Foreigner Crackdown (was "Members in Beijing, ...)

Quote from: The Local Dialect on May 26, 2012, 06:24:19 AM

So is it just a lot of hoopla about sweeping up foreign trash and the poor North Koreans just trying to get out of their nightmare of a country got caught up in it? Surely these people aren't the trash they hoped to find?

I'll 'answer' your questions with a question -

Why would they 'give a shit' about the nationality of someone who is illegally in the country? 

I think it matters and I think they do give a shit. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of North Koreans living here illegally. Some have been here for decades. If you read that article, one of the local officials even hints as much -- that you can't just go sweeping up people who have been here for years and years and built families and such without some possibility that it might backfire. Even in America there has been no massive roundup and deportation of illegal immigrants because the issue is more complex when you're talking about an entire group rather than a few isolated individuals, especially when your country has itself a complicated relationship with those immigrants' home country.

China also has to consider that this country is itself one of the biggest "exporters," so to speak, of illegal immigrants in the world. China I am sure doesn't want these countries playing tit for tat and sending Chinese immigrants packing back to China, so they do have to handle their own illegal immigrant situation somewhat delicately.

My girlfriend told me not to wear my striped trackies because the guy looked like me and was wearing striped trackies

This past Wednesday night around 3am, City Weekend staffer Sarah Ting-Ting Hou was walking home alone from Sanlitun towards Xindong Lu on the small street that separates the Village South from the back bar street. Just before the police station, two Chinese men in their early 20s drove up next to her in a white Volkswagon. They proceeded to verbally harass her and one grabbed her through the open car window.
They got out of the car and tried to pursue her on foot, so Sarah ran to Nearby the Tree, where there were people sitting outside who told the two men to stop harassing her. The men went back to their car and sped down the street, parking the car at the intersection of Xindong Lu and exiting the car to wait for her.
Another expat couple agreed to walk with her to escort her home, and they turned left at the intersection in order to walk away from the men at the car. The Chinese men ran after them and first started punching the foreign man before throwing Sarah to the ground and kicking her in the face and chest. This went on for five minutes before a Chinese couple in a passing car heard the screaming and stopped to break up the fight.

Stricter rules but China still welcomes foreigners
(Xinhua)
08:11, May 25, 2012  
BEIJING, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Foreigners worry that China is becoming less friendly towards them after Beijing police recently announced a one-hundred-day campaign to curb the illegal entry, residence and employment of foreign nationals.

However, the campaign should be no threat to foreigners legally residing in the country.

The campaign, which will run until the end of August, will include household checks in Wangjing, Sanlitun and Wudaokou, areas of the city known for high concentrations of foreign residents, as well as on-the-spot street checks that will require foreigners to present valid identification.