Big Brother: Alive And Well In Beijing

By Paul Brandus - Talk Radio News Service

Metal detectors. Visitors getting wanded. Backpacks and packages carefully screened. It’s awfully nice of the Chinese authorities to lay on all the extra security here at the Beijing Marriott while President Obama is in town.

They say it’s for our protection, we grizzled war correspondents who’ve survived Iraq, Afghanistan and other hellholes. I for one am scared to death here and appreciate the dainty young ladies with white gloves keeping the bad guys out of this plush oasis. Phew!

I sincerely doubt it’s for our benefit. More likely it’s to make it harder for us to conduct interviews with dissidents, rogue Chinese journalists and others who may have something to say that displeases the regime. We can certainly go out and meet these people in other locations, but the tight schedule we’re on makes it logistically very difficult to get away. Easier for them to come to us, hence the watchdogs downstairs. The authorities know how the game is played.

But Big Brother’s not just down in the lobby. He's right here in room 9055. He's blocked me from accessing Twitter and Facebook on my laptop (though they haven’t figured out how to keep me from tweeting on my BlackBerry). And even though this sparkling Marriott is high-tech from top to bottom, the phone on the desk makes some strange clicks whenever I make a call. Maybe it’s nothing, but it reminds me of trying to make phone calls when I worked in the Soviet Union during the bad old days of the KGB.

Indeed, China’s version of the KGB – which, by the way, I can’t seem to research on Google – has apparently been busy clamping down both before and during Obama’s visit. Agence France Presse reported earlier this week that authorities rounded up several dissidents and activists, fearing they could embarrass the leadership.

One person rounded up, says AFP, was a man named Zhao Lianhai, leader of an activist group of parents whose children were allegedly sickened by tainted milk. Zhao’s wife says he was “criminally detained for ‘provoking an incident’.” Another activist group, Human Rights in China, claims Zhao was handcuffed and taken away last week by police officers who also seized computers, a video camera and an address book.

Obama himself has made things easier for the authorities. He hasn’t met anyone who wasn’t prescreened. No free press advocates, no human rights groups, no political opposition. What about Tuesday’s “town hall” in Shanghai? Every student was carefully vetted for their reliability and prepped on how to behave.

Even worse, the White House advance team considered, but rejected a meeting with political activists, only to drop it from the schedule due to time constraints, reports the New York Times. Yet Obama found time yesterday to stroll through the Forbidden City and today visits the Great Wall of China.

It’s the first time an American President has tacitly agreed to be muzzled here. In 1998, President Clinton went on state-run TV and angered his Chinese hosts by discussing human rights, the Dalai Lama and the still-taboo bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square. In 2002, President Bush talked about the importance of personal freedom and the rule of law. But for Obama’s visit, the White House didn’t insist on a national platform for the President, and the Chinese never offered him one.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing

If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Beijing – I Think

By Paul Brandus - Talk Radio News Service

BEIJING - It’s hard to keep up with President Obama. Whether it’s pressing the “reset” button in Moscow, turning a new page with Muslims in Cairo, or talking books with Hugo Chavez in Trinidad, the new U.S. President has traveled the equivalent of three times around the equator – far more in his first ten months in office than any of his recent predecessors, according to White House travel records.

His latest batch of frequent flyer miles: this week’s 22,000 mile slog through Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea. And preparations are already underway for next month’s trip to Oslo, where Obama will pick up his Nobel Peace Prize – and maybe make a side trip to the Copenhagen climate summit – a city he just visited in his failed bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago.

All told, the energetic Mr. Obama has made no less than 7 trips abroad to 19 countries, spending nearly 12% of his time out of the United States. Why?

“With all due respect to the prior administration, it can be argued that a lot of damage was done to America’s reputation abroad,” says a senior U.S. official here in Beijing. “I spent the last few years getting the door slammed in my face…it got harder to get some things done.” The official, who has served in the Middle East as well, detects a shift in the way foreigners perceive the United States and its policies.

That perception is borne out, to a large extent, by a Pew Global Attitudes Project survey released last week, which says citizens along this week’s stop – Japan, China and South Korea – are more comfortable with Barack Obama in the White House than they were with George W. Bush.

Here in China, for example, 62% of respondents say they have “some” or “a lot” of confidence in Obama; last year it stood at 30%. In South Korea, the needle jumped from 30% to 81%, and in Japan from 25% to 85%. The gains among key U.S. allies in Europe are even more dramatic. Last year, 14% of Germans had confidence in Bush. Today, 93% do in Obama. Britain jumped from 16% to 86%, and even the finicky French got on board, with the number surging from 13% to 91%.

In Arab and Muslim countries, the Pew study says the Obama effect has been more muted. In 2008, 7% of Pakistanis had confidence in Bush; 13% now do in Obama. In Egypt, the number stands at 42%, and in the world’s biggest Muslim nation, Indonesia, where Obama spent part of his childhood, the number increased 26 percentage points to 63%. Strong gains for Obama – or simply relief in some quarters now that Mr. Bush has left the stage.

But does this personal approval of Obama translate into political achievement on the world stage? Mr. Obama, thus far, has been unable to move the Middle East peace process along, and Iran shows few signs of backing down from its nuclear program. Mr. Obama, probably goaded by Israel, warned Tehran over the weekend that time is running out. North Korea, meanwhile, tested a second nuclear device in May along with a series of cruise missiles and continues to both tease and taunt the West about negotiations.

On turning back global warming, a key Obama objective, next month’s Copenhagen climate summit will come and go with no substantive, let alone binding agreement to reduce carbon emissions. The most substantive and far-reaching goals have been kicked down the road, and although the House of Representatives has passed legislation, Senate passage of a similar climate/energy bill is far from certain.

In Afghanistan, the war Mr. Obama has called “essential,” he has been unable to persuade allies to send meaningful numbers of reinforcements, thus upping the pressure on him to consider a “surge” of tens of thousands of fresh U.S. troops. Last week, Mr. Obama rejected all four Afghan options presented to him by his advisors; another Situation Room meeting on the issue will be held when the President returns from Asia.

“What’s clear is that while personal appeal - the kind President Obama has in droves – certainly doesn’t hurt, it’s no guarantee that a leader will be able to advance his or her agenda,” says the American official. Still, the world clearly appears more comfortable with this president than the prior one. Mr. Obama can only hope that all the miles, all the jet lag and all the handshakes and photo-ops with foreign leaders has laid the foundation for overseas achievements that thus far, have largely proven elusive.

Paul Brandus filed this report from Beijing

An Olympic challenge: Bush should address human rights abuse

As a test of his presidential legacy, President Bush needs to address the human rights violation in China on his visit to the Beijing Olympic Games, said T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia and Pacific for Amnesty International of the United States, especially because, on its own accord, the Chinese government promised to improve its human rights treatment.

Kumar made his message clear: Human rights in China have deteriorated since the International Olympic Committee decided the games would be held in Beijing. 250,000 people are imprisoned in labor camps through the "re-education through labor" detention system. According to Kumar, the Chinese government executes more people than every other country combined.

In his speech in Thailand yesterday, Bush addressed Chinese human rights violations, but that speech was meaningless if he does speak up when he is actually in China, Kumar said. Kumar suggested that Bush meet with"Mothers of Tiananmen," which consists of relatives of Tiananmen Square victims. The Chinese government has decided to designate three areas for peaceful demonstration, Kumar said, and Bush should also visit them.

Bush is sending a conflicted message about religious freedom by visiting state-controlled churches during his visit, argued Kumar. He should also visit independent churches.

Speaking out would be a symbolic victory against human right violations in China. Although it would have not have a significant short-term effect, Bush could set the standard for what the United States expects of China and establish guidelines for the next president, Kumar said.

Beijing's chance to open up to the world clouded with smog

"My hope is for some enlightened leader at the top within China to bring reform about," said Elizabeth Economy, a writer for Foreign Affairs. She and Adam Segal spoke with Gideon Rose, the managing editor of Foreign Affairs Journal, about an article they co-wrote which argues that the Olympics have become a staging ground for domestic and international protests against China's record on human rights, the environment, and even food safety. They also discussed the likelihood that the Olympic games will bring about change within China.

Economy said that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games were supposed to be a coming out party for China, allowing it to open its doors to the world. However, she said, the Games have not been the transformative event the nation had hoped for, with rising criticism of its smoggy cities, restrictions on internet use, and infrastructure requirements.

Segal gave the example of Chinese taxis that have been equipped with microphones. He said that while some believe the instruments were installed to spy on people and repress them, he agreed with the government's statement that the microphones were put in place to control dangerous protests. Events like these have drawn immense global criticism, according to Segal.

Both Segal and Economy stated expectations of reform within the nation as a result of the games, and hope that the change would come from within the government itself.