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The security guard approached the journalist around the corner excitedly. He photographed the building of the Chinese embassy on Kalcheggweg in Bern with a 35mm camera. “Remove the photos,” demanded the guard, who was not taking any photos here. Otherwise he would call the police.

The journalist said: He took pictures from the street, from a public place, that was allowed.

The security guard, who worked for a Swiss company, then asked for the journalist’s personal details. He waved it off and said something like, “So my name is going to end up in a Chinese computer?”

After announcing that he would have to “take a photo of the journalist in the case” and pulling out his mobile phone – which he later denied – the guard carried out his threat and called security at the cantonal police embassy on his mobile phone. He’s got “one” here that needs to be checked.

Several officers showed up and found that street photography was, of course, allowed. The journalist showed the officers the photos he had taken and voluntarily removed the two photos of the security guard, which he had also ‘photographed’ in response to his announcement.

It is not clear what caused the excitement of the security guard in the pay of the Chinese last October. It couldn’t have been the innocent photo of the street – you can see a lot more on Google. But the man must have responded to pressure from his customers, the Chinese. Because the journalist had previously photographed the massive security measures there on Bomonti Road, popularly known as “Schnäggegässli”, which probably did not go unnoticed by Xi Jinping’s troops. You have asked the security guard to intervene.

The “Schnäggegässli” is a drama in itself: Metre-high metal fences secure the buildings to the right and left of this pedestrian passage, which connects two neighborhood streets. Multiple cameras are aimed at the passage from the high Chinese fences, so that no passerby can escape the totalitarian surveillance state from the Far East.

The police have recorded the personal data of the journalist and the security guard separately. Then two representatives from the neighboring Turkish embassy showed up, dressed in a suit and dark sunglasses as in the film, and gestured and demanded that the cantonal police check the journalist’s camera to see if any Turkish facilities were shown. “Already done,” said one of the officers. Everything is fine.

The operation was noticeably embarrassing for the officials, but of course it was important not to annoy the foreign embassies. And the more authoritarian the regime, the more drastic action they demand from the Bern police, says someone who knows what is at stake. As later conversations show, the private security guards are also under enormous pressure from their authoritarian clients, who think they can work in Bern as in Beijing or Ankara.

And it’s getting worse. The Chinese in particular do what suits them in Bern. To the dismay of many residents, you bought the Villa Bomonti at Kalcheggweg 12 a few years ago after the building at Kalcheggweg 10, where the embassy is located. Since then, the “Schnäggegässli”, the Bomontiweg, has actually been Chinese territory. Local residents fear that the Gässli will “close sooner or later”, as the Bernese “Bund” reported a few years ago.

Saudi Arabia would not be affected: the Saudis, whose embassy residence borders Bomonti Road below, have priority in the land register. Authoritarians among themselves in Bern. A nice consolation.

Residents are convinced that the Chinese have long since set up a spy and eavesdropping center in the buildings on Kalcheggweg, which is shielded and encapsulated and packed with high-tech equipment. Only Chinese personnel were used for the conversion, the people were there for a few months and were then replaced. The power cables pulled from the power plant would be many times the capacity that would be required for a typical office building. It is fitting that in 2018 Bern’s building inspectorate found “illegal work” on the ground floor of the Bomontiweg property, as the “Bund” reported. “On the other hand, the Chinese did not allow access to the upper floor,” the newspaper said. Nor are they required to do so under international law, which largely removes diplomatic property from the control of the host country.

Traditional residents are increasingly suffering in the embassy quarter in Bern, and not just because of the Chinese. New wars and old conflicts, the international situation is fraught, which is directly reflected in Kirchenfeld, where friend and foe often sit side by side. The NZZ reported last week on a neighborhood dispute over Russian vehicles that escalated after Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine. The situation is explosive, nerves are on edge.

Many conversations show that embassy protection is sometimes a problem for local residents, which in their view works more for the diplomats than for the interests of the residents. For example, there are stories of understaffed police officers who left illegally parked diplomatic vehicles undisturbed because they did not pay the fines anyway, but handed out parking fines to visitors of residents. But that only happens in good weather, one observer notes: “In bad weather, the police officers stay in their houses.” (cpf)