Stifling, dirty air is not the only thing blanketing Beijing. Since Oct. 17, the Chinese capital has been under an all-encompassing security sweep, officially declared to be in a “combat status with the highest level of prevention and control mechanisms around the clock.”
The sweep aims to guarantee security for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit set for Nov. 5-11.
In addition to tens of thousands of security forces, the government has mobilized 1 million Beijing residents as informants and neighborhood patrols in the largest security operation since the 2008 Olympics. The measures have turned Beijing into a paranoid fortress, with no stone unturned and no square inch of soil unwatched.
Topping the official list of threats are “major political incidents harming national security and affecting social stability” and “major group incidents” that may risk the safety of the public and of APEC leaders and delegations. That language signals another harsh round of “proletarian dictatorship” against dissidents, grievance petitioners and “deviant elements” who might be seen as tarnishing the self-promoted image of China as a socialist paradise.
Over the past few weeks, activists have been arrested for acts such as holding up an umbrella on a clear day to express support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. Beijing hotels and restaurants reportedly were instructed to report to authorities any customers who are Tibetans or Uighurs, whose native lands of Tibet and Xinjiang have been in virtual lockdown by Chinese security forces for years.
On Oct. 17, Beijing’s city government held a massive pep rally reminiscent of Mao-era hysteria. Tens of thousands of security forces swore their loyalty to the Communist Party and the Chinese government, and pledged their “utmost vigilance and devotion to an incident-free APEC conference.”
Yang Xiaochao, secretary of the Beijing Communist Party’s Politics and Law Affairs Committee, the organ in charge of security, announced at the rally that Beijing will strengthen anti-riot measures, using maximum force and the highest standards to strike any “terrorist groups and other extremist criminal organizations,” and that his security teams will be “combat-ready 24 hours a day.”
Mr. Yang also demanded that authorities respond within one minute to any security issue in coming weeks.
There is another reason why the paranoia started more than two weeks before the APEC meeting: the ongoing Communist Party Politburo’s plenum that is scheduled to end just before the summit.
The Fourth Plenum of the 18th Party Congress is tasked with one thorny, explosive issue: to find an effective alternative to continuing Supreme Leader Xi Jinping’s sweeping but slowed anti-corruption campaign.
The underlying principle of Mr. Xi’s campaign is not new: Kill the rooster to scare the monkey or, in other words, single out a few high-profile officials, usually personal enemies of the supreme leader, and punish them severely to set an example for other corrupt officials.
But that approach seems remarkably inadequate because as Mr. Xi’s campaign deepens, so do the internal panic, factional strife and backlash against harsh treatment of purged officials’ proteges, while more stupefying corruption cases at higher levels of the communist hierarchy are exposed.
Apparently, killing roosters no longer can scare the monkeys because just about everybody in the echelons of the communist hierarchy has the capability to run some type of “monkey business.”
Mr. Xi’s intention seems to stick to rooster-killing and to make the process bloodier to enhance the fear factor.
“Corruption within the PLA does not stop at Xu Caihou and Gu Junshan,” Zhang Wenmu, a close friend of and adviser to Mr. Xi, said on the eve of the Fourth Plenum.
High-ranking generals, Xu and Gu recently were purged for corruption. Xu was the highest-ranking uniformed officer in China two years ago, as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. If Mr. Zhang’s statement is true, the panic among the highest echelons of the Communist Party, including former prime ministers who reportedly have enriched themselves by the billions, must be significant.
Hence, the high level of security alertness gripping Beijing, a city of deadly intrigues yet an eager host to showcase a facade of calm and harmony.
• Miles Yu’s column appears Fridays. He can be reached at mmilesyu@gmail.com and on Twitter @Yu_miles.
• Miles Yu can be reached at yu123@washingtontimes.com.
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