Scholars not the real target

By CNN's Rose Tang

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- The recent jailing and expulsion of several U.S. scholars has the ring of a Chinese idiom -- "killing a chicken to scare monkeys".

In other words, punishing small players to scare big ones.

Analysts say there are two main reasons for the 'spying' crackdown. One is to send a message to Taiwan that Beijing is guarding very carefully against any attempts of espionage within its borders.

The other reason is a simple case of regular maintenance. Pick a few cases, crackdown hard and send a message that security is tight.

On the outset, the timing is peculiar. The expulsion of academics Li Shaomin, Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang came within days of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's landmark visit to China.

Some call it hostage diplomacy.

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"They use any excuses to arrest people and use them as bargaining chips in dealing with foreign countries such as the United States," says Jin Zhong, founder and editor of Open, a political magazine based in Hong Kong.

And such a diplomatic trick is nothing new to the Chinese.

"It's all about making up a diplomatic affair and then 'resolving' it," says a Beijing-based political analyst who wished not to be named.

"They had been waiting for a diplomatic timing like this. They wanted to present them [the scholars] to Powell as gifts," he told CNN.

The Taiwan threat

The three expelled academics share a similar background. They are all Chinese-born with U.S. citizenship or permanent residency and all have been convicted of spying for Taiwan.

Jin says the expulsions have more to do China's tough stance on Taiwan, rather than the U.S., as China and Taiwan have been infiltrating each other for several decades.

"Taiwan is China's only archrival these days. China punished these academics to send a warning to Taiwan," says Jin. "Only when the Americans interfere did they compromise."

While the three academics were convicted of stealing state secrets, many question what is considered to be China's state secrets.

Gao has told the court that she passed on some published material she obtained from Chinese academic Qu Wei (who was sentenced to 13 years' jail) to Li Shaomin.

"The definition of state secrets are very vague, anything could be considered state secrets," says Jin. "China is certainly more open now, but transparency of information is still very low."

One mainland-born professor based in Hong Kong is even more pessimistic.

He was one of the 400 scholars who signed a petition to Chinese president Jiang Zemin in April protesting against the three academics' detention.

"Transparency [in China] hasn't gone higher all these years. In fact, there's still no transparency," he fumes.

Fresh from a trip in China without any hassle from the authorities, this scholar is still reluctant to give his name, saying he's not sure if he's on Beijing's radar screen.

Landmine field

Journalists and academics in Hong Kong and Taiwan say it's all about luck -- tip toeing through the field of landmines that is China's tight security apparatus.

A number of Chinese-born or foreign journalists and pro-democracy activists have been detained and deported over the years. But academics are the latest targets.

Last year, Chinese American librarian Song Yongyi was detained in China for several months while he was doing research on the Cultural Revolution.

Song said even his prison officers found little grounds for his imprisonment for "stealing state secrets".

He says they were under pressure "from people above" to pick out a typical "model" to scare the overseas Chinese academics.

For Chinese born and based academics, the best way to stay out of trouble has been self-censorship.

"There's nothing new. The government has been like this for many years. We know how far we can go in our research," the Beijing analyst says.

He believes he has touched sensitive material, which could be easily branded "state secrets", but he knows how to avoid the landmines.

"But I never quote directly from them," he says." As long as you're not linked with any overseas or Taiwanese organizations, who would bother to give you trouble? You can talk about anything in public these days."

Security maintenance

The Beijing analyst says the recent spate of detention and sentencing is an indication that the State Security Department is doing its yearly maintenance.

"Every ministry has a state security committee, but the whole machine is very bureaucratic and inefficient."

"So every few years, they have a campaign to streamline their work," he says. "They had a meeting about how to keep state secrets just a few months ago."

And whoever steps on a landmine will just be considered a personal mishap.

"If everything were transparent, then China would be in a big mess," he says.