Civic groups are accusing the Chinese embassy of organizing the Chinese protesters that ran riot in Seoul on Sunday, reports YTN.
In particular, the embassy is accused of sending text messages, letters and making phone calls to Chinese students, asking them to participate.
Chinese students who participated, however, deny this, claiming they got involved through overseas student groups. Said one Chinese student, “I didn’t receive anything. All of our universities have overseas student groups. People like the head of the group contacted us.”
In another report, YTN specifically quotes the civic group People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy as accusing the Chinese embassy of mobilizing Chinese students to block anti-Chinese protests along the torch route.
Not quite finished, the YTN also relays a report in Japan’s Asahi Shimbun accusing Chinese embassies worldwide of organizing local Chinese students to stop anti-Chinese protesters. In particular, it quoted a Chinese student who participated in demonstrations in Japan who claimed the Chinese embassy in Tokyo paid the expenses — including bus fare — of some 5,000 Chinese students.
Participants also handed out specific instructions for forming human walls around the torch and blocking anti-torch demonstrators.
The Asahi also reported that Chinese embassies in Paris, London, Canberra and elsewhere were mobilizing local Chinese students to convene pro-China demonstrations.
Interestingly, when asked about it on April 24, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman refused to give a direct answer, simply saying the question was meaningless. Or so said the Asahi, via YTN.
Sphere: Related Content
15 Comments
This, Songagi, is what I meant back in the rock-throwing thread when I said JanJan is a propaganda agent operated by a Chinese propaganda machine. Who contacted the ‘head of group’? And so on, and so on…
Sure, the Chinese Embassies have agents who run those groups — there’s no diff. All Chinese overseas students anywhere in the world are “monitored”…
I have pictures of “organizers”. They wore gray suits and had white ballcaps on. They always travelled in pairs. They were present at each spot I witnessed a hubbub.
At Olympic park, they even had the authority to have a tv crew kicked out of where I was standing. First they filmed the crew with tourist type video recorders and then had a ‘mid level’ seoul police officer escort the tv crew away. A friend of mine said the police officer had said something like “chinese media aren’t allowed to film here”. I’m not sure what that meant though.
Outside Kyobo, when the Chinese were screaming at the Free Tibet crowd, there were, once again, two of the gray suit white hat dudes standing in the back. They were on cellphones and seemed to be coordinating things. Once the police had setup a sufficient wall, they spoke to a few of the ‘fans’ and the group moved toward city hall.
It was quite shocking and obvious actually.
Well obviously the Chinese embassy was using the student organization to coordinate things. Duh.
@chiamatt:
Are your pictures posted online somewhere?
Said one Chinese student, “I didn’t receive anything. All of our universities have overseas student groups. People like the head of the group contacted us.”
In the US this is the “Chinese Student and Scholars Association”. I know at MIT this was mainland grad students, who didn’t join the Chinese Student Association, which was mostly Chinese-American, overseas Chinese, and friends.
And if you read the news reports out of the US for the San Francisco torch relay, there were mentions of the pro-CCP students being bussed in from Davis.
yeah, flickr dot com / smokehard
#6, chiamattt: Thanks for the flickr link.
#3,
If that’s true, then it makes me wonder if a backroom deal was struck between the Korean and Chinese governments.
I saw a few Korean students being interviewed on the news about it. They were very critical of the Korean police.
What happens to those who turn down requests from the “head of the group”?
Just talked to two Chinese students who were there. Paid their own way from the provinces to Seoul, but the flags “were provided.” Not surprisingly, they blamed the poor Korean security and organization for what happened.
I talked to a few of the Chinese exchange students in my school, both full time students and others who are just in our Korean language program. They went up as a very large group from Busan on their own dime. One student in my Monday class didn’t make it back, his friend said he was detained by the police. This same student had some great quotes; “some bad people are trying to take Tibet away from China’ and
” we went up to Seoul to protect China”. The last one I found to be a little disturbing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04.....nt.html?hp
I guess it’s a more or less worldwide phenomenon.
#12,
I didn’t discuss it with my Chinese students. By the way they avoided making eye contact with me, it was clear that they didn’t want to talk about it. Unlike some of your students, I think they thought they were just going there to see the torch.
Re: #7, those are some great shots “chiamatt”. The people look happy.
I did not see any pictures of the “organizers” you mentioned though.
3 Trackbacks
[...] make this situation even more disgraceful, as I suspected, reports are coming out that the Chinese embassy orchestrated the entire student protest. Could you imagine what the reaction in China would be if the South Korean embassy organized [...]
From Whom Did China’s Violent Youth Protesters Learn?…
While Sonagi documents the Chinese blogosphere’s living in denial on the pro-China violence (yes, Virginia, there are more than one source for tapping in to the pulse of the Chinese blogosphere and yes, Virginia, you could also read the comments at th…
[...] among Koreans. The Chinese government seems to be coming to grips with the P.R. disaster it has made for itself. Its diplomats, though not quite in a full kowtow position, are offering either an apology, or [...]