Popular Beijing spots for foreigners, such as Sanlitun and university areas, will be targeted by police in a fresh drive against visitors who commit crimes, outstay their visas or gain illegal employment, authorities said on Monday ….

Foreigners must carry passports and accommodation registration documents at all times in line with Chinese regulations. “We will enforce the rule and make sure that every foreigner knows that,” Lin told China Daily ….

The capital has reported 13,000 cases of illegal entry, overstaying and illegal employment concerning foreigners from more than one hundred countries since 2008, according to exit-entry statistics.

Citizens have been invited to help by tipping off police at a special phone hotline, with a dramatic “striking fist” graphic urging them on. Proper enforcement of immigration rules in itself is uncontroversial and perhaps, as Bill Bishop wrote at Sinocism, “long overdue”. But the vehemence of online approval has startled some observers. While Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn told The Wall Street Journal that “the online reaction is a little scary … but I don’t think this necessarily reflects any general rise in anti-foreigner sentiment,” Tea Leaf Nation’s survey of responses from Sina Weibo paints an unsettling picture:

The overall tone of discussion will surely be deeply troubling to anyone who has ever had to be an “outsider.” @魚魚桑 honed in on, and lauded, the dangerous semantics employed by Beijing police: “‘Clean up’…This is really the right word to use. I feel like it’s cleaning up trash from the street.”

Others piled on, in many cases disregarding the original distinction between illegal foreigners and legal foreigners. @Bob_慕小落 wrote, “Clean slowly, so that not a single one is left.” But @味同烂嚼 wanted speed: “We should thoroughly clean up, hurry up and clean up, I don’t want to see these disgusting people anymore.” @山哥SANGER opined, “White-skinned pigs [白皮猪], black devils [黑鬼], sticks [棒子, a slur referring to Koreans], devils [鬼子], Southeast Asian monkeys [东南亚猴子] and other kinds of foreign trash should all be swept out the door ….”

While it would be comforting to conclude the vitriol spewed online represents a minority, if this is the case cooler heads have spent a great deal of time sitting sideline. One culprit behind such anti-foreigner sentiment is the sense that foreigners have been given special treatment for too long. As @Ren类已经无法阻止我了 asked ironically, “Has Beijing begun to pay attention to we second-class citizens?” @Mantarine agreed, “Chinese have been too tolerant of foreigners … some foreigners’ conduct has really been over the top.”

Ministry of Tofu collected and translated some more weibo reactions, including Goldkorn’s:

Jeremy Goldkorn (South African, founder of Danwei.org): I am officially, seriously and sincerely a three-have laowai. Visa, residence permit, and work permit, I have them all. I am also a three-no laowai: I am no rapist, no fraud, and I steal no job from Chinese. Nevertheless, there are surely people who call me “foreign trash” or whatever.

刘仰: In the future, there will just be more and more foreign losers, who fare poorly in their countries and want to come to China to muddle along for food, drink and women. Because some Chinese are cheap and turn China into a paradise for foreign losers. Of course, another possibility cannot be rooted out, which is, some foreign losers are not really losers; they just act like one to disguiser their real identity and are up to something. So, a clean-up is necessary.

痞痞兔: Should also clean up those “foreign nationals’ fathers” (alluding to Chinese cadres whose children are naturalized foreign citizens) who engage in illegal activities in China. Many of those three-have foreign nationals’ fathers have a source of income (large-sum gray income), have fixed and regular abode (several houses), have a formal job (civil servants); some even stay in China for nothing but committing a crime (embezzling public funds and taking bribes).

Resentment of the “free pass” given to foreigners also surfaced, ironically, in chinaSMACK’s collection of responses to a BBC report on China’s growing global popularity:

腾讯网友 夜莺:

Just take a look at the whities getting VIP treatment in China and you’ll know, this problem is inevitable.

腾讯芜湖市网友 白开水:

Foreigners from developed nations enjoy privileged protection in China, or as they say foreigners are first class, officials are second class, minorities are third class and Han are fourth class. Here in China the exact same thing can happen to foreigners and Chinese but will have completely different outcomes, just like differing chemical reactions. It’s very simple, just look at how even big shot officials are ranked behind foreigners and you’ll know just how big the disparity is.

(See ‘Is China Squandering its Soft Power Investments?‘ for more on the BBC survey.)

The campaign comes amid a wave of what Harry Kazianis at The Diplomat describes as “old fashioned jingoism” from Chinese media over tensions with the Philippines in the South China Sea, possibly in an attempt to distract from political controversies at home.

Over the last several weeks, as Western media has followed the unfolding of events of Chen Guangcheng’s dash to the U.S. embassy in Beijing, which came on the heels of the Bo Xilai scandal, Chinese media has shifted its gaze elsewhere. In the South China Sea or West Philippine Sea, depending on which party you ask, tensions are being stoked in the form of provocative editorials, reporting, and the actions of Chinese journalists. Such reporting – nothing more than old fashioned jingoism – sets a dangerous precedent in an area of the world that is already rife with tensions. And, while such coverage is useful for turning the page on China’s internal political soap operas, fueling the fires of Chinese nationalism can only inject a dangerous element that, if left unchecked, could make it harder for either side to compromise ….

Social media is also ablaze with nationalistic and fire-spitting commentary. While Chinese censors are quick to repress any of the latest news or rumors concerning Bo or Chen, matters in the South China Sea seem like fair game. One microblogger named kongdehua declared, “the Philippines have basically been making irrational trouble, if they want to start a war then we will strike, no one fears them.” He went on to say in a widely quoted remark that, “If every Chinese spat once, we could drown (the Philippines).”

While authorities have denied that the campaign is linked to recent video of a British man sexually assaulting a Chinese woman, Josh Chin at China Real Time Report points to this as a turning point after a series of viral stories about foreign Good Samaritans.

The clean-up campaign arrives in the midst of a heated discussion among Chinese social media users about the way foreigners comport themselves in the country. Last week, the stories of two foreigners – one an American who bought French fries for a homeless woman in the city of Nanjing, the other a Brazilian man who was badly beaten by a trio of thieves after trying to stop a woman from having her bag pickpocketed in Dongguan – spread quickly online as Chinese Internet users engaged in a round of soul-searching over the belief that Good Samaritans in China are in relatively short supply.

A similar discussion took place late last year after a foreign tourist, 34-year-old Uruguayan Maria Fernanda, jumped into Hangzhou’s West Lake to save a drowning woman as dozens of Chinese onlookers stood idly by ….

But much of that goodwill has been erased in recent days thanks to the wide circulation online of a video that appears to show a foreigner caught in the middle of sexually assaulting a Chinese woman. In the video, uploaded on Wednesday and viewed more than 10 million times on Chinese video site Youku (warning: disturbing content), the foreigner is pulled away from the woman, scuffles briefly with a Chinese man and is later shown lying motionless in the street, where he is hit and kicked again before police arrive.

Netizens were also outraged recently by reports of a vicious and humiliating attack on two Chinese students on a Sydney train, which has left other Chinese residents deeply ill at ease. At the same time, and notwithstanding the findings of the BBC survey noted above, the attacks and references to the victims’ presumed wealth resonate with tensions between Chinese abroad and local populations elsewhere. In British Columbia, rich Chinese immigrants are widely (and unfairly) blamed for driving up property prices, while a group of Chinese students was stopped by police late last year for racing supercars on a public highway during rush hour. In Singapore on Saturday, a man from Sichuan and two others were killed after his Ferrari collided with a taxi. Shanghaiist’s Kenneth Tan describes the incident’s context and aftermath:

Anti-Chinese sentiment in Singapore is up following the accident, and outraged netizens have left thousands of angry comments on websites, bulletin boards and social networks.

The Temasek Times, a widely-read and largely anti-foreign news website, lambasted journalists from the mainstream media who “did not think nationality is an issue”.

Singapore’s population has exploded from 3.2 million in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2011, as the government ramped up its intake of immigrants. Mainland Chinese migrants have constituted a large part of newcomers due to lower fertility rates among the ethnic Chinese Singaporean community and the government’s belief that it is imperative to maintain the city-state’s current ethnic mix.

Mainland Chinese and other foreigners have been blamed for taking local jobs, depressing wages, pushing up real estate prices, and testing the limits of the public transportation network.

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The recent bout of trouble began in April, when Philippine Navy personnel boarded Chinese fishing vessels at Scarborough Shoal, an area about 800 kilometers, or 500 miles, south of China and over 160 kilometers west of the Philippines that is claimed by both countries.The Philippines claimed to have found large quantities of illegal coral and fish on the vessels, and said Chinese surveillance ships had intervened to prevent the fishermen’s arrest, my colleague Jane Perlez reported.

Relations between China and the Philippines have deteriorated sharply, with a China Daily article, carried by the People’s Daily Web site, warning Manila today “not to escalate tension.” That follows weeks of growing calls by nationalist Chinese netizens to “teach the Philippines a lesson” and statements in state-run Chinese media that China would consider all options to resolve the dispute.

After weeks of tension in the area, which China calls Huangyan Island and the Philippines calls the Panatag Shoal (internationally, it’s generally known as the Scarborough Shoal; see this report from the International Crisis Group), China announced this week that it would begin an annual, 10-week fishing ban in waters including the region, but stressed that the ban was not connected to the dispute.

In response to China’s fishing ban, the Philippines announced a ban of its own, the Wall Street Journal reports:

The Philippines responded by announcing plans for its own fishing ban. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario Monday said President Benigno Aquino III is also keen to replenish fishing stocks.

“We do not recognize China’s fishing ban inasmuch as portions of the ban encompass our Exclusive Economic Zone,” Mr. del Rosario said in a statement, referring to the 200-nautical-mile zone granted to the Philippines under the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea. “However, the president has decided that in view of the accelerated depletion of our marine resources, it would be advisable for us to issue our own fishing ban for a period of time to replenish our fish stock.” Scarborough Shoal sits 118 nautical miles (220 kilometers) off the country’s northwest coast.

The Philippines has also renewed military ties with the U.S. in the wake of the controversy. From the AP:

With Washington turning its attention more to the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. and the Philippines last week held the first joint meeting of their top diplomats and defense chiefs. The U.S. increased military aid and resolved to help its ally on maritime security.

The steps came with the Philippines locked in a standoff with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea that has stoked passions on both sides. The U.S. is a walking a delicate diplomatic line. It doesn’t want the dispute to escalate, but it is showing where its strategic interests lie.

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The South China Sea has become a major testing ground of China’s foreign policy and its growing maritime power, even as the top Communist Party leadership is preoccupied by a power struggle before the 18th Party Congress to be held this fall. Some Western analysts have suggested that Beijing’s increasing belligerence with the Philippines is aimed at shoring up domestic public opinion during a delicate transition period by using the issue of sovereignty as a popular rallying point.

The People’s Liberation Army Daily, the newspaper of the army, ran a tough editorial on Wednesday saying that China would not stand for anyone snatching the sovereignty of Huangyan Island. “Not only the Chinese government will not agree, neither will the Chinese people, and the Chinese Army will disagree even more,” the editorial said.

At the Foreign Ministry, a spokesman, Hong Lei, said at the regular briefing Thursday that the Philippines should stop escalating tensions and warned that Manila must take responsibility for the dispute over the island.

A particularly virulent editorial in the official Global Times threatened that, “Peace will be a luxury if tensions continue to rise.”

After China held up imports of bananas from the Philippines and canceled tourist trips to the country, residents in Filipino cities rallied outside Chinese consulates. The Chinese government cautioned citizens from traveling near the protests. The Telegraph reports:

China International Travel Service, the state-owned tourism operator, yesterday suspended ties with the Philippines after organisers announced plans to demonstrate outside Chinese embassy buildings and property today.
Beijing also issued a travel advisory warning its citizens to keep a low profile. “Avoid going out at all if possible, and if not, to avoid going out alone,” it said. “If you come across any demonstrations, leave the area, do not stay to watch.”

The Philippines government supported the rights of protesters to express themselves but said all protests were citizen initiatives and not organized by the government. From ABS-CBN News:

“The protests are the initiatives of private citizens. Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are enshrined in the constitution. We urge the participants to exercise their rights responsibly,” Deputy Presidential Spokeswoman Abigail Valte said.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda downplayed reports that China is bullying the Philippines by scrapping the country as a tourist destination and for imposing rigid inspection of Philippine fruit exports.

“The concern over our banana exports to China is a sanitary and phytosanitary issue, and the Department of Agriculture through the Bureau of Plant Industry is addressing this with its counterpart agency for quarantine in China,” he said.

The U.S. plays a key role in this dispute despite its geographic remove. From the Telegraph:

As the dispute escalated, Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, met senators in a push to ratify a treaty that would bolster legal backing for US naval patrols in dispute regions such as the South China Sea.

Seizing on warnings of the dangers of escalating “gunboat diplomacy” Mr Panetta called on the senate to ratify the Laws of the Sea, a UN treaty that has been hindered by procedural disputes.

“By moving off the sidelines and leading the discussion, we would be able to influence those treaty bodies that develop and interpret the Law of the Sea,” he said. “In that way, we would ensure that our rights are not whittled away by the excessive claims and erroneous interpretations of others.”

American officials also announced the deployment of Littoral Combat Ships, a new generation of vessels that would allow the US much more extensive coverage of Asian sea lanes including the Strait of Malacca, as well as areas disputed by China.

On Friday, however, the possibility of an easing in tensions was reported as a diplomatic solution was broached. From CNN:

In Manila, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said that Philippine diplomats “are endeavoring to undertake a new diplomatic initiative, which we hope will help defuse the situation.”

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that China had noted the remarks as well as the action taken by the Philippine Foreign Ministry and noticed the resumption of diplomatic contact between the Philippine Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

Read more about the South China Sea and China’s relationship with the Philippines via CDT.

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China’s stance on resolving the situation by diplomatic reconciliation is “unchanged”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a daily news conference in Beijing on Friday.

“We strongly urge the Philippines to get back on the correct track of resolution through diplomacy, and any remark or move that complicates or intensifies the situation makes no sense to the resolution,” Liu warned.

In the wake of the incident, Manila called on neighboring countries in the region to “take a stand” but received little response. The United States refused to take sides.

Despite claims from the US that they would not take sides in the dispute, the US has doubled military aid to the Philippines. AFP adds:

The increased aid was confirmed during the recent US visit of Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin for talks with their US counterparts Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta.

They discussed the almost month-long face-off with China over a shoal in the South China Sea that is claimed by both countries.

The Philippines also asked the US for ships, planes and radars to help modernise its poorly equipped military.

Hernandez said the “foreign-military financing” aid could be used to buy new equipment or maintain existing military resources.

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Those disputes are pushing the Philippines to seek closer cooperation with the United States, which in turn has prompted China to warn Washington against getting involved, denouncing last week’s U.S.-Philippine military drills as bringing the risk of armed conflict closer.

“I’m sure we need to be diplomatic, but I don’t think we should tip-toe around the Chinese on this,” said Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center with the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank.

On Sunday, China said it had made “stern representations” to the Philippines about its proposal for international arbitration over Scarborough Shoal, site of the most recent stand-off between the two sides.

“China urges the Philippines to earnestly respect China’s sovereignty and do nothing to expand or complicate matters,” the ministry cited Deng Zhonghua, head of its department of boundary and ocean affairs, as saying.

As a result of the talks, the US has announced that it would help build the Philippine’s maritime forces, but it would not take sides in the South China Sea dispute. The Washington Post adds:

The top diplomats and defense officials of the treaty allies held their first joint meeting Monday and discussed the three-week standoff at the Scarborough Shoal.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reaffirmed U.S. commitment to its mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, and to freedom of navigation and regional security. She reiterated support for a diplomatic resolution to territorial disputes.

A joint statement said they would cooperate on building the Philippines’ maritime security capabilities. The U.S. will transfer a second ship to the poorly equipped Philippine navy this year.

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“The stalemate remains. Both sides are in touch with each other,” Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said in a brief statement.

He said Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario left Sunday for a week-long trip to the United States, and negotiations would be taken over by one of his top aides.

On Monday, the Philippines and the United States are due to begin joint annual war games to boost its military alliance amid fears of China’s growing power in the region.

The Scarborough Shoal dispute started on April 8 when the Philippines found the eight Chinese fishing boats in the area, which the Philippines claims as its territory.

The standoff was triggered by Chinese fishing boats refusing to give up their catch to the Philippines, which resulted in the Chinese fishing boats being guarded by surveillance ships and the Philippines sending out their biggest warship. Reuters adds:

The Philippines had wanted the Chinese fishermen to hand over their hauls of giant clams, corals and live sharks harvested near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, in return for safe passage out of the area.

“The Chinese fishing vessels had left the lagoon, a development which we had been working towards except for our not being able to confiscate their illegal harvest … which was regrettable,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Del Rosario said in a statement.

There is concern among some neighbors about what they see as China’s growing assertiveness in staking its claims over the sea and various islands, reefs and shoals.

The Philippines and China traded diplomatic protests over the latest confrontation with the Philippines complaining of intrusion and illegal fishing and China saying its fishermen were harassed.

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The Philippines has responded to what it perceives as heightened Chinese aggressiveness by calling for stepped up military ties with the United States.

And it will hold a large-scale military exercise with the US next month on the main island of Luzon and in Palawan, an island on the Philippines’ southwest coast facing the South China Sea.

But Ma Keqing said any such military ties were an internal matter for the Philippines, and that for now China was willing to jointly develop disputed areas in the South China Sea.

“The Pacific is large enough for the US and China. We hope that the US will take a constructive role to make this region more peaceful and stable,” the ambassador told reporters.

The region, which includes the Spratly Islands, has been the topic of dispute between China and the Philippines due to speculations about the presence of oil and gas deposits. While it seems that there is an increase in military presence, Ma has said that China does not intend to interfere in the region with military force. The Manila Bulletin adds:

China has no ambition of invading other countries or interfering in their affairs through military force, the new Chinese ambassador to Manila declared in a discussion with media in Makati City over the weekend.

Ambassador Ma Keqing said these were not part of the intention of her government in increasing its military budget this year as she sought to assuage fears that Beijing poses a threat to other nations.

“What we want to do is to protect China’s interest, protect its borders and sovereignty… that’s all,” said the lady ambassador. “We have no intention or ability to pose threat to other countries.”

The Chinese government’s published 2012 military budget is about $106.4 billion, the second largest in the world and up about 11.2 percent from 2011.

See more about disputes in the South China Sea via CDT.

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Luo, an outspoken senior military figure in China, made the remarks against the background of disputes between China and several of its neighbors intensifying in recent years over. These have intensified disputes regarding claims to territory of some islands and demarcation of some waters in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei dispute China’s sovereignty over some islands and waters in the South China Sea, and Japan claims China’s Diaoyu Islands as its own.

Meanwhile, the United States is increasing its involvement in Asia-Pacific affairs, saying it has a national interest in the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, which has further complicated the disputes.

Cases have recently been reported of Chinese fishing vessels that in Chinese waters being expelled or their captains being arrested by foreign countries, yet the ships of China’s fishery administration are not equipped to quickly and efficiently react to such emergencies.

The coast guard would be equipped to deal with these situations, giving the country more room to maneuver in such thorny cases, said Luo, adding that it has been a common practice for big countries to have such a force.

In the latest sign of tension on the South China Sea, Vietnam accused Chinese forces of attacking Vietnamese fisherman and preventing them to seek refuge during a storm. And with natural resource security another source of diplomatic instability, as a number of state and private enterprises are eager to strike deals with the likes of Vietnam and the Philippines, The Wall Street Journal reports that Luo’s “hawkish views” may have support among other generals and some pockets of the public.

In a piece for The Diplomat this week, MIT’s M. Taylor Fravel calls attention to a recent attempt by China to clarify its claims in the South China Sea:

Ambiguity about the extent of China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea has been a key source of concern in this dispute. In the 1990s, China issued a series of domestic laws detailing its maritime claims under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, including 12 nautical mile territorial seas and 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZ). Nevertheless, Chinese maps continue to contain a “nine-dashed line” around the South China Sea. The line first appeared on an official map produced by the Republic of China in 1947. After 1949, China continued to use the line on its official maps, but never defined what the line included or excluded.

…

First, the spokesperson, Hong Lei, distinguished between disputes over “territorial sovereignty of the islands and reefs of the Spratly Islands” and disputes over maritime demarcation. This affirms past statements, including a note to the United Nations in May 2011, that China will advance maritime claims that are consistent and compliant with UNCLOS. Under UNCLOS, states may only claim maritime rights such as an EEZ from land features like a nation’s coastline or its islands.

Second, and more importantly, the spokesperson further stated that “No country including China has claimed sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.” By making such a statement, this phrase suggests that the “nine-dashed line” doesn’t represent a claim to maritime rights (such as historic rights), much less a claim to sovereignty over the water space enclose by the line. More likely, the line indicates a claim to the islands, reefs and other features that lie inside.

See also recent CDT coverage of the South China Sea dispute, including January protests by the Philippines over the presence of Chinese ships in their waters, and subsequent calls by the Chinese for ‘stability and peace’ after the Philippines agreed to allow a greater U.S. troop presence and hold more joint military exercises with the Americans.

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 Manila said Friday it planned to hold more joint exercises and to let more US troops rotate through the Southeast Asian country — an offer welcomed by the United States as it seeks to expand its military power in Asia.

“We hope that relevant parties will make more effort towards peace and stability in the region,” China’s foreign ministry said in a brief statement faxed to AFP.

China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, have rival claims to parts of the South China Sea, home to some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and believed to hold vast deposits of fossil fuels.

Manila and Hanoi complained repeatedly last year of what they said were increasingly aggressive acts by China in the decades-long rift.

In contrast to the government’s response, the Global Times has published an article urging China to put sanctions against the Philippines. The San Francisco Chronicle adds:

An official Chinese newspaper says Beijing must punish the Philippines economically for proposing closer military ties with Washington.

The nationalist tabloid Global Times, published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said Sunday that China must pressure Manila to abandon cooperation with the U.S.

China and the Philippines, along with other nations, are locked in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, and Beijing sees the U.S. as an unwelcome interloper in that dispute.

See also Manila protests Chinese ships presence via CDT.

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Citing reports from the defence and military establishments, the foreign ministry said two Chinese vessels and a Chinese navy warship were seen around Sabina shoal in the Spratlys on December 11 and 12, respectively.

“These intrusions of the Chinese are clear violations of the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea as well as the provision of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” the foreign ministry said.

Sabina shoal is around 124 nautical miles from the western island of Palawan and is within “Philippine sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction”.

The disputed ownership of oil-rich reefs and islands in the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in trade sails annually, is one of the biggest security threats in Asia.

The South China Sea is known as the West Philippine Sea in the Philippines. This part of the sea is also being claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Amid disputes for the sea, China has claimed sovereignty over a majority of the area. The Philippine Star adds:

In Beijing, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin told the official Xinhua News Agency that the situation in the South China Sea “is peaceful and stable.”

China will always opt for negotiations to peacefully resolve disputes on “some islands and the demarcation of parts of the sea,” Liu said.

The Philippines and Vietnam separately accused Chinese vessels of repeatedly intruding into Spratlys areas under their control and sabotaging oil explorations in their regular territorial waters in the first six months of last year.

China denied the claims and reiterated its sovereignty over most of the South China Sea.

 

Read more about recent disputes over the South China Sea via CDT.

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