Wednesday 1 July 2020

So the Chinese authorities don't like

Downunder "spying" on them? 
It is of course perfectly acceptable for them to spy on Downunder. It is perfectly acceptable for them to spy on everyone,  indeed vital for them to do so. 
Anyone who is going to do business with the rest of the world, and do it to their own advantage, needs to spy on those to whom they are supplying goods and services. What they don't want is other people spying on them. They want to control the flow of information.
We all know that. Everyone accepts a certain amount of that. 
There is also "intelligence gathering" - the other sort of spying. It is almost nothing like the world shown in espionage movies. Most of it is very dull stuff. It is nevertheless vital to international business and international relations.
A man I know in the wool trade has interests in China. He put a lot of money into developing a business there. It employs a lot of Chinese people. About eight years ago he was warned not to return to China. He was told that, if he returned, he would be arrested. Why? Intelligence had picked up that he was not paying the necessary bribes to the local party officials. They had decided he needed to be apprehended in order to send the "correct" message to others. His mother, who was telling me this, was philosophical,
   "It's the way business is done in China but he wanted no part in it. It's still going to cost him in other ways."
I am sure it will. 
A family I know here were exporting other goods to China. The business seemed to be doing well, indeed very well. It was doing so well that the Chinese business offered them a "free" holiday in China - for both parents and their two adult sons. Intelligence gathering alerted them to the dangers of accepting the offer. They now find it impossible to do any business at all in China but, as the father put it to me, "We still have our business. We would not have kept it if we had accepted that so-called free holiday."
And there is the sort of intelligence gathering which China (and other countries) regard as "interference in our internal affairs". The Chinese are so sensitive about issues surrounding Tibet  and others around the Uighur community that they do not even want these things mentioned, let alone their handling of them questioned. 
   "It's about controlling that huge population Cat," I was told, "They fear dissent because it could cause the country to break apart."
It is why the "one country, two systems" policy for Hong Kong has never really worked - even when it appeared to do so on the surface. It was barely tolerated while there was no dissent but now it cannot be tolerated at all. It might break the country apart.
Yesterday I was asked whether I would take on a Chinese student for help with his English. I refused because I really do not have the time to give the sort of help he would need. He needs intensive English classes. I really want to stop doing that sort of work. He may have done me a favour.
 

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