I read in Intelligence Online that France has apparently now definitely refused a visa to a Chinese researcher. He wanted to take part in a seminar on Tibet that was being held in Paris. Reason: This researcher works at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR). Intelligence Online summarises the reasons for this very comprehensibly: „The CICIR is one of Beijing's oldest and most influential institutes for international research studies, which reports directly to the Ministry of State Security (MSS or Guoanbu)and is supervised by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).“ In a Wikipedia entry it is formulated even more viciously and clearly: "The China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations […] is the cover identity of the 11th Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). It is a set of research institutes used as a front to influence foreign diplomats and academics and collect intelligence. Located in Bei...
"Information at best will always be in some part fragmentary, obsolete, and ambiguous." (Armstrong, Willis C. (et al.): The Hazards of Single-Outcome Forecasting, in: Westerfield Bradford, H. (Ed.), Inside CIA's private world, Yale 1995, p. 242)