Has Beijing officially recognised the work of WikiLeaks? A news report on Tuesday was bewildering: a spokesman for the Hong Kong office of the Foreign Ministry told reporters that Beijing was unhappy about American consulate officials' over-the-top interest in Hong Kong political and social affairs, as was shown, he said, by the recent release of a trove of US State Department cables that mentioned Hong Kong. Beijing, he said, wants consulate officials here to stop meddling in local affairs.
Has the spokesman forgotten how China once urged the US to fix this problem of unauthorised information leaks? Beijing is nervous about the WikiLeaks disclosures, and access to its website has long been blocked on the mainland. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange once said he sees the Chinese Communist Party as the worst offender in terms of censorship.
The US government has so far refused to verify or deny the content of the leaked cables. Recently, a row broke out in Chinese cyberspace over the cables in which some Chinese government officials and scholars were recorded in conversation with US diplomats. The names of some of these Chinese officials and scholars were tagged with, in brackets, the comment 'protect', or 'strictly protect'.
Some online commentators said the US embassy ought to apologise to these people because it had failed to protect their privacy; it also owed the public a clarification. But, apart from repeating its position that WikiLeaks had no authority to publish these cables, and was being irresponsible doing so, the US government has kept quiet. The Chinese officials and scholars mentioned, meanwhile, were vilified on the internet.
Among these 'protected' individuals were respected scholars and opinion leaders known for often speaking up for the people. Many internet users were angry and disappointed that these admired people had, they claimed, turned out to be 'spies for America', 'traitors' or a 'running dog'.
But if the critics were to study these cables, they would find that many of these 'offenders against the Chinese people' had held only a conversation or two with embassy officials, and what they said was no different from public comments they had made previously, many times.
No state secret was traded. In fact, some of these people did not even speak to US officials; they were mentioned in the discussions, that was all, and yet their names were tagged with 'protect' or even 'strictly protect'.
