accidents as personal insults

There’s some speculation in the Chinese language press that the F@lun gonger protestor who interrupted Hu Jintao’s speech in Washington was a White House plant. Translation:

During the speech, there was a female protestor. She was able to yell aloud for two minutes and fifteen seconds without any special agent stopping her. This was a rare occurrence. When the police came to take her away, they did not depart through the rear (where there is a passageway for the special agents). Instead, she was taken away in front of the entire assembly against White House and Secret Services regulations. These two aspects showed that the Americans may have deliberately planned this to tell the world that there is freedom of speech in America and to remind Hu Jintao about his problems inside China.

This may be a product of the fact that the FG are widely disliked across the Chinese speaking world irrespective of the stupidly brutal treatment they get at the hands of the Chinese government. See Bingfeng Teahouse for more on that. But The Washington realist concurs:

A reporter for a F@lun G*ng affiliated newspaper with a prior record of confronting Chinese leaders on their overseas trips was issued a press credential; the Secret Service took 3 minutes to respond; the official White House announcer introduced the national anthem of the "Republic of China" (the Nationalist style and retained by the government on Taiwan), and so on.

Standard responses: sorry, mistakes are made; we have a free press and it is difficult to control events, and so on. The problem is that the Chinese Embassy staff are not country cousins dazzled by life in Washington. Anyone who followed the 2004 presidential campaign knows how both the Bush and Kerry teams choreographed events, controlled access, stage-managed productions to a flourish. What's the credo of the Godfather? Accidents don't happen to people who treat accidents as a personal insult.

Hmm. I dunno. She got in through her press credentials with Epoch Times, the Gonger press outlet. More on the ET here. It’s hard not to admire their enterprise, but there’s a bit more to the FG than a bunch of buddhists seeking immortality through breathing exercises. They’re a neo boxer movement, combining mysticism with a hardline nationalist programme seeking reclamation of lost lands from neighbouring countries. It's just that they don't feature this last bit in their English language propaganda.

This doesn’t in any way justify the treatment they’ve received at the hands of the Communist Party. The problem is that people in China who want more freedom and greater control over their own lives don’t like being represented in these matters by a batshit crazy apocalyptic cult. It’s as if Britain was a dictatorship and we were “represented” abroad by members of the Flat Earth Society. If people in China are really assuming that the protest was a setup, it indicates that they don’t have much confidence that the United States understands their position or can offer much meaningful help.

UPDATE: Bingfeng really doesn't like the gongers. And Uleewang thought the whole thing was intentional.

Comments

[dsquared]

I will be talking a ferocious line of Chinabollocks some time Quite Soon Now on the guardian blog (as in, when they decide to empty the story queue and eff off to the pub). I'll give you a nod when it comes up; I suggest that if we really want to start doing the diplomacy thing with respect to China, we should threaten to kick them out of the WTO as it is just about the only thing we control that they care about. Of course this would mean giving up our cheap bras, but what's that compared to the "duty to protect"?

[Alex]

It was goood protesting, anyway. No doubt, as with all effective demos, the Grauniad will turn on her in due course - just like the Ukrainians, Fathers4Justice, currently the Thais and anyone else who does any demonstratin'.

[dsquared]

(chinabollocks now up)

[jamie]

...and duly commented on. Why on earth am I sending traffic over to the Guardian's site, for chrissake?

"No doubt, as with all effective demos, the Grauniad will turn on her in due course..."

Yep. The Groan loves an underdog, providing he or she stays that way.

[Uleewang]

"we should threaten to kick them out of the WTO..."
Yeah you could really try that. But the WTO as you are talking about is already half dead. Multilateral trade is failing on every front -- from Cancun to Hong Kong, WTO really has nothing to show. And China could give a rat's ass about any threat to kick it out now. We've got our bilateral trade agreements. These are the things that really work.
Or, even better, if you still believe people like you have enough control of the world, you could try take away Olympics from China, that's what really matters...