Month: July 2008

Let the Internet Archive be my witness that I scooped the Olympic Security English story 2 years ago. Let it also be my witness that I’ve had this book on my shelf for two years and was too dumb to shop a story on it for a quick buck. I would like to point out that the book was published in 2002, and is by no means a recent addition to the Olympic campaign, nor a particularly good English textbook. Also, no one has gotten the REAL scoop: ordering the 2 audiotapes that apparently accompany the book and transferring some of these to MP3. Who doesn’t want to hear PSB officers reciting things like “I’m Enzaji Leer. I’m an Indian cook and I make pan cake here.”

Chapter One: Everyday English

第一章 日常用语

Lesson 3: Warnings

第3课 劝告

Dialogue 4: How to Stop Illegal News Coverage

会话4 制止非法采访

P: Excuse me, sir. Stop, please.

警：对不起, 先生, 请停下来.

F: Why?

外：为什么？

P: Are you gathering news here?

警：你是在采访吧？

F: Yes.

外：是的。

P: About what?

警：在采访什么问题？

F: About F*lung*ng.

外： 关于***的事情。

P: Show me your press card and reporter’s permit.

警：请出示记者证和采访许可证。

F: Here you are.

外：请看，在这儿。

P: What news are you permitted to cover?

警：你的采访范围是什么？

F: The Olympic Games.

外：奥运会比赛。

P: But F*lung*ng has nothing to do with the games.

警：但***与奥运会比赛无关。

F: What does that matter?

外：这有什么关系？

P: It’s beyond the permit.

警：这超出了采访范围。

F: What permit?

外：什么范围？

P: You’re a sports reporter. You should only cover the games.

警：你是体育新闻记者， 采访范围是奥运会比赛。

F: But I’m interested in F*lung*ng.

外：但是我对***很感兴趣。

P: It’s beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal. As a foreign reporter in China, you should obey China law and do nothing against your status.

警：可是这与你的采访范围不符，属于非法采访。请你遵守我国法律， 不得从事与身份不符的活动。

F: Oh, I see. May I go now?

外：知道了。我可以走了吗？

P: No. Come with us (to the Administration Division of Entry and Exit of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau).

警：不能。请跟我们（到北京市公安局出人境管理处）走一趟.

F: What for?

外：去干什么？

P: To clear up this matter.

警：把事情弄清楚。

FIN

This has been a selection from Olympic Security English, by Wang Sheng An (王生安), Associate Professor at the People’s University of Public Security

Interview with Wang Shengan on his research of Athens 2004 Olympic security (Chinese)

“If our existing regulations and practice conflict with Olympic norms and our promise, we will make changes to conform with International Olympic Committee’s requirements and Games norms,” Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing 2008 Organizing Committee (BOCOG), said at a press conference. Jiang said that the commitment applied to journalists accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cover the Games and those without accreditation as well.

“But all the reporters will have to abide by China’s laws,” he said. China Daily, August 8, 2006

Foreign journalists and their Chinese assistants repeatedly end up at the police station when they report on delicate topics such as pollution, AIDS or farmers’ protests. Often they’re forced to state the names of their sources, in addition to handing over their notes and photographs… Beijing justifies itself by reference to articles 14 and 15 of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s rulebook for foreign correspondents, which prohibit journalists from researching an issue without registering with the appropriate authority and getting permission. Such a rule contradicts the norms expected from countries that host the Olympic games, according to the FCCC. Der Spiegel, August 9, 2006

Radovan Karadžić has been arrested in Belgrade, where he has been hiding right under everyones noses under an assumed identity of a mystic healer. On the official Serbian/English website of his alter ego, Dr. Dragan Dabic, he claims he once “settled in China where he specialized in alternative medicine, with a special emphasis on the mind-body control, meditation, Yoga, spiritual cleansing, as well as Chinese herbs.” He also lists his favorite ten Chinese proverbs. Fittingly, the last one is “the one who gives up his own should dig two graves”, considering his crimes and motives.

Karadžić was Supreme Commander of Bosnian Serb forces during the war in the Balkans, and is accused of war crimes, including the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre. I actually followed the Balkans long before I was interested in China. In 1993, I learned the dying art of microfiche putting together a paper on the war, and came to pretty depressing conclusions about attitudes on all sides. The same year I attended the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, where former Yugoslavian activists were handing out wanted posters for Karadžić long before the real wanted posters started appearing across Serbia. In 2005, I finally got to visit Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia.

Continue reading “Radovan Karadžić, The Balkans & China”

The Jamestown Foundation has a China Brief titled “The Evolution of Espionage: Beijing’s Red Spider Web”, another go at the diabolical machinations of Fu Manchu’s vast network of spies. Jamestown adds a caveat to this brief noting: “Although this article has no indigenous sources we felt that it was important enough article to be published in China Brief and wanted to share this analysis with our readers.” I’m still not sure why, since it provides no new information, is authored by someone without background in China issues, and gets more than a couple of things wrong.

Continue reading “A Spider Web of Fox Armpits Steals U.S. Military’s Secret Sand”

The New York Times has a rather breathless and exciting account of how a “Phone Call From China Transformed ’84 Olympic Games”. It relates the tale of how the head of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee believes China “saved the Olympics”, both for LA and subsequent cities, when they confirmed on May 12th, 1984 that they would come to the LA Games in defiance of a Soviet-led boycott. The Soviets issued a list four days prior of 100 countries that supposedly agreed to the boycott, one of which was China. Considering only 14 countries eventually joined, I think its safe to say the Soviets were full of crap. The article gives the impression that somehow the Chinese had to be vigorously lobbied or were taking some major political risk. That’s kinda hard to swallow, considering what the New York Times keeps in their own archives.

Time Magazine, April 30, 1984 ushering in a quarter century of “Changing China” cliches

China was a few years into the “Four Modernizations”, and that year the PRC would reform SOEs and COEs, starting a wave of double-digit GDP growth. Meanwhile the USSR was still flailing away at a central economy that didn’t really go anywhere. The L.A. Olympics were the first commercially financed Olympics ever, eventually netting a $250 million dollar surplus. Between that and the Soviet Friendship Games, its pretty clear which was Deng Xiaoping’s kind of sporting event.

Just four weeks prior to the phone call, Ronald Reagan had been welcomed to China with a 21 gun salute and guys drinking Coca Cola. The USSR responded by accusing China of openly supporting Reagan’s “militarist course” and “provocative anti-Soviet orientation”, and then cancelling the highest level talks in 15 years. The Sino-Soviet split had been going on for years, and China in the 1980s was aiding the United States’ proxies against the Soviet Union in at least two conflicts: namely the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua. The conflict in Afghanistan, by the way, was the official reason why China boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, which probably would have been their first Olympics since the Taiwan/Taipei problem had been resolved, had it not been for the unfortunate fact that Moscow was in the Soviet Union. Deng Xiaoping, later that October, said that Sino-Soviet relations were still going nowhere (apart from trade), due to “three big obstacles”: Soviet troops in Afghanistan, support for Vietnam in Cambodia, and all those SS-20 nuclear missiles along the border. The thaw didn’t really happen until Gorby, and ever since the two countries still kinda dislike each other on a more personal level. It’s hard to imagine that the L.A. Olympic committee’s eleventh hour trip to Beijing was anything more than a junket. But hey, that’s what organizing the Olympics is all about.