Impunity and shame

Imagine a democratic state where a transition from a dictatorship took place nearly forty years ago. The dictator took up the power after a coup d'État against a democratic government and almost three years of bloody civil war.
Then, imagine that the would-be dictator was Francisco Franco and had the aid of a clique formed by other right-wing and monarchist generals, alongside far-right politicians who sought the support of the clergy and the states of the Rome-Berlin Axis. He also counted on an Army Corps formed by African soldiers who served at the Spanish colonies in Northern Morocco. They were known because of their extreme brutality and lack of respect for their victims.
Furthermore, imagine that rebels' coalition brutally murdered thousands of innocent people through bombings against civilians as well as summary executions all along the territory they were conquering. For instance, Franco ordered the German Condor Legion to destroy the Basque city of Gernika through a terrible bombing, the same thing that Italian troops tried to do in Barcelona. Regarding African troops, they committed lots of violations and a huge slaughter of innocent people, including women, children and elderly people. They did not even hesitate to murder people when they were fleeing from the war.
Imagine that, once the dictatorship was institutionalized, the summary executions and the councils of war went on during the postwar. Everyone who had formed part of a trade union or a political party during the Republic was purged, sometimes according only to lawsuits filled because of disputes between neighbours of a village or town. However, authorities did not verify whether the accusations were true or false, so dozens of innocent people were disappeared, jailed and even killed. And the terror continued until the death of the dictator, nearly forty years later.
Finally, imagine that neither the author nor the accomplices of such attrocities were never put before a court to pay for their crimes. Instead, an amnesty law was approved in order to avoid any criminal case against them. Furthermore, praising the dictatorship is legal in Spain, to the extent that some politicians from the ruling People's Party and its youth organization have been photographed showing Francoist flags or making the fascist salutation. And this situation of impunity keeps on... 

China according to Spanish media, a distorted image

It has become common some news about China appear on Spanish media, especially on the TV. Information about natural disasters like damages caused by typhoons or floods is often shown among other curious images of the country. For instance, a person who often watches the news on Spanish television TVE can be aware of the discrimination some Chinese graduates are being supposed to endure on their job interviews because of their zodiac. No, this is not a joke at all. A public television like Televisión Española, the Spanish offiicial TV, broadcast such information on 24th July 2013, only a day before the information about the imminent trial against Bo Xilai became official. However, the same television silenced the report that Bo's lawyer has not been allowed to legally represent him on the upcoming trial, as appeared last week in foreign newspapers like The Guardian. But no word about this issue was said neither in Spanish nor in Catalan or Basque media though the trial will be determinant for the political stability of China and the CCP. In addition, the denial of legal representation to Bo Xilai proofs that his trial is determined in advance so he is very likely to be convicted. 

The last case which drew the attention of every Spanish media was the order to demolish a luxury mansion which had been built by a Chinese millionaire on the top of a skyscrapper in Beijing. Such information was brought to the televisions and newspapers for several days, where as the latests reports on the lawsuit against Bo Xilai, the conviction of Liu Hui (the brother-in-law of jailed Chinese Nobel Prize Liu Xiaobo) amid a political trial or on the current tensions in Tibet have been silenced. Thus a Spaniard with no knowledge in English language or a person who is not used to read foreign media is unlikely to be aware of such important events. Instead, they would know a lot of features and figures about China's economic growth and the existence of several millionaires with an extreme love for luxury. Nevertheless, such anecdotes are seldom accompanied by other serious informations on the country like the accusations of bribery against GSK or some natural disasters which might take place there, as well as the case of Tang Hui, a woman who won a trial against the re-education through labor camp in which she was jailed for denouncing the rapist of her daughter.

Such situation provokes severe misunderstanding of the Chinese reality by the Spanish public opinion. For example, only a few Spaniards are aware of the ethnic and cultural diversity in China or the diplomatic and military conflicts which involve the country. Furthermore, many people do not know that Han ethnic group is only the main of the 55 nationalities which populate Chinese territory or that dozens of languages are spoken there. Instead, they think that the Empire of the Centre (the literal translation for 中国, China in Chinese) is only populated by Han Chinese, all of them speaking the same language and having the same culture. Thus, many clichés abound about them whereas the media contribute to promote them by publishing anecdotal informations such as those mentioned above.
Therefore, lots of Spaniards actually ignore that current policies by Chinese Communist Party officials are conducting to a spate of political detentions and trials which reminds the worst years of Maoist rule. This is even more evident in territories like Tibet (not only the TAR but also parts of other provinces which have been historically Tibetan: Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan), Inner Mongolia (an Autonomous Regions which shares its boundaries with the Republic of Mongolia and where the majority of Mongolians live) and East Turkestan (the Muslim-populated Xinjiang Uyghur Automous Region), where the government encourages a flooding of Han migrant workers to exploit the richness in natural resources of those regions. In addition, migrations bring blatant discrimination to the local population and inflicts huge damages to their environment, language, culture and traditional ways of life. Moreover, both the police and the People's Liberation army severely crack down on anyone who dares to protest against injustices they endure on their daily life, even beating and torturing people to death. The situation is even worse in Tibet, where authorities have even issued a death penalty against relatives of self-immolations, acusing them of encouraging those extreme acts of protest. The latest to be given such a harsh penalty has been Dolma Kyab, a man who was sentenced for allegedly murdering his wife Kunchok Wangmo and then burning her corpse to show that she had self-immolated requesting freedom for Tibet.
In addition, very few information is avalaible in Spain about territorial conflicts led by China. The standoff at the border between China and India in the region of Ladakh, including two incursions by the PLA into Indian territory, only appeared briefly at some newspapers like the right-wing La Razón. Moreover, the little news on this issue are never treated giving their historical or political background, but only treated superficially as is they were isolated facts. Thus, the viewer has not the ability to relate some standoffs like this and the rise of military budget in China with the aggressive foreign policy led by the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.
Given all the circumstances mentioned above, it is clear that Spanish media offer a very biased information on China, trying not to show any information which could go against the ruling Communist Party or question the territorial integrity of the country. Because of that, the general public from Spain may not be aware of the deep implications that China's policies might have even in their own country.

Creating conflicts

An episode of tension has erupted between Spain and the United Kingdom because of Gibraltar, a city under British sovereignty which is situated south from the Iberian Peninsula and near the Spanish province of Andalusia. In fact, Spanish police has recently implemented new and stricter controls across the border between Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, one of the Spanish cities which share its boundaries with the rock. Spanish authorities claim that the purpose of those security checks is to prevent snuff smuggling whereas hundreds of Spaniards who daily cross the border to their jobs are forced to wait for hours and so being late to their commitments.

However, snuff smuggling is not the origin of those checks and their consequences. Everything started when Gibraltar government started building an artificial reef which in practice prevented Spanish fishing boats from fishing in the area. It was located near the Spanish Playa de Poniente (Western Beach), in the city of La Línea de la Concepción and 500 meters away from British territorial waters. Thus the Spanish government raised concerns on the effects that this mesure could have for the economy of the area and send the Civil Guard to stop the collocation of the blocks which formed the reef. Moreover, Spanish authorities reacted aggressively implementing harder controls along the border and threatening Gibraltar with cutting the Spanish airspace to the aircraft from or to the rock as well as with cutting out the concessions on telecommunications. Furthermore, Spain is working on a tax which would charge people who want to cross the border either to reach their commitments or to enter Gibraltar as a tourist. If it is approved, each vehicle which wants to cross the frontier will be forced to pay 50€, a measure which goes clearly against the freedom of movement of both residents and tourists. Nevertheless, the rock is not within Schengen space thus no rules regarding freedom of circulation are to be applied there.

An isolated fact has led to a diplomatic conflict between the United Kingdom and Spain so far, damaging the inhabitants from both sides of the boundary. But have the latest events be the true cause for such an episode of tension? Why has this conflict exploded preciselly now? Has it something to do with corruption scandals and bad economic results in Spain?
Though Spain delivered Gibraltar to the United Kingdom as a payment to obtain the recognition of Phillip V as the new Spanish king according to the Utretch Treaty, signed in 1713, the reality is that Spanish nationalism has repeatedly used this issue when the situation within the borders of Spain was critical. Several reasons have been exposed by Spanish authorities to raise their concerns on the sovereignty of the rock, as for example the fact that "Utretcht Treaty did not include any clauses regarding the airspace of Gibraltar (sic.)". Other matters of controversy are the territory beyond the 1713 borders which has allegedly annexed by the British government and the sovereignty of the waters surrounding the territory. After several years of sieges and fights during the 19th Century, the worst dispustes took place during Francisco Franco's ruling in Spain, who even forced the closing up of the fence which marked the border between the country and Gibraltar in 1966 and left thousands of Spaniards jobless, after three years of non-stop tensions between both countries which even led Franco to put this issue at the hands of the United Nations that issued two resolutions regarding the status of Gibraltar and its sovereignty while respecting the interests of its inhabitants.
However, the reclamations regarding the rock are always issued when the different governments, like Franco's dictatorship, have something to hide within their borders. In this case, the conflict erupted when Spanish justice is investigating a case of supposed corruption by the ruling party in the country, the People's Party, which is among one of the greatest scandals the country has ever seen. This is the main reason Britons claim to be behind the current reivindications, as well as the territorial disputes within Spain. Moreover, Catalonia and the Basque Country, which are seeking their independence from Spain, have shown their support to Gibraltar and its British sovereignty, as accepted by Gibraltarians on a referendum which rejected the shared ruling of the area in 2002. Hence, claims of "Gibraltar Español" (Spanish Gibraltar) obey only to the purpose of deviating the attention off the critical problems of this country by reliving the ghost of a conflict which has never existed since the same king Philip V admitted that Gibraltar would be forever English. Spain cannot continue giving the back to the history.