An interview with a Chinese official regarding issues in Tibet
Let me give you a bit of setup first. The time was 1999; shortly after an explosive outgrowth of violence in Tibet (Amnesty International has quite a few entries on this), people across China demanded more focus on this issue from national and provincial media outlets, which led to a lot of opportunities for freelance journalists.
I took a contract from the Shanghai XinMing publication to do a two week long serial in their paper for some old fashioned reporting on exactly what's happening in Tibet and what Beijing is doing about it. I was given a press pass and an open door to pretty much whatever I wanted - and my only restriction was to have the print reviewed by a panel of XinMing regulars prior to publication.
I went to Tibet, back to Beijing, south to Shanghai, north again to Beijing, and after two weeks, came away with a whole lot of notes and material (unfortunately, only a small fraction of that was published, for one reason or another). Since there was some interest in the other thread about the Dalai Lama, I decided to dust off some of it and translate a few interesting bits to English. I hope you find the following interesting.
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During my week and a half stay in Tibet, I gathered a lot of threads concerning the background and causes of the violent clash, which I then followed up on in Beijing. One of them concerned a Fu Jianese land prospecting corporation which used very heavy handed tactics to drive over two thousand native Tibetians off their homes, which understandably caused a whole lot of racial resentment. After digging around a bit using my press pass, I got a name - a Mr.Wu Jian Xing - the head of the Judiciary Enforcement Committee back in Beijing. He's the man who apparently oversaw the case when the local law enforcement reported it. I did a little digging on the man, and found that he specialized in prosecuting party officials. He has a nickname among his subordinates- Tian Mian Lang (Iron-faced Wolf), and is somewhat of a... Batman inside Beijing's upper echelons.
Mr. Wu was kind enough to grant me an interview inside his office. I'll skip the introductions and get straight to the meat of the material.
Me: I heard from your subordinates that you were the man to talk to concerning this illegal prospection scandal.
Mr. Wu: Yes, that's true. Are you a member of the press?
Me: Freelance.
Mr. Wu: Okay. I would prefer to talk to an official press member. Can you relay that to your superiors?
Me: Yes, of course.
Mr. Wu: Please don't get me wrong. I would be happy to talk to you as well, it's just that an official press member can put more weight on the material.
Me: I understand.
Mr. Wu: Well, I suppose you already know about the case. It is a very bad example of corporate arm twisting. I suppose you want to know why this was allowed to happen for as long as it did.
Me: Yes.
Mr. Wu: (He takes a stack of manila folders from a cabinet behind him and pushes it in front of me) This is the way it works. I have several investigation teams which operate in cooperation with the Tibetian autonomous government using a liason, who reports any such cases to me. These are his reports. There is absolutely nothing in there of importance. You will find no mention of this particular prospection incident. Why do you think that is?
Me: I'd say your liason is taking bribes from the CEO of the prospection corporation.
Mr. Wu: You are half correct. He is taking bribes, but the bribe is from one of the Han Cultural Ministers in Tibet - who is not a high ranked member of the Party, but has a very strong social network that allows him to pursue his personal agendas very easily. I am sorry I cannot mention his name, for both professional and ethical reasons. I hope you understand.
Me: Yes, of course.
Mr. Wu: But then, his name shouldn't be difficult to find, if you asked the right people in Tibet. Nonetheless, he has some very questionable ties to certain organizations - some even on the government level - which he uses to fatten his own wealth at the expense of the people, most of them Tibetian natives.
Me: Why do you not arrest him?
Mr. Wu: It is not that easy. He has ties to many high political officials inside Beijing, and has a very strong political background supporting him. Every time I make an inquiry about him to my superiors, the answer is always nebulous. There is a lack of enthusiam. But that's not even the main problem. If that were all, I could drag him to court, present my evidence, and no matter what sort of strings he pulls with Beijing, the legal system will have no choice but take him down. I have done so before with higher officials than him.
(His secretary offers me some tea and puts a memo on his desk. Mr. Wu reads the memo, and excuses himself to make a call while I wait for him to finish.)
Mr. Wu: I apologize. As I have said, there are other factors. A month ago, I sent a special investigation team of sixteen officers to Lhasa, with the intent of bringing me the concrete evidence needed to incriminate the minister. They got as far as the border before the Tibetian national guard detained and deported them. Perhaps I should have mentioned this before, but the minister in suspect is Tibetian by blood and nationality, so the Tibet Autonomous Government considers him "one of them", and due to certain limitations, I cannot make a conviction and extraction of a Tibetian national without their assent. I can investigate all I want, but all the evidence will not be admissable in court unless the Tibetian national government authorizes their authenticity. I have placed in a formal request with the Tibetian police force to make the investigation and extract the evidence, even as far as providing the minister's banking information and suspect transactions within the past two years, but they never got back to me. It is not clear to me if [the Tibetian police force] has been compromised.
Then again - if Beijing really wanted, they [the party] could easily pressure the Tibetian government to give me what I want, but like I said, that is not the case.
There is nothing I can do. Beijing twists my left arm and the Tibetian autonomous government twists my right. Two years ago, I have over twenty anti-corruption agents inside Tibet. Today, I have three. The Tibetian [nationals] found them and deported them all. Hopefully, with the recent escalation of violence, the twenty eight investigators I recently dispatched will get a greater deal of cooperation. The fact of the matter is this: operating in Tibet without full cooperation from the Tibetian autonomous government and Central [Beijing] both will get nothing done. Right now I have neither.
This is not the only incident. (He points to the stack of manila folders to his right) All of those are similar cases. Corruption. Many within the party and the Tibetian leadership. I do what I can, but as I said, it is difficult unless both sides realize these are serious problems and let me do my job.
That's about all I have to say about this particular case. Is there anything else
Me: No, thank you for your time.
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I have many other such interviews and notes from the contract. If anyone finds them interesting I could translate some more.
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Originally Posted by Exarch
