Behind Chinese’s Demolition Protest in the United States： A New Excuse for Applying for Political Asylum
Organizers have served their sentences in China, and participants intend to apply for "asylum"
"Demolition", when the red Chinese character appeared in front of China’s embassies in the United States and Canada in July this year, attracted attention from all walks of life. The so-called "Operation Sparrow" based in Washington is considered as the main planner of these events. Who are the members of this organization? What do they want to achieve by expressing their dissatisfaction? The Global Times reporter recently interviewed the organizers and participants of Operation Sparrow and many Chinese in the United States and Canada, and found that there were only a few main organizations and participants. This "anti-demolition" action overseas is a way for them to prove their existence and attract attention. Meng Xuan, an American Chinese critic, told the Global Times that the purpose of some people’s "suing foreign countries" in the United States is not to solve the problem, but to accumulate capital for "applying for political asylum" and create the illusion of persecution in China.
The "pro-democracy" background behind "Sparrow Action"
In mid-July, graffiti and slogans with the word "demolition" appeared in front of China’s embassies in the United States and Canada. Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post said that Ma Yongtian, a "visitor" from China, Jilin, admitted that she was responsible for the graffiti in front of the China Embassy in the United States. It is said that Ma Yongtian is a member of the so-called "Sparrow Action" organization, and has been protesting in front of the China Embassy in the United States since July. However, when a reporter from Global Times contacted Ma Yongtian, she said that the word "demolition" was not written by her, but she was "very glad that someone expressed their support for this group in this way". Ma Yongtian, from Jilin, said that her company’s 200-square-meter factory was demolished in 2001, but the compensation was below the standard. In protest, her son joined Operation Sparrow in 2010. When the reporter asked Ma Yongtian what her son was doing now. She said that her son works in Los Angeles and has obtained American citizenship. However, she did not say how her son obtained American citizenship.
According to overseas media reports, the Washington-based "Sparrow Action" organization admitted that it was the mastermind of the incident, and the main organizer was a Chinese named Yang Jianli. In an email interview with the Global Times reporter, Yang Jianli said that Operation Sparrow started in March 2010 to protest against some demolition incidents during the Shanghai World Expo. After the World Expo, the first phase of the operation was announced in 2011. In July this year, with the domestic attention to the demolition incident, he organized a second round of actions, including this one to the Chinese Embassy in the United States. Yang Jianli said that "Sparrow Action" is "to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens", but he also made no secret that "it is also an important political issue".
In fact, Yang Jianli, the organizer of "Sparrow Action", was one of the "pro-democracy" figures who fled from the mainland and was elected as the vice chairman of the "NLD". As these people become more and more marginalized in the United States and Europe, they are eager to "do something" and create some noise in the public opinion field to prove their existence. Meng Xuan, an American Chinese critic from Taiwan Province, has dealt with Yang Jianli many times. He told the Global Times that many "pro-democracy" people in the United States have a hard time, and many of them just live in Chinese-inhabited areas such as Flushing in new york. Yang Jianli is one of the more active people in the "pro-democracy movement" in recent years. He takes the upper line, that is, lobbying in Washington. In order to increase his political capital, he secretly returned to China in 2002 and spent several years in prison in China. According to reports, the judgment of the domestic court at that time stated that he was sentenced because "Yang Jianli and others were assigned by Taiwan Province spy organizations to collect China government documents in the United States". In the United States, there are also other "pro-democracy" people who disdain Yang Jianli, saying that "Yang Jianli is ambitious and good at speculation, and his return to prison is only for the sake of his upper position." Meng Xuan said that it is obvious that some Americans eat this set.
Many Chinese disapprove of the "Sparrow Action" organized by Yang Jianli, including some "visitors" who also came to the United States to protest against "forced demolition". Xie Jingyuan, who claimed to be a "visitor" from Beijing, said that he had protested at the United Nations for more than two months, and the Beijing municipal government had offered him a satisfactory amount of compensation-plus monetary compensation for his family’s seven houses. However, Xie Jingyuan still said that he did not want to return to China immediately, because he was not at ease until he got the house. He claimed that the pressure of living in the United States was very small, and the rent and living expenses were all sent from home. Xie Jingyuan also said that when they protested in the United States, people from the "pro-democracy movement" came to support them from time to time. "They tried to pull me into the" pro-democracy movement ",but I didn’t agree, because" the "pro-democracy movement" actually had no influence. "
"Resisting demolition" has become a new excuse for applying for political asylum.
In fact, in front of the United Nations headquarters in new york and China’s embassies and consulates abroad, you can always see such foreign visitors. In Little Square, opposite the United Nations building, people often gather, distribute leaflets to pedestrians, post posters, and sometimes broadcast through loudspeakers, but few pedestrians stop to watch. A Chinese in new york said that one of the people who "sued the foreign countries" earlier was Hu Yan, a Shanghai resident, calling himself an "Expo refugee", saying that during the Shanghai World Expo, the house was "illegally demolished" by the Shanghai Municipal Government. An insider told the Global Times reporter that this person is completely unreasonable. In fact, the Shanghai Municipal Government has given her generous compensation, but she is not satisfied. The insider said that if the China government really wants to crack down, such people will never leave the country.
Many local Chinese said that the purpose of these people "suing foreign countries" was to put pressure on the China government and strive for greater economic benefits for themselves, and also to "apply for political asylum". An official of the United Nations said that the United Nations is an international organization composed of 193 countries in the world, serving its member countries, and it is impossible to accept individual complaints. These people are making trouble here, and there must be another purpose.
In the United States, in addition to Operation Sparrow, there are many other organizations that visit the people, such as the China Visiting Committee registered in New York State. There are about 10 members in the United States and branches in Japan, Australia and Canada. Ai Furong, a member of the "China Visiting Committee", told the Global Times reporter that most of the "visiting people" are purely for economic demands, and some people stay in the United States in order to get green cards. He said that people who came to the United States to protest all came to the United States through tourist visas and then sought political asylum. If the application is passed, you can get a work visa, and you will have the opportunity to get a green card and become a permanent citizen of the United States.
"Someone came to protest that it was also three days of fishing and two days of drying the net. Some people have already solved their problems in China, but they still don’t return home. They want the whole family to live and work here, because they don’t have to worry about no medical insurance, and the pressure of life is relatively small. " Ai furong said.
In fact, there are many such people in the United States, Canada and Europe. In the past, some Chinese could get political asylum as soon as they said what they had practiced and what they had taught. The UNHCR reported that among those who sought political asylum in 2011, Afghanistan was the largest source country, followed by China and Iraq; The United States is the first choice for seeking political asylum. A Chinese in new york told reporters that the US Immigration Service cares so much about these people for a simple purpose: hundreds of thousands of cases of political asylum show that China’s human rights record is poor. But Americans don’t know that these people can do anything to achieve their goals. Therefore, overseas Chinese media often appear front-page advertisements-"green card asylum, no charge for failure, full training, buy two and get one free"; There is even a lawyer holding a sign at Los Angeles Airport: "Asylum seekers come with me".
In this regard, the US Immigration Service can’t bear it. At the end of 2012, new york dispatched hundreds of police officers, seized dozens of asylum lawyers’ offices suspected of counterfeiting, and arrested many people. Pritt, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused these people of "carefully fabricating lies", and the indictment denounced these people as "novelists" who are good at fabricating nuanced victimization plots. Kuang Zhizhong, a professor who studies Asian Americans and urban affairs at Hunter College in new york, said that many asylum applications received by new york from Chinese were fraudulent. Recently, there have been new excuses for applying for political asylum in the United States, such as "anti-demolition" and "anti-pollution". In fact, China’s embassies in the United States and Canada, as well as consulates in Chinese-inhabited cities such as San Francisco, have always been high-incidence places for street performance art by a few people: in these places, "demonstration kiosks" and large slogans have existed for several years, and the municipal government ordered the removal of the capital "wildfire never quite consumes them". For these, local Chinese have long been accustomed to it and rarely pay attention to it.
Many overseas Chinese are very concerned about the social phenomenon in China, and they are also deeply in love and deeply responsible for the corruption and imperfect legal system in China. In the interactive discussion of local Chinese radio and TV stations, a large number of Chinese enthusiastically participated in each discussion, and their views were very diverse, and many criticisms were quite sharp. But even critics don’t agree with this kind of "performance art" Many Chinese believe that "criticism is not a show, and a show is not a criticism." In foreign countries, there are many ways to criticize the China government, and it is not difficult to organize legal demonstrations. This sneaky performance art of the so-called "Sparrow Action" is unnecessary, and it is also easy to remind people of "fake refugees" who "gamble on their identity".
Mr. Qing Liu, Deputy Secretary-General of China Association for the Promotion of Peaceful Reunification (USA), told the Global Times reporter that the purpose of "Operation Sparrow" was simply to discredit the China government, and the organizers of the operation had a strong political purpose. After the establishment of the new government in China, it intensified its efforts to punish corruption, and investigated and dealt with a number of lawless elements, including some corrupt elements who used to hold high positions. This shows that the China affair can be completely solved in China, and the intention behind putting these matters on international occasions deserves people’s vigilance. (Reporter Yan Shuang, correspondent in the United Nations, the United States and Canada, Wu Yun, Chen Yiming, Guan Bin)
(Source: People’s Daily Online-Global Times)