Shanghaiist has a post featuring a picture of "Cha-Cha", China’s latest effort to put a happy face on political repression.
(Y’know, give her a baton and a pair of handcuffs, and Cha-Cha’d kinda have a little S&M thing goin’ on there. Just saying, is all.)
Shanghaiist doesn’t show us Jing-Jing, Cha-Cha’s male partner, but does manage to ask us:
"what’cha gonna do, what’cha gonna do when they come for you?"
Hat tip to AsiaPundit for pointing this one out. And in case you missed it, check out my post on China’s Olympic Mascots. It’s got links to a few pretty good satirical cartoons.
UPDATE (Feb 19/06): The Financial Times had a good piece on the topic. One of the veterans of the Chinese Cybercop Corps said that:
Only one in 50 internet users wants to break the law, and they are the only ones to complain about a lack of liberty…the [Chinese] web is “completely free” for those who stay within the “legal framework”.
That’s absolutely true. The Chinese web is completely free – so long as you don’t actually try to MENTION freedom.
Or liberty…or democracy…or…
One thing I didn’t know, though. If you click on the Jing-Jing or Cha-Cha icons, your computer’ll play the smash hit, "Song of the People’s Police."
Oh, oh, I think I know that one! It sounds a little bit like that Horst Wessel tune, doesn’t it?
UPDATE (Feb 25/06): The China Digital Times has pictures of both Jing Jing & Cha Cha. Meanwhile, AsiaPundit has the story of a Chinese web surfer who nearly sh*t his pants when the Digital Brownshirts came a-callin’.