MB Civic

PARIS, 26 Feb (AFP) – As athletes train for
the summer Olympics in China, a new book
claims that the country’s vast spy network is gearing up for a different challenge –
keeping an eye on journalists and potential
troublemakers.

French writer Roger Faligot, author of
some 40 intelligence-related books, has
penned ‘The Chinese Secret Services from
Mao to the Olympic Games’, due out
February 29.

His findings claim that special teams are
being formed at the country’s embassies
abroad “to identify sports journalists … and
to define if they have an ‘antagonistic’
or ‘friendly’ attitude in regards to China.”

Potential foreign spies who may seek to
enter China by posing as journalists or
visitors will be subject to special
surveillance.

The same goes for human rights activists
who could use the event to demonstrate in
favour of causes such as Tibet, where China
has violently crushed protests against its
rule, it says.

That’s not to mention the long list of other
issues preoccupying Chinese authorities,
including the possibility of an Al-Qaeda
attack and protests from the Falun Gong
spiritual movement. China has outlawed
Falun Gong, which combines meditation
with Buddhist-inspired teachings.

“The watchword for the Chinese is ‘no
problems at the Olympics,'” Faligot says.

Faligot, who is fluent in Mandarin, says he
spoke with numerous Chinese officials.

According to him, two million Chinese work
directly or indirectly for the intelligence
services through the state security agency.

In a chapter titled ‘China: Gold Medal for
Espionage’, the author says the director of
the group coordinating Olympic security,
Qiang Wei, has a 1.3-billion-dollar (885-million-euro) budget.

An Olympic security command centre has
been created “in order to assure a
response to all risks in real time”.

Olympic organisers admitted last year to
budget overruns caused by extra
expenditure on security at the Games, the
biggest international event ever staged in
communist China.

Last September, China’s then-police chief
Zhou Yongkang said that “terrorist”
and “extremist” groups posed the biggest
threat to the success of the Olympics.

He did not elaborate, but China has
previously accused some members of the
ethnic Muslim Uighur community in the
nation’s far western region of Xinjiang of
terror-related activities.

In the year leading up to the August 8-24
Games, the Chinese army will have
organised 25 exercises on how to respond
to crises, including a chemical attack on the
subway.

The teams being formed in foreign
embassies will work in conjunction
with “different Chinese intelligence services
under diplomatic cover”.

Those intelligence services will include the
secretive 610 office, set up in 1999 to target the Falun Gong movement and which
operates worldwide.

But the intelligence services won’t only be
deployed during the Olympics to keep an
eye out, Faligot says. They’ll also be
recruiting among the two million visitors
expected for the event.