Wall Street Journal
February 19, 2002
 
 
COMMENTARY
 
WTO fears of China's Security Chiefs

By CAROL LEE HAMRIN and TONY CARNES
   
Some human rights advocates argue that the recent publication of secret Chinese
government documents detailing a crackdown on banned religious groups
proves that the U.S. policy of supporting trade normalization and Beijing's entry
into the World Trade Organization has been a disaster for human rights in China.
 
According to these critics, the documents not only show free trade has
failed to promote religious freedom, but that it has provided the Chinese police
with the money to buy more sophisticated surveillance equipment and rubber hoses
to beat their victims.
 
But far from proving that free trade has been a human rights failure, what
these documents actually show is how Beijing fears the "new era" of
liberalized international trade and the hosting of the 2008 Olympics will create
pressures within Chinese society that will prove increasingly difficult to control.
 
Released last week by the Committee for Investigation on Persecution of
Religion in China, a U.S.-based Chinese human rights group, the documents
detail a comprehensive policy of suppression of 14 religious groups,
including several well-known evangelical Christian ones as well as the Falun Gong
spiritual movement. According to these secret working papers from the
Chinese security agencies, the campaign is directed from the highest levels of the
government and involves steady increases in expenditure on high technology,
intelligence agents, training and special teams to handle specific
religious groups. Several experts who are quite familiar with this type of document
say that they seem genuine.
 
They include a secret speech in February 2001 by Sun Jianxin, deputy
director of public security in Anhui province, on implementing the decisions made at
a national meeting of security chiefs. In this, he warns that the integration
of China's economy with global capitalism raises some "social hot point
questions" and points to the emergence of a new kind of "hostile element" -- activists
who use their businesses "to nourish" political, cultural and religious
movements.
 
Mr. Sun fears they "may increase their illegal activities as we are joining
the WTO." He also warns that joint v entures with "complicated backgrounds" will
be set up, and that overseas supporters will find it easier to "give more
money to key members of the "democratic movement," -- often in the guise of academic
and cultural exchanges.
 
China's entry into the WTO also raises a further concern for security
officials. According to Mr. Sun's speech, they fear that religious,
political and labor rights groups will benefit from the social tensions that arise as
the advent of international competition forces inefficient state enterprises
into bankruptcy. "We need to pay close attention to those companies that may
experience a huge impact from our joining the WTO" he says, adding that his
"troops of domestic security" should prepare for "actual combat" over
failing state-owned enterprises.
 
The documents highlight the contradictions in the leadership's strategy. On
the one hand, Mr. Sun's speech echoes Beijing's enthusiasm for opening-up
China's economy to the outside world. But on the other hand, he frets about its
dangers, warning that "the situation is critical" as "reactionary forces"
gather and "infiltrators" increase, encouraged by "the hostile Western
powers headed by the U.S."
 
They make for stunning and disturbing reading. Their warlike language
against "the crawling dangers" of China's fast growing underground Christian and
other groups is reminiscent of Maoism. More chillingly, the documents reveal a
relentless and comprehensive campaign to "destroy" these religious groups..
 
But they also provide strong evidence that Beijing's policy of repression
is beginning to fail. Several provincial officials lament that religious
groups have "come back from the ashes" to again become "busy making connections"
and "plots". The deputy security chief of Hebei province is also cited in one
document bemoaning how one religious group has even managed to infiltrate
the inner circles of the party, government and the state-approved church.
 
Security chiefs now appear concerned that some of their activities have
drawn too much negative attention, with high level leaders cautioning the need
for
greater secrecy. Jia Chunwang, head of the Ministry of Public Security, is
cited in the documents as saying there is a need to "talk less and to smash
the
cult quietly." Vice President Hu Jintao, who is expected to succeed
President
Jiang Zemin as the country's top leader, is quoted as endorsing the
anti-"cult"
campaign while also calling for a more subtle approach of spying, catching
and
dealing "with it according to law in a timely manner." That points to a new
strategy of augmenting the brute force of clubs and electric cattle prods
with
more stealthy tactics such as economic confiscation and a focus on
dismembering
leadership structures. Officials also talk of the need to train and build a
network of "super spies," not only in religious groups but also in key
economic enterprises, troubled companies and joint ventures.
 
But this emerging policy of using intelligence and precision dismemberment
to undermine all potential opposition groups is unlikely to be any more
successful than the past strategy of using overt brutality. Beating, shocking, spying
and jailing ordinary Chinese who want to worship without government
interference only strengthens the "antagonistic forces" that the Chinese leaders fear.
State extremism begets alienation and social radicalism and such a malignant
cycle is sure to continue to disrupt China's economic and political relations with
the rest of the world.
 
Carol Lee Hamrin is a senior associate with the Institute of Global
Engagement
and co-edited "Decision-making in Deng's China" (M.E. Sharpe, 1995). Tony
Carnes is senior news writer for Christianity Today.
 
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