| |
Bombshell in Beijing: Cry for free
speech?
By Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - The two bombs that exploded last week
at Peking University and Tsinghua University, both in
Beijing, loom larger than the actual damage they did
just hours before the opening of the new plenary session
of the National People's Congress (NPC). They pose a
series of questions similar to those of the Falungong
spiritual movement, but the threat to security is
possibly even larger than that of the Falungong, as it
is linked with a structural problem of political reform
and democratization in China.
The police and the
security apparatus are allegedly completely in the dark
about the culprits in the two bombings. The bombs were
planted in the teachers' canteens, so possibly they were
set by someone with grievances against the teachers,
which in all likelihood would be students. The Uighur
separatist movement, based in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous
Region in China's northwest, should be all but ruled
out, as its bombers would more likely choose crowded
places, markets, buses, not school canteens. As for the
theory of students planting the bombs, there is also the
fact that students had been grumbling for months about
the weak employment opportunities in the market.
At the end of this academic year, 2 million
college graduates will jump into the job market in
China. Current students have been looking for jobs for
months now and, while in the past everybody would have
already found a position by now, quite a few students
remain jobless. In the past years the government has
eased university entrance requirements, thus doubling
the number of students and graduates. This will be the
first year that the reform will hit the market. While
this has softened the huge pressure the college-entrance
examination places on the families of would-be students
(it is twice as easy to get into college now), for
students it has created increased pressure on the
employment front.
In this uncertain climate,
protest is not unthinkable, perhaps even violent protest
such as bombing schools. There are thousands of students
grumbling, but it took only a few people to organize the
bombings, which were set off at the same time. It is
very difficult even to start the search. Then to arrest
some innocent students would only increase the malaise
among the young people, while leaving real terrorists
free could further embolden the group. The weapons were
crude bombs prepared from gunpowder taken from
fireworks, which are widely available and whose commerce
is difficult to restrict without causing havoc among a
people accustomed to lighting fireworks for virtually
any occasion.
The bombing in a way goes a step
farther than the demonstration held by the Falungong on
April 25, 1999. The leadership was taken by surprise
when 10,000 Falungong practitioners encircled
Zhongnanhai, the residence of China's top leadership, in
a peaceful protest. Premier Zhu Rongji met with the
Falungong practitioners and assured that they would
eventually be given the government recognition they
desired. Shortly afterward, the group was branded an
evil cult and banned on mainland China. The problems at
the moment of the protest were: the security apparatus
was infiltrated and had covered up Falungong
preparations and the government was ill-informed and
thus misguided in its judgement about the actions to
take with this group.
In last week's bombing,
the government doesn't know where to look, the bombers
haven't revealed themselves, the security apparatus was
not infiltrated, it knew of some students' discontent,
but even that was just too general. Some are putting the
blame for the stalled investigation flatly on the
political system. In the West, because of its freedom of
expression, everybody can publicly vent opinions, no
matter how extreme, but in China this can't happen. In
the West, thanks to freedom of expression, any country's
security apparatus can easily keep tabs on the more
extreme groups. If something goes wrong the authorities
have a list of people or organizations who had announced
similar actions and can be checked. In a way, freedom of
expression not only allows people to let off steam, but
if something illegal occurs, it would likely be easier
to find the perpetrators if they were from a relatively
open organization that hadn't been forced underground.
As things stand now, the most efficient method
of control available to the Chinese authorities is
harassment. This happens with religious groups suspected
to harbor small or large political or social ambitions.
People thought to take part in religious meetings are
questioned by the police. The answers in themselves are
of little value because the interrogated could say too
much, if he wants to ingratiate himself with the police,
or otherwise could say too little. But the action works
as intimidation, as prevention of possible larger
religious activities. But this is valid only for
known groups that are tolerated, groups that the
central government has decided to let exist, such as the
Chinese Catholicism that does not answer to the Vatican.
What is toleration by the central government de facto
translates into harassment in the hands of the
individual policeman. The security stress in China is on
prevention rather than punishment for "crime". The
individual policeman in essence has his salary pegged on
the crime rate of his neighborhood: the lower the crime
rate, the larger the year-end bonus. So when the central
government says: "Let the underground Catholics pray as
long as they do not cause trouble," the police station
is forbidden to stop the masses but will fear any kind
of "trouble", so the police will intimidate the known
Catholics. But while harassment and intimidation might
work in the short term, in the long run they breed a
larger and unnecessary discontent.
The problem
revolves around the definition of "trouble", the
threshold of political tolerance. If this threshold is
low, it breeds harassment, long-term dissatisfaction
with the authorities, and lack of real control.
If a person, X, with a regular job and regular
life, feels wronged by a state institution, he may
decide to talk to some close friends, sharing his
feelings and organize a group to carry out protests
without revealing their identity or aims. Against this
Mr X, China's state security is totally powerless.
Greater political freedom would provide many venues for
peaceful protest to the many Mr Xs of China and would
diminish police harassment, while giving the state a
better view of its Mr Xs.
The Falungong protests
proved to the government that its opening up was not
enough - society had to open further to dispel the
superstitious mumbo-jumbo that had been the breeding
ground of Falungong. Therefore the most conservative
elements in the government were sidelined and reforms
were stepped up. The security apparatus was then
revamped, as it was rightly blamed for a massive
intelligence failure. The new challenge proves that the
problem is not with the state security apparatus but
with the state. This is what this week's NPC will have
to tackle to keep China stable.
(©2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication
policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
