Category: China – Domestic Affairs

Death Awaits — With Nasty, Big, Pointy Teeth

The Heirs of Mao ban a rabbit cartoon.  Yes, a rabbit cartoon.  I kid you not.

Reckon they're worried the little bunny-wunny-wunnies might hurt 'em:

A GRISLY cartoon that marks the upcoming Year of the Rabbit by portraying a bunny revolt against brutal tiger overlords has proven an online hit, with its thinly veiled stab at China's communist rulers.

(Video from YouTube)

And in related news, the Chinese Politburo has also declared a news blackout on the popular revolution against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.  Not just on the uprising, but on the entire country.  That is to say, the merest mention of the word "Egypt" in China is now a crime-against-the-state.  (At least as far as China's micro-blogging sites go.)

Nervous much, Pharoah Hu Jintao?

The Milk Of CCP Kindness

Chinese Communist Party sentences Zhao Lianhai to 2 1/2 years in prison.  For the heinous crime of attempting to inform Chinese parents about the toxic milk scandal:

Last November, he was arrested by the police and then charged in March with "creating a disturbance". His lawyer, Li Fangping, said the evidence for the charge had been that Mr Zhao had given a media interview on a public pavement, held a dinner in a restaurant for a dozen parents of other victims, and that he had held up a small sign in protest outside a trial of milk company executives responsible for the poisoning.

Yet another wicked reprobate.  Whom Taiwan's Lien Chan will also refuse to speak on behalf of.

China Wins ANOTHER Peace Prize!

Just who was it who recently was awarded the coveted "World Harmony Foundation" Peace Prize for his notable accomplishments in "improving relations between China and the rest of the world"?

General Chi Haotian, the infamous defense minister who ordered the Tiananmen Square Massacre, that's who.

The icing on the cake: the presenter was none other than Sha Zhukang, China's buffoonish "diplomat" at the U.N.

General Chi Haotian (center), Communist China's architect of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, wins China's World Harmony Foundation Peace Prize. The presenter was Sha Zukang (right), Chinese diplomat and head of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

(Left to Right:  World Harmony Foundation founder Frank Liu, Tiananmen Butcher General Chi Haotian, and Chinese ultranationalist U.N. official Sha Zhukang.  Image from Inner City Press)

Postscript:  Is this some kind of hoax – like Swiss spaghetti trees, or devious plots to dye Wenzhou brown bears and pass them off as giant pandas?

No such luck.  Even P.R.C. media outlets report the story.  (And with an eagerness in marked contrast to their complete coverage blackout of Liu Xiaobo's Nobel win just last month . . .)

UPDATE:  Using a (Chinese) U.N. official to give at least the ILLUSION of U.N. approval.  Nice touch.

UPDATE #2:  Although maybe too clever by half.  There've been some questionable (sometimes VERY questionable) Nobel Peace Prize choices over the years.  But with one fell stroke, the "World Harmony Foundation" has rendered its awards radioactive.  Getting one of them puppies now is like bare-handedly grabbing a plutonium-239 trophy.  The 21st Century equivalent of the Stalin Peace Prize.

Just for a moment, imagine all the time, money and hard work the Chinese Communist Party spent on this thing.  Their goal was to create a credible rival organization to the Nobels via a "private" charity fronted by businessman (and Chinese Communist Party princeling) Frank Liu.

And then they undid it all – in an instant!

In all sincerity, it warms the cockles of my heart to watch the Butchers of Beijing make unforced errors like this.

UPDATE #3:  More commentary from the Rosett Report here.

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Phantom Menaces

The China Post (Taiwan's pro-Communist newspaper of record) frets that the greatest menace to peace in Asia is . . . Japan.  Beware a second Pearl Harbor, the editors darkly warn.

LOL.  The chances of PACIFIST Japan pulling Pearl Harbor II anytime during our lifetimes ranks somewhere between an attack by trident-wielding Mer-people and a Zombie Apocalypse.

In other words, not bloody likely.

Mer-Man from He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe.

 Quiet, you.

UPDATE:  China now matches the number of attack submarines (63) that Japan had when it struck at Pearl Harbor.  Funny coincidence, that.  (Modern Japan has only 16.)

Some other facts the Chinese ultranationalist editors of the Post may be aware of:

  • China has nuclear weapons.  Japan has none.
  • China has over a thousand missiles targetted onto Taiwan.  Japan has none.
  • China has offensive weaponry.  Japan is constitutionally prevented from possessing same.
  • China maintains the largest number of territorial disputes (somewhere between 19 and 26) in all of Asia.
  • China has recently laid expansionist claim to the entire South China Sea.  Japan has not.
  • China's military has enjoyed double digit budgetary increases for several years now.  While on the other hand, high Japanese vehicle costs mean that Japan's military expenditure in real terms is roughly on par with South Korea or Taiwan.

And finally, China routinely ranks among the 10 worst countries in the entire world when it comes to press freedom.  Maintaining strict media censorship, the government indoctrinates the population with ultranationalist propaganda, just as Imperial Japan once did.  

(Far more difficult to imagine the Japanese being similarly brainwashed since Japan has the world's 11th freest press.)

So 2,500 Japanese marched in downtown Tokyo in defiance of Chinese bullying over the Senkaku Islands.  Big deal.  With a population of 128 million, that's a 0.002% turnout. 

Reckon more people showed up for the latest "Tentacle Pride" rally . . .

UPDATE (Oct 26/2010):  A profile of those Japanese "wildmen" Taiwan's China Post is so afear'd of.

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Nobel Peace Prize Predictions

Damn.  Remind me never to play a game of Machiavelli with Michael Turton!

All kidding aside, Occam's Razor suggests to me that China was sincere in its brutish objections to Liu Xiaobo's nomination and win.  Thuggish is as thuggish does.

But I'll go further out on a limb and predict that within the next 3 or 5 years Liu will have company, when another Chinese dissident will be awarded the prize.  And my reason for believing that is that the Chinese Communist Party REALLY hacked off the Nobel Committee.  So much so, that the committee broke with precedent and leaked the name of the winner to the media a few days before the official announcement.  (Hard to imagine a bigger F U being issued to the Butchers of Beijing.)

Remember how the Nobel committee spent the last 6 or 7 years repudiating George W. Bush?  It was almost a steady stream – Mohammed ElBaradei…Al Gore…Barack Obama.  (If I'm not mistaken, there were also a couple anti-American authors for the Literature Prize tossed in just for good measure.)

Message received.  Loud and clear.

But one thing cannot be denied:  in response to these rebukes, the American government did most assuredly NOT threaten the government of Norway, nor the livelihood of its people.  Great powers get criticized, and they learn to live with it.  Goes with the territory.

In contrast, the Communist government of China gave the Nobel committee only two alternatives:  humiliating surrender, or honorable defiance.*  One or two more Liu Xiaobo's this decade will drive home to the Chinese what stuff Norwegians are made of.

* During a conversation with some Taiwanese youths a few years back, one of them announced in all seriousness to me that "Face didn't matter to Westerners." 

(No offence was intended by them.  I think the subject came up when I remarked that I wouldn't feel any loss of face if I offered a last-minute dinner party invitation to a coworker, and they declined due to prior commitments.)

It's a view charming in its naivety when held by the young — but foolish to the extreme if it's held by the Chinese leadership.

UPDATE:  An Indian reporter blogs on the Chinese media black-out.

UPDATE #2:  Liu's not hard-line enough, protest some exiled Chinese dissidents.  Sad.

 

Jia Yo, Liu Xiaobo

Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo — China's very own Vaclav Havel — on his historic Nobel Peace Prize win.

An honorable mention to President Hu Jintao and the Chinese Communist Politburo as well.  (For without their tireless efforts, Liu's victory would scarcely have been possible!)

Chinese dissident Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, captioned: Free Liu Xiaobo.

 UPDATE:  Will the current Nobel chairman publicly make the Carl von Ossietzky – Liu Xiaobo connection?

UPDATE #2:  I knew that Liu had been sentenced to 11 years by the Communist politburo…but wasn't aware that Liu & his lawyers had only 14 minutes to defend him at trial.   Can't wait to see Bev Chu & Taiwan's China Post spin the proceedings of that kangaroo court as a "fair trial".

UPDATE #3:  "I have long been aware that when an independent intellectual stands up to an autocratic state, step one toward freedom is often a step into prison.  Now I am taking that step; and true freedom is that much nearer."  – Liu Xiaobo

UPDATE (Oct 9/2010):  Gotta give Ma Ying-jeou & the KMT credit for at least pretending to be pleased with Liu's win.  Hypocrisy may be the homage vice pays to virtue, but that's certainly more than Taiwan's China Post has done so far.

[Don't be so cynical, Foreigner — school bullying is a huge, HUGE story!  Way bigger than the first Nobel Peace Prize won by a Chinese!]

From yesterday's Taipei Times:

Hours after the announcement, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) congratulated Liu for winning the prize and called on China to address human rights issues with a more liberal attitude.

The General-wuss-imo must be really worried about the coming elections, if he's that willing to piss off his Communist masters.  What's next?  An invitation to Rebiya Kadeer and the Dalai Lama to come help campaign for him?

UPDATE #5:  Beijing summons the Norwegian ambassador for a dressing-down.  Yet another Hitler "Downfall" parody in the making…

UPDATE #6:  Heh.  "…peaceful and friendly China" vs. "antagonistic and belligerent Norway."

 

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