[Patrickov]

Source: BBC

"I have my freedom of speech," are the last words a retired university professor is heard saying before the line goes dead.

On Wednesday, Sun Wenguang, 84, was in the middle of an interview with US-funded broadcaster Voice of America (VOA) when police broke into his home in Jinan, China and forced him off air.

Prof Sun has in the past been openly critical of the Chinese government.

A friend confirmed to the BBC that Prof Sun had been taken from his home by Jinan city police officers.

Prof Sun had been talking to the Mandarin language service of VOA about Chinese government's foreign investments

It followed an open letter he wrote recently criticising President Mr Xi's decision to spend money on foreign aid, loans and investments. He urged him instead to concentrate on domestic spending.

The letter also criticised Mr Xi's decision to remove presidential term limits.

As he is talking, voices can be heard in the background of the recording, which VOA has since shared on Twitter.

"Here they are again - seven, eight [of them]," he tells the interviewer before addressing the group of officers. "What, did I say anything wrong? Listen to what I say, is it wrong?"

He goes on again to explain his criticism of China's foreign investments: "People [in China] are poor. Let's not throw our money in Africa. Throwing money like this is of no good to our country."

Prof Sun's shouts then get louder as he can be heard telling the policemen: "What are you doing? It's illegal for you to come to my home. I have my freedom of speech."

The line then abruptly goes dead.

A retired physics professor from Shandong University, he spent more than a decade in and out of prison at various times from the 1960s to the 1980s for criticising communist leader Mao Zedong.

The long-time government critic is one of the original signatories of "Charter 08", a manifesto which called for political change in China.

In 2009, Prof Sun was beaten while visiting the grave of Zhao Ziyang, a communist leader who was purged for supporting the Tiananmen protests of 1989.

The then 75-year-old said at the time he had suffered three broken ribs and injuries to his hands and legs. He was later admitted into hospital.

Prof Sun has also been denied a passport, according to the New York Times, and so is unable to leave the country.

It's unclear. VOA says its attempts to reach Prof Sun have been unsuccessful and there has been no official confirmation of any arrest or police action.

But a friend of Prof Sun, who confirmed he was taken away by police officers, told the BBC that she believes he and his wife are being held in a local hotel, where he has been detained previously.

Li Hongwei added that she believed Prof Sun was within his rights to express what he thought about the government.

According to Human Rights Watch, Mr Sun's experience is the "daily reality" of a human rights activist in China.

"At any moment, police officers can [arrive] to take them away to be interrogated, detained, tortured or mistreated, simply for challenging the authorities' narratives and speaking to foreign media," senior researcher Maya Wang told the BBC.

Patrick Poon, an East Asia researcher from Amnesty International echoed these remarks: "It's a disgrace to see how a Chinese public intellectual who was [doing] a media interview was suddenly cut off by police officers."

"It vividly shows how the Chinese authorities clamp down on free speech," he told the BBC. "Police can harass [dissidents] any time and anywhere they like."

I know I shouldn't make such a comparison, but do American police shut down terrorist broadcasts on air?

[Deutschmania]

I know I shouldn't make such a comparison, but do American police shut down terrorist broadcasts on air?

In a word , yes it has http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/censoring-al-manar-tv-banned-from-us-television-does-station-broadcast-si/. . While in theory all have the right to free expression , not everyone necessarily will be granted a public platform .

[ThirdTerm]

China is a Communist country which legally detains over 100,000 dissidents. It's futile to criticize the government and the so-called dissidents could be paid foreign agents, aiming at destabilizing the country. The CIA launched Operation Yellowbird to help the Chinese dissidents who participated in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. More than 400 dissidents were smuggled through Hong Kong to Western countries.

A former CIA officer, who has been working for Christie’s auction house in Hong Kong, has been arrested for allegedly leaking the names of Chinese informants to Beijing.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee – also known as Zhen Cheng Li – was picked up at Kennedy Airport in New York on Monday after an extensive FBI investigation.

The astounding revelation that Lee may have been divulging information to China on CIA agents embedded there has shed further light on Hong Kong’s infamy as a global espionage hub.

The New York Times first dropped the bombshell on Tuesday in what is reportedly one of the biggest setbacks in the CIA’s operations in a decade. It said the suspected mole allegedly fed Beijing names and identities of US spies, leading to “executions and imprisonment of some of the CIA’s most valuable assets in the nation.”

Lee had been residing in Hong Kong after ending his 13-year tenure as a CIA case officer in 2007, until US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested him in New York City on Monday not long after he disembarked from a flight that originated in Hong Kong.

He will face charges of unlawful retention of classified information and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison if convicted.

Christie’s Hong Kong, Lee’s last employer during his stay in the city, has confirmed to local media that it has suspended its contract with him. He had worked as the auction house’s security manager.

On one occasion Lee was seen coordinating security for the pre-sale exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in Hong Kong last October. Hong Kong-based arts auction website The Value has also released a photo of Lee taken during a Christie’s event.

http://www.atimes.com/article/cia-mole- ... k-spy-hub/

[Rancid]

This news isn't a surprise. This is standard practice for the Chinese Government. They do a wonderful job of keeping their citizenry scared of the government. Part of the reason they are able to do such a good job of it, is the booming economy. They are lifting millions of people out of poverty yearly. I think the gravy train for the Communist party of China will end once their economy slows to growth rates similar to that of other advanced economies. The government will need to cut back on support to the general population, at which point, they will demand more freedom. I don't believe this will happen in my life time though.


Classic Esop story of the Dog and the Wolf.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

The Chinese government has little tolerance for its citizens providing aid to foreign propagandists. If you do interviews for state-owned media like Voice of America within the PRC, you should expect the same kind of low tolerance as this guy in this thread. Whether you like it or not, you can't do anything you want whenever you want because you think so.

[Patrickov]

Being a natural Hongkonger I don't really understand what's so wrong about being propagandists of the foreign powers, if they actually are better and can help. The reply from a guy pretending to be an attractive woman particularly irritates me.

[Albert]

The west or China there is no difference. Both practice oppression of dissidents.

[ThirdTerm]

The Tiananmen Square protest was an American-inspired color revolution similar to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Around 400 American agents or informers were evacuated to Western countries because these activists were likely to be on the CIA's payroll and they were on a mission to instigate a revolution and subsequent regime change. I think China has every right to prevent another color revolution in China and there is something traitorous about acting on Western countries' behalf in the name of democracy. The government in Kiev is reduced to a puppet of the US after a successful coup staged by the CIA.

PRI's The World host Marco Werman interviewed Pomfret about what happened next and what it has meant for US-China relations.

In the days after the crackdown after June 4th, you were kicked out of China. What happened?

I was called up by Chinese police and interrogated for several hours and then I was given three days to leave the country. They could have put me on the first plane out. My crimes were "stealing state secrets" and "violating martial law provisions." Two resident correspondents, one from Voice of America [VOA] — Al Pessin, were booted out.

Basically, I think the motivation for expelling a reporter from VOA and from the AP was that [government leaders in Beijing] were trying to express their irritation with what they alleged to be US government involvement in the protests. It had less to do with us and more to do with the fact that they wanted to express their anger at America for what they believed was fomenting this "counter-revolutionary rebellion."

Immediately after the crackdown, President George Bush — the first Bush president — dispatched senior American officials to China to reassure the Chinese that the United States wanted to continue its strong relationship with China.

But on the Chinese side, they really viewed the Tiananmen Square protest as being American-inspired, and so their paranoia about the United States increased significantly after that. And they launched the "patriotic education campaign movement," in which they instructed their students, their young, that America was basically out to change China, to push China toward a capitalist system or to a democracy.

Still to this day, within the Communist Party, they say that the United States and "Western imperialist forces" are continuing to plot to bring down the Communist Party of China. So, I think that experience of Tiananmen Square was a seminal experience that the Party had, that it used to convince itself that America wanted to take China down.

What do you think this 25th anniversary is going to mean for people in China?

First, there's a whole generation of people who never experienced it because they weren't born. That's the student generation. Secondly, there is a very strong crackdown right now in China on civil society. And so, the police forces in China are in no mood to tolerate anyone calling for a re-evaluation of the Tiananmen Square incident. Thirdly, there's been an uptick in China of violent attacks — probably by the Uighur ethnic goup — and that's probably increased a lot of skittishness and paranoia on the part of security forces. My sense is that if there is a renewed call for evaluation of the [Tiananmen] incident, it will be met with the full force of the Chinese security services.

[Crantag]

I frankly don't give a shit.

This is slightly bad PR for the Chinese government, and nothing more.

China is not a very oppressive place. But it is different from the West.

This natural Hong Konger fetishizes English colonial rule.

He is just a right winger who happens to be from Hong Kong, and who furthermore happens to admire white people.

He once posted that ideal politicians would all be Anglo-Saxon, or some such thing.

[Rancid]

This natural Hong Konger fetishizes English colonial rule.

A lot of the Hong Kong diaspora is certainly not happy that their culture/language will be erased by the mainland. It's not about English colonial rule.

Nothing they can do about it though.

[Patrickov]

The Tiananmen Square protest was an American-inspired color revolution similar to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Around 400 American agents or informers were evacuated to Western countries because these activists were likely to be on the CIA's payroll and they were on a mission to instigate a revolution and subsequent regime change. I think China has every right to prevent another color revolution in China and there is something traitorous about acting on Western countries' behalf in the name of democracy. The government in Kiev is reduced to a puppet of the US after a successful coup staged by the CIA.

I don't post a news for you to spew pro-Commie propaganda. Please have your fantasies elsewhere.

[Patrickov]

The west or China there is no difference. Both practice oppression of dissidents.

If the West do it, at least they do it in a way that is more reasonable or allowing breathing space (see Assange, and besides Assange should have been more careful if he's indeed innocent.), albeit a bit prolonged.

And I don't deny that the Chinese Commies' method is more effectively against the likes of ISIS. Their problem is treating everybody as if they are ISIS militants, while not really being good at normal administration. Thing might be built fast, but they are not sustainable.

And I think you have heard about the fake vaccine incident not long ago? That's what you get for having Chinese in power -- "effective", but most of the achievements probably corrupt and unsustainable or break upon tests.

[Patrickov]

This natural Hong Konger fetishizes English colonial rule.

He is just a right winger who happens to be from Hong Kong, and who furthermore happens to admire white people.

He once posted that ideal politicians would all be Anglo-Saxon, or some such thing.

Yes, I own this opinion based on my own experience. I don't deny that I might stand differently if I experience something else.

[Rancid]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

If the West do it, at least they do it in a way that is more reasonable or allowing breathing space (see Assange, and besides Assange should have been more careful if he's indeed innocent.), albeit a bit prolonged.

And I don't deny that the Chinese Commies' method is more effectively against the likes of ISIS. Their problem is treating everybody as if they are ISIS militants, while not really being good at normal administration. Thing might be built fast, but they are not sustainable.

And I think you have heard about the fake vaccine incident not long ago? That's what you get for having Chinese in power -- "effective", but most of the achievements probably corrupt and unsustainable or break upon tests.

I think you're spot on.

That said, there's basically nothing anyone can do. China is eating everyone's lunch slowly. Including Hong Kong and Taiwan.