and Truex found that the Chinese government "does restrict visa access for work that it considers potentially problematic." While there are some high-profile cases of scholars who report being "blacklisted" from China long term, the researchers found that "the most common form of restriction is temporary visa ‘difficulty’ rather than outright denial or long-term blacklisting." Greitens and Truex note that it is not always clear that the reason for difficulties is related to the scholar’s research, but the scholars often believed or received informal indication this was the case.
Restrictions on access to research materials and subject. Restrictions on access to archival research materials are fairly common: 26 percent of all scholars who do archival research report facing restrictions, as do 41 percent of responding historians, whose research depends most heavily on access to archives. Denials of access to particular materials often seemed to be based on the topic of those materials, though, as Greitens and Truex write, “archivists rarely cited sensitivity as the reason for denial, instead citing digitization or other internal processes.”

The survey findings also suggest that access to archival materials has changed over time, and that previously accessible materials are no longer available to foreign researchers.
Of those researchers who use interviews or participant observation in their research, about 17 percent report that they’d had interview subjects “withdraw in a suspicious or unexplained matter, an experience that is most prevalent in political science and anthropology.”
Surveillance and intimidation. Among the 9 percent of respondents who said they’d been interviewed by Chinese authorities (“taken for tea”) within the last 10 years, Greitens and Truex write that there were certain common patterns in their experiences. “A scholar attracts attention in the course of research -- attending a protest, requesting archival access, giving a talk, etc. Agents of the local government in turn respond, gather information on the researcher, and often seek an end to, or place boundaries around, the research activity,” they write.
In addition, about 2 percent of respondents reported having their computer or other materials confiscated during field research. And 2.5 percent -- 14 individual scholars -- reported experiencing temporary detention by police or physical intimidation. Greitens and Truex found that “these higher-impact events occurred disproportionately in places with a heightened security presence, such as Tibet and East Turkestan.”

Impact on a Range of Research Subjects
Over all, Greitens and Truex found that while it does appear that “research topic area plays a role in repressive experiences,” it is “far from deterministic.” 

For example, they found that scholars who studied topics considered sensitive like ethnicity, religion and human rights were disproportionately likely to encounter difficulties getting visas. 

But researchers who studied other topics including the environment, China’s foreign relations and gender had problems, too.
In many cases Greitens and Truex note that “research is not blocked, but allowed to proceed while being monitored along the way.” 

One theme of their findings was what scholars describe in open-ended responses as “fuzzy” or unclear boundaries: “You never know where the border is; you only know when you have crossed it,” one respondent said.

Warnings frequently come through informal channels. 

Twelve percent of all scholars, and 17 percent of those who said they do intensive field research, say that a Chinese colleague or friend had been contacted about their work. 

“We note that this is consistent with a broader pattern... where political sensitivity is communicated through indirect channels and language than directly through formal procedures, where relationships rather than documents and institutions are leveraged for that communication,” Greitens and Truex write.
China scholars reported adjusting their research strategies in various ways to avoid drawing undesired attention from Chinese state authorities. 

Nearly half (48.9 percent) said they have used different language to describe a project while in China. Nearly a quarter (23.7 percent) shifted a project’s focus away from the most sensitive aspects, while 15.5 percent reported having abandoned a project entirely. 

Just 1.6 percent reported publishing anonymously.
Though the majority (68 percent) of respondents agree that self-censorship among China scholars is a problem in the field, Greitens and Truex write that their "survey data also challenges the definition of self-censorship and the notion that it occurs primarily because of self-interested careerism. Respondents stressed discretion as a necessary ethical principle for social science research in China, given the potential for a scholar’s Chinese interlocutors to disproportionately bear the negative consequences of sensitive research. They also drew a distinction between censoring the conclusions of academic work and choosing to adopt more publicly critical stances on policy issues, especially those that fell outside their specific research area."
Asked to offer advice on how to manage sensitive research in China, respondents emphasized the importance of listening to Chinese colleagues and protecting research subjects and interlocutors above all else.

Mattis accuses China of intimidation and coercion in South China Sea

Mattis takes hard line on China in Singapore speech

By Joshua Berlinger

Singapore -- US Defense Secretary James Mattis accused China of "intimidation and coercion" in the Indo-Pacific and declared that the United States does not plan to abandon its role in the region during a speech Saturday in Singapore.
"Make no mistake: America is in the Indo-Pacific to stay. This is our priority theater," Mattis said.
Mattis specifically called out Beijing's militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea, home to some of the world's busiest sea lanes.
"We are aware China will face an array of challenges and opportunities in coming years, we are prepared to support China's choices if they promote long-term peace and prosperity for all in this dynamic region," Mattis said.
"Yet China's policy in the South China Sea stands in stark contrast to the openness our strategy promotes. It calls into question China's broader goals," he said.
Mattis and some of his counterparts from the Asia Pacific region are in Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual gathering of security officials, contractors and academics in the Asian city-state.
The South China Sea has been a hot topic of discussion during the summit's opening, amid ongoing attempts by China to assert its dominance in the region.
China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei all have competing claims to the territory. 

But while other countries have built military features and artificial islands, none come close to matching Beijing's in scale or ambition, which stretch hundreds of miles south and east from its most southerly province of Hainan.
In May, the Chinese military landed nuclear-capable bombers on its artificial islands for the first time.
Weeks earlier, US intelligence announced there was a high possibility Beijing had deployed anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles as part of ongoing military exercises.
"China's militarization of artificial features in the South China Sea includes the deployment of anti-ship missiles, surface-to-air missiles, electronic jammers and, more recently, the landing of bomber aircraft at woody island," said Mattis, confirming previous intelligence reports.
"Despite China's claims to the contrary, the placement of these weapon systems is tied directly to military use for the purposes of intimidation and coercion," he said.
On Sunday, two US Navy warships sailed close to a handful of disputed islands claimed by China in the Paracel island chain, east of Vietnam, in a move that drew the ire of Beijing.
"I think it goes to a fundamental disconnect between the way the international tribunals have looked at these waters -- these waters look to us as free and open waters," said Mattis, addressing last week's freedom of navigation operation directly.
"We do not do freedom of navigation for America alone, we do freedom of navigation for all nations... we do not see it as a militarization by going through what has traditionally been international water space. We see it as affirmation of the rules-based international order."
Though Mattis appeared to draw a firm line between the actions of the US and China, he insisted the US is not asking other countries in the region to choose sides.
"China should and does have a voice in shaping the international system, and all of China's neighbors have a voice in shaping China's role," said Mattis, adding that he would travel to Beijing soon "at China's invitation."
China claims its actions in the South China Sea are entirely peaceful and meant to protect its citizens and trading interests.

Korean summit
Mattis only briefly mentioned the status of the Korean Peninsula in his formal remarks, which come just hours after Donald Trump announced that he will hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on June 12, just days after Mattis departs.
The Defense Secretary stuck to fairly common talking points from Washington: highlighting the importance of US alliances and the ultimate goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Much of the speech was focused on longer-term challenges in the region known as the Indo-Pacific, a phrase used throughout India and Southeast Asia and recently embraced by the Trump administration.
He also mentioned the importance of upholding US alliances and partnerships in the region, specifically highlighting Australia, New Zealand and India. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the keynote opening speech this year, also emphasizing the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
Mattis also touched upon the status of Taiwan, an issue bound to ruffle feathers in Beijing. 

China views the island as a renegade province and seeks its eventual reunification with the mainland.
Beijing has been accused of ramping up the pressure on Taipei in recent weeks, with Taiwan accusing using its diplomatic and economic weight to isolate the island from the international community. 

It has also punished business for recognizing Taiwan as independent country.
"We oppose all unilateral efforts to alter the status quo and will continue to insist any resolution of differences accord with the will of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait," he said.
Mattis delivered the keynote address at the event last year.

China detains relatives of U.S. reporters in punishment for East Turkestan coverage

By Simon Denyer

A policeman is seen through a car window at a security checkpoint at Khom village of Altay, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, on Jan. 28. 

BEIJING — China’s security services have detained several close relatives of four U.S.-based reporters working for Radio Free Asia, in an attempt to intimidate or punish them for their coverage of the Muslim-majority East Turkestan region, the news organization said Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of Muslim ethnic Uighurs have been detained in “political education centers” by Chinese authorities in East Turkestan in recent months, according to Human Rights Watch. 

The campaign is portrayed as a “strike hard” campaign against "terrorists and separatists", but effectively means anyone who expresses their religious or cultural identity is targeted, Human Rights Watch said.
“We’re very concerned about the well-being and safety of our journalists’ family members, especially those in need of medical treatment,” said Rohit Mahajan, director of public affairs at Radio Free Asia in Washington.
“We’re also particularly concerned about the use of detentions as a tactic by Chinese authorities to silence and intimidate independent media, as well as to inhibit RFA’s mission of bringing free press to closed societies.”
Among those who have been detained or disappeared are several close relatives of Shohret Hoshur, Gulchehra Hoja, Mamatjan Juma and Kurban Niyaz, four ethnic Uighur journalists working for Radio Free Asia in Washington. 

The first three are U.S. citizens while Niyaz is a green-card holder.
Their reporting for the U.S. government-funded news organization has offered one of the only independent sources of information about the crackdown in the province.
All three of Hoshur’s brothers were jailed in East Turkestan in 2014, but two were released in December of the following year after protests from the U.S. government. 

The third, Tudaxun, was sentenced to a five-year jail term in 2015 for endangering state security and remains in prison.
Now, Hoshur said, the other two brothers were detained again in September and taken to the “Loving Kindness School,” a political re-education center in the city of Horgos. 

Hoshur said a source told him that around 3,000 people have been detained there.
Hoshur said Chinese authorities have contacted family members living in East Turkestan, urging them to ask him to stop calling and reporting on events in the region.
In a separate statement posted online last week, Hoja said her brother, 43-year-old Kaisar Keyum, was taken away by police in October and his whereabouts are unknown. 

Since late January, she has also lost all contact with her parents, who are both in their seventies and suffer from poor health.
“My father is paralyzed on one side and needs a constant care. My mother has recently had a surgery on her feet and is very weak,” she said in the statement. 

“I need to know where they are and that they are OK. I need to be able to speak to them. They have not committed any crime.”
Shortly after calling her aunt earlier this month, Hoja said she received a call from a friend in West Virginia whose mother lives in Urumqi, East Turkestan’s capital. 

Her friend said that around 20 of Hoja’s relatives had been arrested by the Chinese police because of her reporting.
When her brother was detained, police told Hoja’s mother that her employment with RFA was the reason for his detention, while Hoja has heard that her relatives may have been detained for being in communication with her through a WeChat messaging group, RFA said.
Juma, deputy director of RFA’s Uyghur Service, reported that his brothers Ahmetjan Juma and Abduqadir Juma were detained in May 2017. 

Ahmetan’s whereabouts are unknown, while Abduqadir has been taken to a prison in Urumqi. 

He suffers from heart and health issues that require medical care, but his sister has been denied access to him.
“The family is deeply concerned about his health and well-being while being held in a prison known for its inhumane conditions,” RFA said.
RFA Uyghur broadcaster Niyaz’s youngest brother Hasanjan was arrested last May and soon afterward sentenced to six years in jail for “holding ethnic hatred.”
Human rights groups say China represses the rights, culture and freedom of worship for Uighur Muslims. 

East Turkestan has been home to long-running separatist unrest, and there have been several violent attacks there in recent years, blamed by the authorities on Islamist extremism.
In a report issued Tuesday, Human Rights Watch described how a system of predictive policing, involving constant mass surveillance and big data analysis, was being deployed to bolster the crackdown in East Turkestan.
The policing program called “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” gathers data from all-pervasive security cameras, some of which have facial recognition or infrared capabilities, “WiFi sniffers” monitoring smartphones and computers, and car license plate and identity card numbers gathered at the region’s countless security checkpoints, all cross-checked against health, banking and legal records, the report said.
Police officers, Communist Party cadres and government workers also visit homes to gather data on families, their “ideological situation” and their relationships with neighbors. 

One interviewee said even owning a large number of books could arouse suspicion, unless one worked as a teacher, while data is also gathered on frequency of prayer and visits abroad.
Constant surveillance and harassment have made it extremely difficult for foreign reporters based in China to cover the crackdown in East Turkestan effectively, with locals too scared to talk to reporters and security officials obstructing or detaining several journalists who have ventured there. 

That has made RFA’s coverage even more important in understanding the situation there.
RFA said it had been in contact with the State Department over the detentions, but China’s foreign ministry declined to say whether it had received any communications from the U.S. government.
RFA was set up by Congress in 1994 to broadcast news that would otherwise not be reported in Asian countries where governments do not allow a free press and it continues to be funded by an annual grant from the U.S. government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Hoshur said China might be using voice recognition technology to intercept his phone calls to gather information from East Turkestan, with almost all of them cut off in under a minute.

Chinese Paranoia

No perceived slight is too small for Beijing to start throwing its weight around
By KEITH B. RICHBURG
Pro-democracy protesters open umbrellas in central Hong Kong in October 2014. 

China's Communist authorities must consider their 1.3 billion citizens as exceptionally fragile souls, prone to having their feelings hurt at the smallest slight. 

Not only are Chinese restricted from openly saying what they want, they also must be protected from any form of offensive speech that might cause undue anxiety.
As anyone who deals with or lives in the realm of the Chinese Communist Party knows, "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people" has become the common admonition against transgressors, repeated countless times since the phrase first appeared in the Communist lexicon in 1959.
What is new is how Beijing's rulers seem intent on using the country's new economic clout to extend their protective bubble globally, blocking out any and all affronts to its people's tender sensibilities. No matter how trivial or unintended the perceived insult, offenders must be punished until they acquiesce, usually with a ritualistic kowtowing public apology.
This is China's version of "soft power" as the country prepares to supplant the U.S. as the world's largest economy -- using intimidation, threats and an iron fist in place of persuasion and leading by example.
Marriott International, the hotel group, learned this lesson when it sent out an innocent Mandarin-language questionnaire in January asking customers for their home residence, and listing Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as separate "countries."
Beijing was clearly not amused. 

The questionnaire was quickly amended, Marriott's CEO apologized profusely, and the company issued an eight-point "rectification plan" to prevent future missteps. 

But even that was not enough. 

Soon, China's internet trolls discovered that a Marriott employee had "liked" a Twitter post by the pro-independence Friends of Tibet," congratulating the hotel chain for listing Tibet as a country. 

The employee was duly sacked.
This was not an isolated case. 

Companies such as Delta Air Lines, German carmaker Audi and some two dozen other international businesses have been called out recently for "hurting the feelings of the Chinese people." 

The offenses included ill-advised maps and website drop-down menus that trampled Chinese sensibilities over territories it claims.
China's sensitivities are on increasingly open display. 

Australian media reported in January that a Taiwanese woman working in a hotpot restaurant in Sydney was fired after saying to her boss that Taiwan was not part of China. 

This comes after growing warnings from Australian academics that their freedom of speech was under increasing pressure, after incidents in which mainland Chinese students in their classrooms were found to be monitoring their teachers' statements for any sign of anti-China bias.
That iron fist from Beijing -- and the Communist leaders' desire to stifle free speech outside the mainland -- has extended to Hong Kong, ostensibly an autonomous region with a separate local government, which has come increasingly under Beijing's grip.
With the help of handpicked local minions, Beijing has decided that the question of Hong Kong independence is so sensitive that the mere discussion of the topic must be officially proscribed. Students in high schools and on university campuses are not supposed to talk about it. 

And candidates for local legislative seats have found now that they must face a new kind of loyalty test on the independence question, or find themselves barred from running for office.
A pro-democracy advocate named Agnes Chow Ting, who at 21 was hoping to become Hong Kong's youngest member of the legislative council, was unexpectedly banned from running in a March 11 by-election for an open seat. 

Her offense? 

er party, Demosisto, advocated "democratic self-determination" for Hong Kong -- which in Beijing's eyes is a code word for independence.
Two other young candidates, Ventus Lau Wing-hong and James Chan Kwok-keung, were also barred from standing. 

The Hong Kong Electoral Affairs Commission said the two harbored lingering pro-independence views based on their past statements. 

Both barred candidates said they no longer supported independence. 

But their reversals were apparently not sufficiently abject to satisfy China's new candidate vetting procedures.
The banning of candidates based solely on their views -- or on authorities' perception of their views -- marks a new blow to Hong Kong's freedoms, which have been steadily eroding since the former British colony was returned to China in 1997. 

Beijing's chosen Hong Kong leaders seem intent on purging from the political scene anyone associated with the 2014 pro-democracy protests known as the "Umbrella Movement." 

Some of the young protest leaders have been jailed though were recently freed on appeal.
In almost every case -- from the Marriott mishap to the culling of Hong Kong's candidate pool -- the key issue has been China's territorial "integrity", where the Communist leadership draws its firmest red line.
Perhaps the Mandarins running China became jittery over the U.K.'s "Brexit" vote to leave the European Union. 

Maybe they saw the recent unrest in Catalonia, where Spanish police used violence to try to prevent a separatist vote, as a cautionary reason to nip independence sentiment in the bud. 

Or perhaps the lesson was from East Timor, which voted for independence in a 1999 referendum to end 24 years of Indonesian occupation.
Territorial integrity is a sensitive issue for every country, not just China. 

The U.S. fought a bloody civil war that settled the question on whether American states could secede (the secessionists lost and the Union was preserved).
But the difference is that it is not a crime in America to simply discuss secession. 

There are even secessionist political parties, like the Texas Nationalist Movement, which advocates "Texit" and claims some 350,000 supporters. 

Hawaii has a small independence movement of natives still smarting over the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. 

Giving all these movements a voice seems to make them less relevant.
Maybe thick-skinned Americans are just not as sensitive as their Chinese counterparts, and their feelings not so easily hurt. 

And just maybe, China's rulers might one day learn that the easiest way to fuel support for any idea, no matter how far-fetched, is to try to ban any talk of it.

Rogue Nation

Beijing Is Silencing Chinese-Australians
By ALEX JOSKE

Credit Sébastien Thibault
CANBERRA, Australia — On a September night in 2016, I took my seat at a theater in the heart of Canberra for a Chinese national day celebration organized by the pro-Beijing Chinese Students and Scholars Association. 

There was a commotion and all of the seats around me were suddenly filled by men in black suits communicating with walkie-talkies. 

They followed me into the bathroom and tried to have the theater’s security staff kick me out.
Earlier, I had reported for a student newspaper on Chinese government ties to the group and its efforts to censor anti-Communist Party material at my university. 

I later identified the men at the theater as members of the Chinese student association, and it was clear that the attempt to intimidate me was a result of my articles.
Beijing’s reach into Australia goes far beyond groups like the student association. 

Its interference in Australian society is becoming increasingly bolder. 

And as Australians debate how to respond, the voices of the Chinese-Australians alarmed by Beijing’s encroachment are being drowned out by an aggressive Chinese government campaign to silence critics here.
With so many Chinese-Australians left unheard, misunderstandings surrounding the Chinese-Australian community are rife. 

More than one million Australians claim Chinese ancestry, out of a total population of about 24 million.
The Chinese Communist Party is actively fostering in the Chinese-Australian community what the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who died while in custody in China last year, called an “enemy mentality”: the idea that the liberal West is China’s enemy and that supporters of freedom are enemies, too. 

Those objecting to the Communist Party’s oppression, like pro-democracy activists, are widely referred to as “poison” or “hostile forces.”
Fear is among Beijing’s most potent weapons in silencing Chinese-Australians. 

Like me, other Chinese-Australian critics of Beijing are targets of threats and intimidation. 

Last year, a Sydney-based university professor, Feng Chongyi, was detained in China for a week. The Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian was briefly detained in 2014 after creating a diorama of Tiananmen Square to commemorate the 1989 massacre.
China also monitors the social media accounts of dissidents in Australia, and many fear that their private messages and social networks might make them targets of the Chinese government. 

Badiucao, a Chinese-Australian cartoonist and street artist, has never revealed his face or real name out of fear.

Even those who avoid actively criticizing Beijing are affected. 

Last month, word spread of a Taiwanese waitress in Sydney who claimed that she had been asked by her boss at a Chinese hot-pot restaurant if she thought Taiwan belonged to China. 

“Definitely not,” she replied, and a few minutes later found herself without a job.
As part of Beijing’s campaign, Chinese-language media here, relied on by the many Chinese-Australians for whom English is a second language, are pressured into self-censoring. 

These news outlets avoid any criticism of the Communist Party. 

Beijing has also been quietly expanding its state-owned media across the globe, including into Australia, by buying stakes in local Chinese media. 

Posts on WeChat, a social media app owned by the Chinese conglomerate Tencent that is widely used among Australia’s Chinese, can be deleted at Beijing’s whim.
Beijing’s control of the Chinese-language news media helps to elevate the pro-Beijing voices here, while critics of Beijing find themselves with few public platforms. 

Prominent supporters of Beijing are rewarded by Beijing with trips to China.
Few Chinese organizations publicly opposing the Chinese Communist Party are left, their rallying power having been stunted by the lack of coverage by Chinese-language news outlets. 

And independent organizations have been taken over by pro-Beijing members, who then change the club’s mission.
Beijing’s domination of the conversation in the Chinese community gives the wider public a skewed view of Chinese-Australians. 

The rest of the country is left with the impression that Chinese-Australians are a unified bloc that supports Beijing. 

One right-wing commentator even wrote an article titled, “A Million Chinese Here May Not All Be on Our Side.” 

This mind-set affects Australia’s policymaking process.
Beijing’s agents here are also keen to remind Australians of this country’s history of racism against Chinese. 

The result is that when a Chinese-Australian is accused of having ties to Beijing, he may cry racism, saying that he’s being tarnished by connections to Beijing only because he’s ethnic Chinese. 

In the absence of balanced reporting in the Chinese-language media, many Australians are inclined to believe these claims.
A series of new bills in Parliament on foreign interference, including the introduction of a foreign-agents register and a ban on foreign political donations, would weaken Beijing’s levers of control among Chinese-Australians. 

It may also inspire new confidence among Chinese-Australians that our struggles are being recognized, that we are no longer being left to fend for ourselves in this fight against coercion.
Still, many Chinese-Australians feel frustrated by the way we are viewed and represented. 

All Chinese-Australians should have the right to voice their opinions without fearing reprisals by Beijing.
So-called Chinese community leaders who do not in fact represent most Chinese-Australians should be forthcoming about their ties to the Communist Party. 

And those who do not reveal their ties should be called out not just in English-language media but also in the Chinese-language press. 

Independent Chinese-Australian community groups should be supported.
The Australian government must do its part to put an end to Beijing’s coercive influence on the local Chinese-language news media and the broader Chinese community. 

Our government should use diplomatic and security channels to push back against pressure on the media and Beijing’s takeover of Chinese community groups. 

The independence and reach of publicly funded Mandarin and Cantonese news outlets should be ensured and expanded.
Chinese-Australians are not powerless. We need to speak up. 

But it’s also time for all Australians, regardless of ethnic background, to unite to protect the country’s sovereignty and dignity. 

If we are truly a nation of tolerance and freedom, all Australians should support Chinese-Australians’ freedom of expression.

Chinese Subversion

China’s fingerprints are everywhere
By David Ignatius

A little-noticed passage in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy released last month previewed a new push to combat Chinese influence operations that affect American universities, think tanks, movie studios and news organizations.
The investigations by Congress and the FBI into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign won’t be affected by the added focus on China, officials say. 

Instead, the aim is to highlight Chinese activities that often get a free pass but have a toxic long-term effect because of China’s growing wealth and power.
A National Security Council interagency group is coordinating the administration’s study of Chinese activities that are “outside traditional espionage, in the gray area of covert influence operations,” a senior administration official said. 

 The rationale, noted in the 55-page strategy document, is that “America’s competitors weaponize information to attack the values and institutions that underpin free societies, while shielding themselves from outside information.”
In targeting Chinese operations, the administration is walking a delicate line between helping American academics, think-tank experts and journalists resist pressure and fomenting mass public anxiety about Beijing’s activities. 

Officials say they want to help American institutions push back against intimidation from a Chinese Communist Party that is rich, self-confident and seductive in a way that Russia has never been.
The administration official said in an interview Tuesday that the target “is not Chinese soft power — the legitimate exchange of people and ideas, which is something we welcome. What we’re talking about are coercive and covert activities designed to influence elections, officials, policies, company decisions and public opinion.”
Kurt Campbell, who oversaw Asia policy during the Obama administration and now runs an Asia consulting group, offered a measured endorsement: “The NSC-led inquiry about Chinese influence operations, if conducted dispassionately, could be useful. We focus mostly on Russian influence operations. But the Chinese have a much more subtle and complex agenda here.”
A catalyst for the Trump administration’s probe was an investigation in Australia, which revealed what that country’s security chief called “unprecedented” Chinese meddling that could damage Australia’s sovereignty. 

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull proposed new controls in December.
The administration official offered examples of how American institutions can be pressured by China:
● Universities host more than 350,000 Chinese, who make up nearly a third of all foreign students here. 

Beijing encourages students to join local branches of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association. 

Sometimes students get squeezed. 

The senior official cites the case of a Chinese student from a dissident family who was warned by a friend not to share personal details — because the friend would report them to Chinese intelligence.
Students and university officials who resist Beijing can pay a price. 

A Chinese graduating senior at the University of Maryland last year was shamed by social media into apologizing for a comment praising free speech. 

At the University of California at San Diego, an invitation to the Dalai Lama brought a protest from the local students’ association and warnings that UCSD might not receive more Chinese students and that its graduates’ degrees might not be recognized back home.
● Think tanks are eager to study China, but often the money to support research comes from business executives with close relations with Beijing. 

That can lead to pro-China bias. 

In conversations with think-tank leaders, the senior official said, he has stressed “the need for think tanks to cast a brighter light in this area. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
● Hollywood studios face an especially delicate problem, because the Chinese box office is so important to their bottom line. 

Ticket sales in China rose from $1.5 billion in 2010 to $8.6 billion last year, second only to America’s. 

Inevitably, U.S. studios fear offending Chinese official "sensibilities".
● News organizations face pressure, too. 

China restricts visas for journalists or publications it sees as too "aggressive". 

After Bloomberg News published revelations in 2012 about the family wealth of Chinese political leaders, Beijing temporarily blocked sales of Bloomberg’s financial data terminals in China, a potentially crippling move.
China’s glittering modern facade often convinces outsiders that it’s a country just like those in the West. 

Not so, says Peter Mattis, a former CIA analyst who now studies Chinese influence activities for the Jamestown Foundation. 

When American thought leaders interact with Chinese representatives, it’s not a free-flowing “conduit,” he says, but a controlled circuit.
America has never faced a rival quite like China, which presents such a compelling, well-financed challenge to democratic values. 

America certainly doesn’t want a new “Red Scare,” but maybe a wake-up call.

Rogue Nation: China seeks to silence critics at U.N. forums

"China is systematically trying to undermine the U.N.’s ability to defend human rights, certainly in China but also globally as well." -- Kenneth Roth

By Stephanie Nebehay

Security cameras are attached to a pole in front of the giant portrait of  Chinese dictator Mao Zedong on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, near the Great Hall of the People where the 18th National Party Congress (NPC) is currently being held, November 11, 2012.

GENEVA -- Beijing is waging a campaign of harassment against Chinese activists who seek to testify at the United Nations about repression, while the world body turns a blind eye or is complicit, Human Rights Watch said.
In a report released on Tuesday, the group said China restricts travel of activists, or photographs or films them if they do come to the U.N. in Geneva to cooperate with human rights watchdogs scrutinizing its record.
“What we found is that China is systematically trying to undermine the U.N.’s ability to defend human rights, certainly in China but also globally as well,” Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.
“This comes at a point where domestically China’s repression is the worst it has been since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement (in 1989). So there is much to hide and China clearly attaches enormous importance to muting criticism of its increasingly abysmal human rights record.”
Asked about the report at a regular briefing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang dismissed its accusations as “groundless”.

The U.N. system offers one of the few remaining channels for Chinese activists to express their views, the New York-based group said.

Its report, “The Costs of International Advocacy: China’s Interference in United Nations Human Rights Mechanisms,” is based on 55 interviews.

“NIP-IT-IN-THE-BUD STRATEGY”

Pro-democracy demonstrators hold up portraits of Chinese disbarred lawyer Jiang Tianyong, demanding his release, during a demonstration outside the Chinese liaison office in Hong Kong, China December 23, 2016. 

“Xi Jinping seems to have adopted a ‘nip it in the bud’ strategy with respect to activism at home, but increasingly abroad. That’s one of our messages, China’s repression isn’t stopping at its borders these days,” Roth said.
In China, activists have “decreasing space safe” from intimidation, arbitrary detention, and a legal system controlled by the Communist Party, the report said, decrying a crackdown on activists and lawyers since 2015.

Some activists who have attended U.N. reviews of China’s record have been punished on their return, it said. 

Others have their passports confiscated or are arrested before departure.
When Xi addressed the U.N. in Geneva in January, the U.N. barred non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from attending, Human Rights Watch said.

Dolkun Isa, executive chairman of the World Uyghur Congress, speaks on his phone at the organization’s Munich office July 6, 2015. 

Dolkun Isa, an ethnic Uighur rights activist originally from China, was attending a U.N. event in New York in April when U.N. security guards ejected him without explanation, despite his accreditation, it added.
Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer, disappeared last November, months after meeting in Beijing with U.N. special rapporteur on poverty Philip Alston who has called for his release.
Jiang, after being held incommunicado for six months, was charged with subversion. 

At his trial last month he confessed, saying that he had been inspired to overthrow China’s political system by workshops he had attended overseas.
“It illustrates the lengths to which China will go to ensure that even when it admits a U.N. investigator, the investigator only hears the government’s side of the story,” Roth said.
”When a rare activist is able to break through the ‘cordon sanitaire’, they are arrested.
“So the signal is clear -- don’t you dare present an independent perspective to a U.N. investigator.”

State hooliganism: BBC team forced to sign confession

By John Sudworth

The plan was a simple one.
We'd arranged to meet a woman in her village in China's central Hunan Province and to then travel with her by train to Beijing, filming as we went.
But we never did get to meet our interviewee.
The story we ended up with, however, reveals more about the exercise of power in China than any interview ever could.
It is one that involves violence, intimidation and a forced confession -- my first in my long reporting experience in China -- in which I found myself apologising for "behaviour causing a bad impact" and for trying to conduct an "illegal interview".

Thugs, sanctioned by the authorities, attacked us
Yang Linghua was planning to take the train to Beijing because she is what's known in China as a "petitioner".
Every year, many tens of thousands of Chinese people -- denied the possibility of obtaining any justice through the local Communist Party run courts -- head to the capital, taking their grievances to the "State Bureau of Letters and Calls".
Corruption cases, land-grabs, local government malfeasance, medical negligence, police brutality, unfair dismissal -- all are documented in the bundles of papers -- the petitions -- they carry with them.
The system is also Communist Party run, of course, and the chances of success are tiny.
But for many, it's the only chance they've got, and they often continue to petition, in vain, for years.

The BBC interviewed Yang Quinghua, sister of Yang Linghua, three years ago

Just like Yang Linghua's family.
The BBC interviewed her sister, Yang Qinghua, three years ago on a petitioning trip to Beijing.
The women allege that their land was stolen from them and their father, in the ensuing dispute, was beaten so badly he eventually died.
But there's a particular reason Ms Yang was trying to reach Beijing this week.
On Sunday, China begins its annual parliamentary session, The National People's Congress (NPC).

The National People's Congress is held, like the Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (depicted), in Beijing's Great Hall of the People

The event is like a magnet for petitioners who hope to use the grand occasion to promote their cause.
Beijing, though, has other ideas.
It would rather keep this ragged army of the dispossessed away from its carefully choreographed piece of political theatre and so provincial officials the length and breadth of the land, are tasked with stopping petitioners making the journey.
We knew that Ms Yang's sister and mother had already been placed under unofficial house arrest.
But as she herself had never been to Beijing to petition before, she felt she would be free from suspicion and, at the very least, able to board a train.
She was wrong.
As soon as we arrived in Yang Linghua's village it was clear they were expecting us.
The road to her house was blocked by a large group of people and, within a few minutes, they'd assaulted us and smashed all of our cameras.

Our equipment was smashed -- Ms Yang says her father received far worse when he objected to land theft

While such violence can be part of the risk faced by foreign reporters in China, what happened next is more unusual.
After we left the village, we were chased down and had our car surrounded by a group of about 20 thugs.
They were then joined by some uniformed police officers and two officials from the local foreign affairs office, and under the threat of further violence, we were made to delete some of our footage and forced to sign the confession.
It was a very one-sided negotiation, but it at least gave us a way out -- a luxury denied to the petitioners who find themselves on the receiving end of similar intimidation and abuse.
A video sent to us by Yang Linghua's sister shows her being detained by some of the same people who threatened us.

Warnings not to travel
In the course of researching this story we spoke to one woman, now in her seventies, who has been petitioning since 1988 for a longer prison sentence for her husband's murderer.
She told us that every year during the National People's Congress she is put under house arrest for 10 days.
A man we contacted, petitioning over the abduction of his son, had been warned not to travel this week.
He went ahead and booked his tickets anyway but was prevented from boarding the train in Guangdong Province.
Even for those who do make it to Beijing, the threat of being caught remains.
Outside the petitioning office this week, hundreds of "interceptors" have gathered, the squads of goons sent from each province to search out and cajole or coerce their petitioners to return home.

Official and volunteer security officers are everywhere during the Congress
Of course, many petitioners do still make it and are able to lodge their claims, particularly first-timers who are not yet known to the system.
But the irony is, the harder China works to stem the flow during its national parliament, the more incentive there is for people to come.
Most petitioners are not so naive as to believe they'll be able to get anywhere near the senior officials attending the parliament.
But the desperation of their own provincial governments to catch them gives those who make it to Beijing a certain leverage.
Ignored all year round, often by the same officials they're petitioning against, they suddenly find themselves on the receiving end of offers to negotiate.
One petitioner showed us the text message exchanges she has had with the interceptors trying to track her down, with one even offering to take her on holiday. 

Anything to get her out of Beijing.
We have heard nothing from Yang Linghua or her family since they disappeared.
We have asked government officials in Beijing whether they can provide an assurance that they are safe and well.
Meanwhile, on the eve of China's parliamentary gathering, many of its citizens -- often those, it could be argued, who are most in need of parliamentary representation -- face similar abuse.
And despite having signed that confession I make no apology for trying to interview them.