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Asia Times Online :: China News, China Business News, Taiwan and Hong Kong News and Business.
China revelations no threat to Beijing
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - WikiLeaks, or perhaps its founding editor Julian Assange, is no doubt a master of publicity. Before it started to upload "secret" diplomatic information from the United States Department of State on November 28, it had created an impression that what was to be leaked would be so explosive it would embarrass governments, particularly the US, and hurt their relations.
Now is a sensitive times for China's foreign relations, given its rows with the US over the South China Sea and with Japan over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands in the East China Sea. Information released by WikiLeaks could suggest Beijing is too "soft" in dealing with Japan or the US behind the scenes in regard to sovereignty issues.
This could turn growing nationalism among Chinese people into
antagonism against their own government. Beijing also has reasons to fear that scandals involving Chinese officials might be exposed, further boosting public discontent at home. The Chinese government dared not take these threats lightly, so it immediately moved to block access to the WikiLeaks website.
However, Chinese society is quite open. In general, China's Great Firewall only keeps overseas Chinese-language websites from being accessed on the mainland. Chinese Internet surfers who can read in English can still read reports on other websites about what has been leaked.
Moreover, many Chinese citizens are free to travel abroad. Tens of thousands of mainland Chinese visit Hong Kong each day, where the media are keen on reporting what "secret" information concerning China WikiLeaks has been released. From this perspective, Beijing's policy to contain WikiLeaks is failing, or at best it only works on the poor and lesser educated, who care little about politics or diplomacy.
But like many overseas China watchers, educated Chinese who have read what WikiLeaks has leaked are quite disappointed. By this week, one could find on WikiLeaks 24 "intelligence" cables from the US Embassy in Beijing to the US State Department. None are really shocking, nor do they embarrass the Chinese government. "You can find more juicy stuff on any of the China-watching magazines available through street vendors here," a mainland visitor to Hong Kong says. It seems the Chinese government can now relax, unless WikiLeaks has more sensitive or sensational stuff to upload.
Some cables sent back to Washington by the US Embassy in Beijing contained information that was reported by Hong Kong media at about the same times. For example, "Wu Yi [then vice premier] Intervenes As Dr Gao [Yaojie, who exposed an AIDS scandals in Henan province] Case Lays Bare" (07BEIJING1668, created 2007-03-13), or "Hu Jintao in Charge of Tibet Policy" (08BEIJING1454, created 2008-04-16) after the riots in Lhasa. Some others were US officials' interviews with Chinese officials, which generally contained no secrets at all: such as "Fifth Generation Star Li Keqiang Discusses Domestic Challenges, Trade Relations with [US] Ambassador" (07BEIJING1760, created 2007-12-04) shortly after the Chinese Communist Party's 17th congress; or "Zhejiang Party Secretary Touts Economic Successes" (07BEIJING1840, created 2007-03-19). These classified cables, at best, suggest US diplomats have been doing their job.
Skilled at publicity, WikiLeaks releases some information to selected media outlets before it uploads the original stuff. But this may have caused confusion in so far as China reporting is concerned. The information about US Internet search engine Google's rows with the Chinese government is a good example.
Days before WikiLeaks uploaded the relevant classified material on December 4, some early-bird Western newspapers obviously had been given the information. But either because WikiLeaks gave them different information, or because of the newspapers' editorial policies, they came out with different stories on the same topic.
According to Britain's Guardian, one cable revealed that hacker attacks, which forced Google to quit China in January 2009, were orchestrated by a senior member of the politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticizing him personally.
The first reaction of some China watchers in Hong Kong was that this could hardly be true. For it is difficult to believe that "a senior member of the politburo" of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would have acted so childishly as to eagerly avenge himself over some verbal attacks on him from overseas.
The New York Times report sounded more plausible. It said, quoting one yet-to-be-released cable from WikiLeaks, that it was the politburo that ordered the attack on Google's computer systems in China.
Plausible as this might sound, it still aroused suspicion. Was the Google incident so important that the politburo needed to convene a meeting to make a collective decision? If so, why did the politburo just make such a trivial decision as to intrude into Google.cn, instead of simply banning its operations in China once and for all? And why did the Chinese government still renew a license early this year for Google.cn to continue its operations in the country, after the US search engine giant yielded to China's requests?
Without access to the original, one really does not know which report is more believable. On December 4, at last, WikiLeaks uploaded the Google-related cables. One contains relevant information:
... about the increasing censorship pressure Google is facing. XXXXXXXXXXXX said Politburo Standing Committee member XXXXXXXXXXXX recently discovered that Google's worldwide site is uncensored, and is capable of Chinese language searches and search results. XXXXXXXXXXXX allegedly entered his own name and found results critical of him. He also noticed the link from google.cn's homepage to google.com, which XXXXXXXXXXXX reportedly believes is an "illegal site". XXXXXXXXXXXX asked three ministries (note: most likely the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry, State Council Information Office and Public Security Bureau) to write a report about Google and demand that the company cease its "illegal activities", which include linking to google.com. (09BEIJING1336, XXXXXXXXXXXXX, created 2009-05-18)
This presents a different, more believable story. The CCP power center has a policy of blocking access to stuff on overseas websites. It is the job of the politburo standing committee member overseeing ideology or law enforcement to see that the policy is strictly carried out. He might have keyed in his name to see the search results, but his action should be better understood as doing his job. Otherwise, he could have been accused of neglect of duty. And the cable does not mention that the senior Chinese official ordered hacker attacks on Google.cn.
The Chinese official's name, as well as the contact's name, is blacked out in the version published on WikiLeaks. But the New York Times, which apparently received the uncensored cables, identified him as Li Changchun, who oversees propaganda and ideological affairs. The Times said on December 5 that, when contacted, the source said Li personally oversaw a campaign against Google's operations in China but did not know who directed the hacking attack.
All this makes sense now. But why unnecessarily cause the confusion in the first place? WikiLeaks may have gained greater publicity by leaking stuff to selected media. But the confusion may have led Chinese people with growing nationalistic sentiments to cast more doubt on the credibility of some Western media.
It should also be noted that while Chinese people in general are not happy with the authorities' tough controls on the flow of information, not many of them are sympathetic with Google over its row with Beijing. Chinese do not want to see any foreign individual or institution still enjoying privileges of "extra-territoriality" in their country. Therefore, the leaks from WikiLeaks in this regard could hardly embarrass the Chinese government at home.
China revelations no threat to Beijing
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - WikiLeaks, or perhaps its founding editor Julian Assange, is no doubt a master of publicity. Before it started to upload "secret" diplomatic information from the United States Department of State on November 28, it had created an impression that what was to be leaked would be so explosive it would embarrass governments, particularly the US, and hurt their relations.
Now is a sensitive times for China's foreign relations, given its rows with the US over the South China Sea and with Japan over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands in the East China Sea. Information released by WikiLeaks could suggest Beijing is too "soft" in dealing with Japan or the US behind the scenes in regard to sovereignty issues.
This could turn growing nationalism among Chinese people into
antagonism against their own government. Beijing also has reasons to fear that scandals involving Chinese officials might be exposed, further boosting public discontent at home. The Chinese government dared not take these threats lightly, so it immediately moved to block access to the WikiLeaks website.
However, Chinese society is quite open. In general, China's Great Firewall only keeps overseas Chinese-language websites from being accessed on the mainland. Chinese Internet surfers who can read in English can still read reports on other websites about what has been leaked.
Moreover, many Chinese citizens are free to travel abroad. Tens of thousands of mainland Chinese visit Hong Kong each day, where the media are keen on reporting what "secret" information concerning China WikiLeaks has been released. From this perspective, Beijing's policy to contain WikiLeaks is failing, or at best it only works on the poor and lesser educated, who care little about politics or diplomacy.
But like many overseas China watchers, educated Chinese who have read what WikiLeaks has leaked are quite disappointed. By this week, one could find on WikiLeaks 24 "intelligence" cables from the US Embassy in Beijing to the US State Department. None are really shocking, nor do they embarrass the Chinese government. "You can find more juicy stuff on any of the China-watching magazines available through street vendors here," a mainland visitor to Hong Kong says. It seems the Chinese government can now relax, unless WikiLeaks has more sensitive or sensational stuff to upload.
Some cables sent back to Washington by the US Embassy in Beijing contained information that was reported by Hong Kong media at about the same times. For example, "Wu Yi [then vice premier] Intervenes As Dr Gao [Yaojie, who exposed an AIDS scandals in Henan province] Case Lays Bare" (07BEIJING1668, created 2007-03-13), or "Hu Jintao in Charge of Tibet Policy" (08BEIJING1454, created 2008-04-16) after the riots in Lhasa. Some others were US officials' interviews with Chinese officials, which generally contained no secrets at all: such as "Fifth Generation Star Li Keqiang Discusses Domestic Challenges, Trade Relations with [US] Ambassador" (07BEIJING1760, created 2007-12-04) shortly after the Chinese Communist Party's 17th congress; or "Zhejiang Party Secretary Touts Economic Successes" (07BEIJING1840, created 2007-03-19). These classified cables, at best, suggest US diplomats have been doing their job.
Skilled at publicity, WikiLeaks releases some information to selected media outlets before it uploads the original stuff. But this may have caused confusion in so far as China reporting is concerned. The information about US Internet search engine Google's rows with the Chinese government is a good example.
Days before WikiLeaks uploaded the relevant classified material on December 4, some early-bird Western newspapers obviously had been given the information. But either because WikiLeaks gave them different information, or because of the newspapers' editorial policies, they came out with different stories on the same topic.
According to Britain's Guardian, one cable revealed that hacker attacks, which forced Google to quit China in January 2009, were orchestrated by a senior member of the politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticizing him personally.
The first reaction of some China watchers in Hong Kong was that this could hardly be true. For it is difficult to believe that "a senior member of the politburo" of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would have acted so childishly as to eagerly avenge himself over some verbal attacks on him from overseas.
The New York Times report sounded more plausible. It said, quoting one yet-to-be-released cable from WikiLeaks, that it was the politburo that ordered the attack on Google's computer systems in China.
Plausible as this might sound, it still aroused suspicion. Was the Google incident so important that the politburo needed to convene a meeting to make a collective decision? If so, why did the politburo just make such a trivial decision as to intrude into Google.cn, instead of simply banning its operations in China once and for all? And why did the Chinese government still renew a license early this year for Google.cn to continue its operations in the country, after the US search engine giant yielded to China's requests?
Without access to the original, one really does not know which report is more believable. On December 4, at last, WikiLeaks uploaded the Google-related cables. One contains relevant information:
... about the increasing censorship pressure Google is facing. XXXXXXXXXXXX said Politburo Standing Committee member XXXXXXXXXXXX recently discovered that Google's worldwide site is uncensored, and is capable of Chinese language searches and search results. XXXXXXXXXXXX allegedly entered his own name and found results critical of him. He also noticed the link from google.cn's homepage to google.com, which XXXXXXXXXXXX reportedly believes is an "illegal site". XXXXXXXXXXXX asked three ministries (note: most likely the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry, State Council Information Office and Public Security Bureau) to write a report about Google and demand that the company cease its "illegal activities", which include linking to google.com. (09BEIJING1336, XXXXXXXXXXXXX, created 2009-05-18)
This presents a different, more believable story. The CCP power center has a policy of blocking access to stuff on overseas websites. It is the job of the politburo standing committee member overseeing ideology or law enforcement to see that the policy is strictly carried out. He might have keyed in his name to see the search results, but his action should be better understood as doing his job. Otherwise, he could have been accused of neglect of duty. And the cable does not mention that the senior Chinese official ordered hacker attacks on Google.cn.
The Chinese official's name, as well as the contact's name, is blacked out in the version published on WikiLeaks. But the New York Times, which apparently received the uncensored cables, identified him as Li Changchun, who oversees propaganda and ideological affairs. The Times said on December 5 that, when contacted, the source said Li personally oversaw a campaign against Google's operations in China but did not know who directed the hacking attack.
All this makes sense now. But why unnecessarily cause the confusion in the first place? WikiLeaks may have gained greater publicity by leaking stuff to selected media. But the confusion may have led Chinese people with growing nationalistic sentiments to cast more doubt on the credibility of some Western media.
It should also be noted that while Chinese people in general are not happy with the authorities' tough controls on the flow of information, not many of them are sympathetic with Google over its row with Beijing. Chinese do not want to see any foreign individual or institution still enjoying privileges of "extra-territoriality" in their country. Therefore, the leaks from WikiLeaks in this regard could hardly embarrass the Chinese government at home.
