China denounces European parliament over Tibet

[Old Hippie]

rogueyam, Flash,

 

Precisely what pisses me off about so many immigrant groups here these days, they just don't want to get with the program and become Americans. Instead, they want to demand rights and privileges they never had in their own country, yet they also want to try and make this country like the one the left.

[Hugh_Hoy]

Si, senor.

 

HH

[Torneyboy]

Interesting to see who wins ..

[bust]

The latest is that 5000 Chinese students are being organized to travel to Canberra by bus and protect the Olympic Torch from anti-Chinese demonstrators.

 

WTF

 

Few points of concern here.

 

1. 5000 students don't just organize themselves...has to be someone else orchastrating it.

My guess the Chinese Embassy.

 

2. Most of the kids studying here in Australia come from middle to upper class families who have only ever experienced the prosperous times in china and are probably oblivious the the human rights issues that china is known for.

 

3. Majority of them are late teens early 20's so they will not be familiar with how the Chinese Government deals with unfavourable opinions like they did in Tiananmen Square. In thier eyes the west is taken an unbalanced view of their country.

 

4. I know what young chinese in numbers are like and can see nothing but violence coming from their plans.

[Flashermac]

I think the local folks should be more than a match for them.

 

 

p.s. Wonder how the PRC would react if 5000 Aussie students showed up en masse in Beijing to show their "spirit".

 

 

 

 

[bust]

Actually I think it will be Pro Tibet Chinese v Pro China Chinese.

 

Locals will be the spectators

[Flashermac]

Cool. Sounds like a Run Run Shaw flick.

 

 

[mongon]

Its interesting to see that the Chinese Consulate engages in major political operations in the U.S.

 

Here is an excerpt from this article

 

 

Beijing's Obvious Hand at the U.S. Olympic Torch Run

April 16, 2008

By Rodger Baker

 

The April 9 Olympic torch relay in San Francisco opened a window into the organizational capabilities of the Chinese government and its intelligence collection apparatus inside the United States. From the coordinating efforts of the cityâ??s Chinese Consulate, down through local Chinese business and social organizations, and on to the pro-China supporters who photographed the event, the operation showed an efficiency and organizational capability not seen among the anti-China demonstrators. The run also revealed a high level of sophistication, planning and control in the pro-China camp.

.......

 

By 8 a.m. April 9, the pro-China demonstrators were taking up positions along the planned torch relay route, pulling in groups carrying Chinese, U.S. and Olympic flags, and equipped with cases of food and water. However, these were not spontaneous gatherings of overseas Chinese supporting the motherland, as Beijing media have portrayed them. Rather, there was a coordinated effort between local Chinese business and social associations and the consulate to attract, equip, deploy and coordinate the large pro-China turnout. This is in contrast to the Free Tibet, Save Darfur and other anti-China protesters â?? who often seemed disorganized.

 

By some estimates, as many as 50 busloads of Chinese from other parts of California were brought to San Francisco. Many of them paid (by some accounts $300 each) to come out for the day in support of Beijing. They were placed in groups along the anticipated torch relay route and given Chinese and Olympic flags, as well as American flags (the latter a tactical move to show they were not anti-U.S., but rather pro-China â?? a distinction made all the more apparent by the fact that most anti-China protesters did not carry U.S. flags, and some also were critical of the U.S. government).

 

................

 

 

 

[mongon]

I don't know anything about the publication in which that article appeared so I'm not vouching for its credibility. Regardless, if the US Consulate organized something even remotely similar in Beijing we would be dealing with an international crisis. Instead, not a word out of the US gov. Doesn't international law prohibit these type of activities by foreign diplomats?

[mongon]

If any Chinese students plan to disobey orders from Beijing, they might want to consider the consequences for their families back in China.

 

 

Link from the NYTs

New York Times

Chinese Student in U.S. Is Caught in Confrontation

 

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: April 17, 2008

DURHAM, N.C. â?? On the day the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco last week, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University, came out of her dining hall to find a handful of students gathered for a pro-Tibet vigil facing off with a much larger pro-China counterdemonstration.

 

Grace Wang tried to talk to Chinese demonstrators at a pro-Tibetan rally at Duke last week.

Ms. Wang, who had friends on both sides, tried to get the two groups to talk, participants said. She began traversing what she called â??the middle ground,â? asking the groupsâ?? leaders to meet and making bargains. She said she agreed to write â??Free Tibet, Save Tibetâ? on one studentâ??s back only if he would speak with pro-Chinese demonstrators. She pleaded and lectured. In one photo, she is walking toward a phalanx of Chinese flags and banners, her arms overhead in a â??timeoutâ? T.

 

But the would-be referee went unheeded. With Chinese anger stoked by disruption of the Olympic torch relays and criticism of government policy toward Tibet, what was once a favorite campus cause â?? the Dalai Lamaâ??s people â?? had become a dangerous flash point, as Ms. Wang was soon to find out.

 

The next day, a photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with a photo of Ms. Wang and the words â??traitor to your countryâ? emblazoned in Chinese across her forehead. Ms. Wangâ??s Chinese name, identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parentsâ?? apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city.

 

Salted with ugly rumors and manipulated photographs, the story of the young woman who was said to have taken sides with Tibet spread through Chinaâ??s most popular Web sites, at each stop generating hundreds or thousands of raging, derogatory posts, some even suggesting that Ms. Wang â?? a slight, rosy 20-year-old â?? be burned in oil. Someone posted a photo of what was purported to be a bucket of feces emptied on the doorstep of her parents, who had gone into hiding.

 

â??If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces,â? one person wrote in an e-mail message to Ms. Wang. â??Call the human flesh search engines!â? another threatened, using an Internet phrase that implies physical, as opposed to virtual, action.

 

In an interview Wednesday, Ms. Wang said she had been needlessly vilified.

 

â??If traitors are people who want to harm China, then Iâ??m not part of it,â? she said. â??Those people who attack me so severely were the ones who hurt Chinaâ??s image even more.â?Â

 

She added: â??They donâ??t know what do they mean by â??loving China.â?? Itâ??s not depriving others of their right to speak; itâ??s not asking me or other people to shut up.â?Â

 

In a flattering profile in 2006, Ms. Wang was described in a Qingdao newspaper as believing she was â??born for politics.â? She writes poetry in classical Chinese, plays a traditional string instrument called the guzheng, and participated in democracy discussion boards back home, she said.

 

Ms. Wang said she was not in favor of Tibetan independence, but she said problems could be reduced if the two sides understood each other better.

 

Since riots in Tibet broke out last month, campuses including Cornell, the University of Washington and the University of California, Irvine, have seen a wave of counterdemonstrations.

 

When Ms. Wang encountered the two demonstrations last week, the Chinese students seemed to expect her to join them, she said. But she hesitated.

 

â??They were really shocked to see that I was deciding, because the Chinese side thought I shouldnâ??t even decide at all,â? she said. â??In the end I decided not to be on either side, because they were too extreme.â?Â

 

Daniel R. Cordero, a member of the Duke Human Rights Coalition and an organizer of the pro-Tibet vigil, said he was handing out literature when Ms. Wang came up and pointed to the counterprotesters.

 

â??She was like, â??Why are you focusing on the Duke students? Letâ??s have a dialogue with these people,â?? â? he said. â??And Iâ??m thinking, oh come on, seriously, thatâ??s not going to help anything.â?Â

 

Some of Ms. Wangâ??s efforts to mediate were met by insults and obscenities from the Chinese students.

 

â??She stood her ground; sheâ??s a really brave girl,â? said Adam Weiss, the student on whose back Ms. Wang wrote â??Free Tibet.â? â??You have 200 of your own fellow nationalists yelling at you and calling you a traitor and even threatening to kill you.â?Â

 

At Ms. Wangâ??s behest, he ultimately spoke to some of the Chinese contingent, finding, he said, that â??we could compromise and say we all wanted increased human rights for all Chinese, and especially for Tibetans.â?Â

 

Sherry, a Chinese graduate student who declined to give her last name for fear of being harassed, had a less heroic view.

 

â??She claimed she wanted to make communications between both sides, but actually she did nothing before that night. She didnâ??t communicate with any organizers and actually was just performing,â? Sherry said. But she called the backlash against Ms. Wang â??horrible.â?Â

 

â??There are a few students that are very angry at her,â? she said, â??but there are many others who try to protect her, try to speak for her. Actually, the majority didnâ??t think she did so wrong to be treated like that.â?Â

 

She said Ms. Wang had squandered some sympathy when, in an article in The Duke Chronicle, she blamed the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association for helping to release her information through its e-mail list.

 

This week, three officers of the association explained in an open letter that the mailing list was public and called the verbal attacks on Ms. Wang â??troubling and heinous.â? Her personal information and other offensive posts were removed â??once they were brought to our attention,â? the letter said. Student groups criticized the association for allowing them to be posted at all.

 

Zhizong Li, the president of the association, referred most questions to the university but said that only about a third of the pro-China demonstrators were association members. Duke has just over 500 Chinese students.

 

Ms. Wang, who has retained a lawyer, said pulling her personal information off the Web was not enough. â??I will be seen as a traitor forever, and they can still harm my parents,â? she said.

 

But for a woman under threat of dismemberment, she seemed remarkably sanguine â?? even upbeat.

 

â??My parents are very tolerant to me,â? she explained. â??They were really disappointed in me for a long time, and I persuaded them to think differently.

 

â??If I can change my parents, I can probably change others.â?Â