Foundinchina.com

No, not gun running to Sudan, Burma, or Zimbabwe. Not even leaded toothpaste or enhanced dairy produce.

Worse.

The BBC have caught up with the self-evident fact that China expects the rest of the world to toe its domestic line by trying to dictate who, what, where, and how artists, humanitarians, writers, filmakers, and journalists can express themselves:

Bangladesh (news just in)

South Africa

France

Germany

Japan

Nepal

Taiwan

Lebanon

Australia

USA

More Australia (the first two comments on this site are priceless examples of the knucklehead variety)

Canada

The airwaves

Social networking

And on, and on, and on…

Newsflash for Beijing’s censorship peddlars: we’re not buying

Looks like it wasn’t our fault after all.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/

It could be time for a long overdue reckoning.

The Timesonline reports that the people’s hero Zhao Ziyang managed to secretly record his account of the events of 20 years ago despite having been purged and forced to live out his days under the watchful, punitive eye of the paranoid state: 

The memoirs of the Chinese Communist Party leader purged for favouring the students during the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square – prepared with the utmost secrecy during years of house arrest – will finally been revealed.

So sensitive is this document, the first memoir ever to be written by such a senior Chinese party official, that even its existence had been kept a closely guarded secret. Speculation had been rife during his nearly 16 years of house arrest and after his death in 2005 as to whether the man with the most intimate knowledge of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led up to the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 3-4 1989 had provided his own account of those dramatic days.

The record made by Zhao Ziyang, Secretary General of the Communist Party from 1987 until his fall from power in 1989, are to be published this month as Prisoner of the State: The secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang.

Now let’s wait for the ‘hurt feelings’ or ‘interfering in our affairs’ squeals from China’s leaders. Read more of Jane Macartney’s report here.

Update

Jeremiah at Granite Studio has injected some great humour into Zhao’s possible embarrassing revelations. He also points to the NYT’s site where they are running excerpts of Zhao’s Prisoner of the State.

Update 2

Richard of Peking Duck fame has written a guest blog for Global Post in which he praises Philip Cunningham’s observations on the release of Zhao’s memoirs. Cunningham takes a swipe at Beijing’s revisionist policy on Tiananmen:

To blame it on the students, as many young people in China do today, is to fall for a propaganda line, to take one’s eye off the ball.

The value of releasing Mr Zhao’s belated memoir, which goes for the jugular by singling out a hard-line clique within the CCP, on this, the 20th anniversary of an unnecessary tragedy, is to get the public eye back on the culpability of those most culpable.

And well he might – he was most definitely there.

An assertive China is one thing; a global playground bully is quite another. The playground comment is entirely appropriate because China’s leaders are behaving like children again:

BEIJING (AFP) – China warned Paris Thursday not to make more “errors” on Tibet amid news the Dalai Lama may be made an honorary citizen of the French capital, just as frosty ties between the two nations had improved.

“We urge the Paris side to stop doing things that interfere in China’s internal affairs and make no further errors on the Tibet-related issue.”

“If the Paris city government does make this award, it will definitely meet once again with the Chinese people’s firm opposition,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu told reporters.

The characterisation of the proposed Honour as an “error” is a typically aggressive Chinese response to anything that isn’t consistent with the CCP’s love affair with obedience: do what we say, or get punished.   

Read more here.

The line ‘interference in China’s internal affairs’ has been tiresome for years. It’s also full of crap. Beijing simply doesn’t like the fact that His Holiness is regarded throughout the world (with one petulant exception) as a decent peace-loving man. Honours for such individuals are entirely appropriate and are not, I would boldly suggest, matters for China to ‘interfere’ with.

Unfortunately, irresponsible despots have no qualms about using economic blackmail to get their petty way on this and other issues. Appeasing China by backing down, as South Africa did recently, is going to lead the world to a bad place. China must grow up to the fact that not everyone shares their world view. 

I sincerely hope that the French government and people stand up to China on this, and that other world leaders offer their support for that position. Not to do so will only embolden China’s leaders to make increasing demands of the countries they do business with.

Give the Dalai Lama his honour, not to annoy China, but because you were going to do it anyway and because France feels that it is deserved. DO NOT BACK DOWN.

Update

While France ponders, the Dutch, it appears, are showing signs of courage.