Beijing police must mind their manners…and monitor students
While reading articles about a new campaign intended to improve the behavior of Chinese police in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics, I stumbled across this article on a Chinese news website: Police Stations to Be Set up in Beijing’s Universities. Although the stated purpose of the police stations is to improve campus security, it seems more likely the Chinese authorities intend to monitor student activity to prevent any political unrest. The police presence is meant as much to deter students from political organizing as to ensure a quick response if there is any trouble, especially with the Olympic Games approaching. Any open expression of dissatisfaction with the government or calls for political reform from Chinese students would undermine Beijing’s attempt to look respectable and glorious in front of the world next August.
But I doubt there will be any resurgence of a student movement for rights and democracy in the next year. Most Chinese students seem to be looking forward to the Olympics with genuine excitement. Just this past weekend, Tendor and I met a young Chinese woman from Fujian province on the plane to Minneapolis. Her face lit up when we asked about the Olympics in China. She told us she would definitely be returning home next summer for the Games.
I often think about the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square and wish I had been old enough to really appreciate that moment and all of the possibilities it held. I was in Grade 7 when the protests happened and I watched the drama unfold on TV with my Dad. I remember the feeling of anticipation and excitement that filled our living room. It seemed like China was about to open up finally, and this meant the possibility of change in Tibet! Of course it didn’t happen. The movement was crushed and since then, only a few brave Chinese have dared to openly call for change. However, I can’t help but believe another moment will come soon. Maybe not during the Olympics, but soon. And while I know that the next generation of Chinese leaders won’t just hand Tibet back to our people, I also know that in change there is opportunity which Tibetans will seize to push for the restoration of our rights and freedom.
Posted: September 3rd, 2007 under News.
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Comments: 6
Comments
Comment from S. Cai
Time: September 5, 2007, 4:44 pm
This article contradicts itself. Since the author doesn’t think it’s likely that resurgence against the government will happen during the games, why does she think that the police stations are for controlling the students?
Growing price and living cost in Beijing may be a reason why the government wants to step up control in the universities, since college students unsatisfied by the high monthly cost of dining may indeed make to the streets. But that’s related neither to the Olympics nor to Tibet.
Also, police stations already exist on many university campuses. And they are necessary. Don’t most major universities in the US and Canada have campus police too? Are they for controlling the freedom of the students?
Don’t hold prejudice toward China, as if anything China does is evil. China has a lot to improve, but it has improved a lot.
Comment from Tashi
Time: September 9, 2007, 7:24 pm
S. Cai
When it comes citizens right or human rights for that matter, it is quite insulting to even compare Commie China to US and Canada in the same sentence.
May I reminde you again that Pro Democray, Dalai Lama, Tibet’s independence, Falun Gong are some of the many forbidden words which would sure to land you in Chinese Gulag for the rest of the life.
Comment from S. Cai
Time: September 10, 2007, 6:43 pm
Dear Tashi,
I was not trying to compare or equate the human rights situations in China and in US/Canada, as you implied. What I was trying to convey was my impression that the opinion of the author was biased in some way. Admittedly, the Chinese government made many inexcusable mistakes in the regime of human rights, in and outside Tibet. However, it is bigotry and unfair to totally ignore its success in raising billions of people out of poverty and opening itself and the whole nation up to the outside world in the past two decades, which neither US or Canada has had a chance to achieve, whatever caused the baseline condition.
I thank you for your warning or caution regarding my personal safety. But in case you put these words here to scare me from making more comments on this blog, please realize that people in China do not end up in jail just saying these words. But that’s a different topic. I can discuss further with you elsewhere if you want.
Comment from spymustgo
Time: September 11, 2007, 10:35 am
If a tibetan say “independent tibet” or waive the tibetan flag in a public place, he or she will go to jail, there are many examples of this.
Even a person that says reasonable things such as “Dalai Lama should return to Tibet”, “Tibetans must stop fighting among themselves” and “Tenzin Delek must be freed from jail” in public, will himself go to jail. That happened just one month ago, even outside Tibet Autonomous Region, in Sichuan.
The official Chinese statement, dated August 3, reported that Runggye Adak had been detained “for inciting separation of nationalities”, saying: “The villager named Runggye Adak went to a platform at about 10:00 am Wednesday before the opening ceremony in Litang county, and shouted out words of “Tibetan independence” and stopped vehicles to disrupt public order, according to the sources. The villager was detained by police for being suspected of breaching the law…. The police sources said they would handle the case of Runggye Adak, whose words and deeds were meant to separate the country and harm national unity and has disrupted public order, according to law.” (Xinhua, August 3, 2007)
Many Tibetans who go to Beijing or Shanghai are suprised about the freedom which chinese have to talk about sensitive issues (as you rightfully mentioned).
However Tibetans, don’t enjoy this freedom which most han-chinese enjoy.., in an occupied country. Where the tibetan uneducated party puppets who govern came to power during the cultural revolution, backed and controlled by ambitious chinese party officials, bureaucrats and engineers.
In fact some people who travel to Tibet, say they feel the cultural revolution never stopped in Tibet, but is still going on…
Comment from Rich Felker
Time: September 11, 2007, 11:06 am
“Billions” of people have not been raised out of poverty since China does not even have “billions” of people. The only people who’ve been raised out of poverty are the elite living in big cities. Western China (not Tibet, actual Western China) is extremely poor and full of corruption. Why do you think so many mine accidents happen? Why do so many people there die from disasters that would be no big deal other places in the world?
The Chinese government has not accomplished anything good for society or the world at large. All it does is line the pockets of those loyal to them and those who are corrupt but well-connected.
Comment from rdycz agxe
Time: March 25, 2008, 10:14 pm
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