More China bashing in the Snowden issue

[Fu Lai]

Another Western slanted piece on China by the nytimes

 

China Said to Have Made Call to Let Leaker Depart

By JANE PERLEZ and KEITH BRADSHER Published: June 23, 2013

 

BEIJING — The Chinese government made the final decision to allow Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, to leave Hong Kong on Sunday, a move that Beijing believed resolved a tough diplomatic problem even as it reaped a publicity windfall from Mr. Snowden’s disclosures, according to people familiar with the situation.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/06/24/world/hongkong/hongkong-articleInline.jpg

Bobby Yip/Reuters

Supporters of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, with his photograph at a demonstration outside the American Consulate in Hong Kong this month.

 

Hong Kong authorities have insisted that their judicial process remained independent of China, but these observers — who like many in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about confidential discussions — said that matters of foreign policy are the domain of the Chinese government, and Beijing exercised that authority in allowing Mr. Snowden to go.

 

From China’s point of view, analysts said, the departure of Mr. Snowden solved two concerns: how to prevent Beijing’s relationship with the United States from being ensnared in a long legal wrangle in Hong Kong over Mr. Snowden, and how to deal with a Chinese public that widely regards the American computer expert as a hero.

 

“Behind the door there was definitely some coordination between Hong Kong and Beijing,” said Jin Canrong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

 

Beijing’s chief concern was the stability of the relationship with the United States, which the Chinese believed had been placed on a surer footing during the meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Obama at the Sunnylands estate in California this month, said Mr. Jin and a person knowledgeable about the Hong Kong government’s handling of Mr. Snowden.

 

The Chinese government was pleased that Mr. Snowden disclosed the extent of American surveillance of Internet and telephone conversations around the world, giving the Chinese people a chance to talk about what they describe as American hypocrisy regarding surveillance practices, said Mr. Jin and the person familiar with the consultations between Hong Kong and China.

 

But in the longer term, China’s overall relationship with the United States, which spans global economic, military and security issues, was more important than the feelings of the public in China and Hong Kong, who felt that the contractor should be protected from the reach of the United States, analysts said.

 

Mainland Chinese officials “will be relieved he’s gone — the popular sentiment in Hong Kong and China is to protect him because he revealed United States surveillance here, but the governments don’t want trouble in the relationship,” said the person familiar with the consultations between Beijing and Hong Kong.

Mr. Snowden went public in Hong Kong on June 9, the day after the meeting between Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi ended, as the source of a series of disclosures in the British newspaper The Guardian and The Washington Post about classified national security programs.

 

The stream of information about the extent of American worldwide eavesdropping shifted the focus in the public sniping between the Obama administration and China over cybersecurity that had been unfolding for months.

 

In a series of speeches, senior officials in the Obama administration, including the national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, had taken the offensive against China, publicly accusing it of cyberespionage against American businesses. Mr. Donilon said in a speech in March that China was responsible for theft of confidential business information and proprietary technologies through digital intrusions on an “unprecedented scale.”

 

In response to those accusations, China said that it was the victim of cyberattacks from the United States.

 

Mr. Snowden’s disclosures appeared to confirm the Chinese government’s argument, and put the United States on the defensive. The highly classified documents that Mr. Snowden gave to the two newspapers showed that the N.S.A. compiled logs of virtually all telephone calls in the United States and collected the e-mail of foreigners from American Internet companies.

 

Mr. Snowden has denied giving China classified documents and said he had spoken only to journalists. But his public statements, directly and to reporters, have contained intelligence information of great interest to China.

 

Two Western intelligence experts, who worked for major government spy agencies, said they believed that the Chinese government had managed to drain the contents of the four laptops that Mr. Snowden said he brought to Hong Kong, and that he said were with him during his stay at a Hong Kong hotel.

 

If that were the case, they said, China would no longer need or want to have Mr. Snowden remain in Hong Kong.

 

The disclosures by Mr. Snowden set off a surge of commentary against American “double faced” and “arrogant” behavior by many users of China’s version of Twitter.

 

In some instances, the Chinese news media made snide references to what it called the gap between how the United States portrayed itself, and what the United States practiced. “Washington must be grinding its teeth because Snowden’s revelations have almost overturned the image of the U.S. as the defender of a free Internet,” Global Times, which often reflects the official point of view, wrote in an editorial.

 

The precise details of how the Chinese government dealt with Hong Kong authorities were not immediately known.

 

But Beijing appears to have decided that weeks of focus on Mr. Snowden in Hong Kong and his disclosures about the American government’s global surveillance practices were enough, and that he could turn into a liability, said a second person familiar with the handling of Mr. Snowden. “Beijing has gotten the most they can out of the Snowden situation,” that person said.

 

A senior diplomat familiar with the way the Chinese government works said just before the departure of Mr. Snowden became public that he believed that Beijing would do all it could to keep Mr. Snowden out of American hands. The Chinese public would be outraged if the contractor was extradited, put on trial and jailed, he said. At the same time, the Obama administration would put relentless pressure on Beijing to get Mr. Snowden, he said.

 

“I see the sun of Sunnylands disappearing into the snow of Snowden,” the diplomat said.

 

A very cynical and speculative piece, that somehow Snowden is bad but the government and people of China just played him for their own benefit. Snide anti-China piece again from the nytimes.

[Randy W]

I don't see any China bashing in that at all. If they had wanted to "play him for their own benefit" for propaganda purposes, they would have kept him in Hong Kong. Now the issue goes away, at least the public side of it. Any intelligence gathering they did (or didn't do) is now past history and fair game.

 

Hopefully, a lesson learned by the U.S. on security clearances (access to information) and the security of electronic data.

[warpedbored]

I don't see any China bashing in it either. If anything it is the opposite. It looks to me like China got everything of value they could out of him and cut him loose.

 

IMO Snowden is a criminal who broke several serious laws in disclosing top secret classified information to a foreign government. He was a NSA employee who willingly signed documents promising not to disclose that information yet decided he would be judge and jury as to whether or not the public should know. Every government in the world, everyday, does secret things their citizens would be aghast about if they knew. I would bet money that if a Chinese secret service employee were to do the same he would face very serious consequences.

[Randy W]

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On Chinese Social Media, Ambivalence Over Snowden

 

Mr. Snowden was hailed as a hero on Sina Weibo last week, but posts on Sunday and Monday were divided. The heated discussion about his departure bumped out a piece of arguably more relevant news to the Chinese public: Mr. Snowden’s assertion that the U.S. has been hacking China’s backbone telecom system and kept millions of Chinese text messages.

 

“All crows are black,” said a number of users, citing an Chinese old saying, to describe both American and Chinese government’s surveillance programs. China’s state-run media picked up Mr. Snowden’s comments in the South China Morning Post.

 

“Snowden has helped China so much. Why did we let him go?” said one Weibo user on Sunday. Some suggested that China should keep Mr. Snowden as a weapon against repeated accusations of China hacking U.S. companies.

 

 

This kind of echoes a thought I've had about the American system of justice - Say in a case styled as "The State vs. Joe Blow", why would the state throw their entire resources - the prosecution team and all investigation efforts - into proving that Joe Blow already IS guilty?

 

“The indictment left me silent: ‘United States of America v. Edward J. Snowden,’” wrote Bao Beibei, a New York-based China analyst at Rhodium Group who has more than 60,000 followers, referring to the cover sheet of the U.S. government’s indictment against Mr. Snowden. “That is one person against a country.”

[Randy W]

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. . . and

 

Russia Won't Disrupt Snowden Journey

 

which you can't access without a subscription, but the email alert says,

 

 

Russia said it won't intervene in the case of former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden.
"It is not a question for us," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We don't know what his plans are and we were unaware he was coming here."
Russian state media, citing an official in the government's security apparatus, said authorities have no legal grounds to detain and send Mr. Snowden back to the U.S. The admitted leaker of U.S. National Security Agency secrets remains in a hotel at the Moscow airport, where he arrived Sunday from Hong Kong.

[Randy W]

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. . . and this from the Global Times, apparently before they knew he was leaving

 

Hong Kong’s tradition of liberty thrives

 

 

With the backing of Hongkongers, Snowden should be relieved that he may have made the right choice coming to the city. He told media that he decided to stay in Hong Kong because of its "spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent" and he would let Hong Kong decide his fate.

With such a proclamation from Snowden, Hong Kong people feel it is their obligation to help a man who has so much faith in the civil society and legal system of the city.

Some people joked that Hong Kong is a "city of protests," but the fact that such a high number of protests have been allowed every year shows freedom of speech is guaranteed in Hong Kong.

The courts in Hong Kong, which are trusted by Snowden, are one of the pillars of the city. Hong Kong is not the most democratic entity in the world, but its traditions of a robust judicial system and the rule of law are widely respected.

The Snowden case comes at a time when Hong Kong is becoming decreasingly competitive compared to cities in the mainland and other Asian economies.

In a report by the China Institute of City Competitiveness released on June 18, Hong Kong's competitiveness dropped to fifth from second last year behind Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang provinces.

But the Snowden incident is proof that the city has not lost its luster. Of all places in the world, a US citizen has chosen the city as his safe haven because he trusts Hong Kong can bring him justice. Snowden is the best poster boy for Hong Kong, if one that no one could have ever dreamed of.

 

Kind of an exaggerated idea of the importance of Snowden himself, in my view, and perhaps actually reasons why they were glad to let him leave.

[Fu Lai]

I don't see any China bashing in that at all. If they had wanted to "play him for their own benefit" for propaganda purposes, they would have kept him in Hong Kong. Now the issue goes away, at least the public side of it. Any intelligence gathering they did (or didn't do) is now past history and fair game. Hopefully, a lesson learned by the U.S. on security clearances (access to information) and the security of electronic data.

The piece states the Chinese played him for their own benefit, that is bashing. Hopefully a lesson has been learned by the USA to stop spying and hypocrisy, but of course it will not end.

 

I don't see any China bashing in it either. If anything it is the opposite. It looks to me like China got everything of value they could out of him and cut him loose. IMO Snowden is a criminal who broke several serious laws in disclosing top secret classified information to a foreign government. He was a NSA employee who willingly signed documents promising not to disclose that information yet decided he would be judge and jury as to whether or not the public should know. Every government in the world, everyday, does secret things their citizens would be aghast about if they knew. I would bet money that if a Chinese secret service employee were to do the same he would face very serious consequences.

The piece states the Chinese played him for their own benefit and you agree, that is bashing. "Every government in the world, everyday, does secret things their citizens would be aghast about if they knew" so it is fair that every citizen that pays for the government should know and be allowed to object. Whistleblowers are not criminals, they are patriots.