China’s New Police Force
A guest post by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Control, control, control, China’s autocratic, one-party state Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to want control, but its reach continually exceeds its grasp. That is why it needs police, extra police, police not only from within but also from without its country.

In our age of dwindling resources and increasing global communications, the CCP’s small cadre of self-appointed elitists sees the future only as one of control. It has its goal set not only on controlling the resource rich territories that belong to the people of Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia etc. but it also seeks to control democratic Taiwan as well as to prevent its own people from entertaining any ideas of participation in self-government. This is a daunting task, a task that can only be accomplished if it regularly enlists the services of outside police.

The most recent example happened ironically in the small city of Irvine, California. This seemingly minute incident is in reality the indicative tip of a mammoth iceberg. Under the guise of a sisters-city program, CCP officials either hoodwinked or bought off select Irvine city officials to agree to a politically charged memorandum. This memorandum would constrain city officials from visiting sister city Taoyuan in Taiwan and participating in any National Day celebrations in Taiwan. It would oblige them to enforce China’s interpretation of the Shanghai Communique and would prevent the flag of the Republic of China being flown in Irvine or used in demonstrations. Irvine was required to do China’s dirty work for them.

This is by no means an isolated incident. The same dictate is being repeated over and over again. To Yahoo! Inc., if you want a piece of the China pie, you must help China monitor and control the flow of free information to its people. If anyone voices an opinion contrary to the party line Yahoo must give China his or her name for prosecution. To Google, if you want to provide services in China you must follow suit and block references to select words like democracy, Tiananmen Square etc and any others China designates.

The China dictate crosses religious and spiritual boundaries. To the Catholic Church, if you want to preach your Gospel in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), you must allow China to appoint the bishops who will influence the people’s thought and spiritual direction. To the Buddhists, you must allow China to appoint the Panchen Lama and any other lamas that it sees fit, so it can control the Buddhist spiritual thought. Anyone who does not agree will suffer the same fate as the Falun Gong, whose followers fill the prisons.

The dictate extends into academia. To scholars, if you want to do research in China, you must write only how China is progressing; you must not publish anything that interprets its past in a derogatory way or jeopardizes China’s claims to all these territories and its control over its people.

The World Health Organizations have long bowed to this dictate. Despite Taiwan having a population larger than well near 75% of their member nations, Taiwan is forbidden participation; it is not even allowed observer status.

Knowingly and/or unknowingly so many organizations, businesses and even nations continue to agree to be the policemen of this autocratic regime.

The Unites States did its share of police work. It is only recently that members of the U.S. House of Representatives realized how they too had been drawn into Chinass web by curtailing contacts with the democracy in Taiwan. They finally voted to change that policy.

Following suit, on June 27 2006, the two co-chairs of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, Tim Johnson (D-SD) and George Allen (R-VA) introduced bi-partisan Resolution SCR 106, calling for the lifting of restrictions on high-level visits from Taiwan.

This Senate Resolution admits that US policy has not kept up with the democratic change on the island of Taiwan and still maintains antiquated guidelines from the late 1970s, barring Taiwan’s President, Vice-President, Premier, Foreign Minister, and Defense Minister from coming to Washington DC.

Continuing on, the operative part of the Resolution prescribes that the United States should allow direct high-level exchanges at the Cabinet level in order to strengthen policy dialogue with the Government of Taiwan.

As for Taiwan, well one does not have to look far to see which party avoids the subject of democracy in discussions with China. At least the rest of the world is waking up to how it is used as China’s police force.

Other writings can be found at http://zen.sandiego.edu:8080/Jerome