News of the Day (March 1)

State Department blasts Communist China on human rights: In its annual human rights report, the State Department ripped Communist China for, among other things, “activists were detained and abused in Chinese prisons, cited cases of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, coerced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention and incommunicado detention,” plus “using the war on terror as ‘a pretext’ to crackdown on Uighur separatists” (United Press International via Washington Times).

Speaking of human rights abuses, the Epoch Times provides the record of persecution against Falun Gong by Guo Chuanjie, the cadre sued in New York for said persecution (third item). Meanwhile, Yu Jie, also from the Epoch Times, details how Communist China’s “educations system” has become a “death machine.”

Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi talked to practitioners and the media during the annual US Western Falun Dafa Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference (Epoch Times).

Cadres push renewable energy; Exxon-Mobil looks for deeper ties with Sinopec: Exxon-Mobil is looking to build refineries with Sinopec – a major Communist-owned firm – in Fujian (construction already under way) and Guangdong provinces. The refineries are part of a “strategic alliance” (United Press International via Washington Times) between the American oil firm and its Communist counterpart. Meanwhile, the cadres instituted a law calling for an “increase (in) the usage of solar and wind power to 10% of China's total consumption” (BBC).

Arnaud de Borchgrave gets more wrong (and one thing right): The former editor-at-large for the Washington Times had these whoppers in his latest column: “(Communist China’s) human-rights record, while still poor, has improved immeasurably since the Tiananmen Square massacre June 4, 1989. The Chinese government doesn't bother anyone who wants to make a fortune in business so long as they keep their nose out of politics.” With those ridiculous statements came one salient point: “6.7 percent of Chinese defense imports come from the United States and only 2.7 percent from Europe.”

South Korean organizations begin campaign for refugees from SNK: An umbrella group of 45 organizations form South Korea established a campaign “opposing the repatriation of North Korean refugees by China has been launched in South Korea” (Epoch Times). The campaign includes “by a million-signature campaign to boycott the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.” Did someone say boycott petition?

Japan places de facto sanctions on Stalinist North Korea: Japan announced that all ships coming from the Stalinist regime “have special pollution insurance – which few North Korean vessels have” (BBC). The move “is being viewed as a sanction by Japan against North Korea for failing to explain the fate of Japanese people kidnapped decades ago.” For more on the Stalinists’ outrageous behavior in the two and a half years since they admitted kidnapping Japanese citizens, see next to last item, here, here, and here.

Stalinists’ plan – get the U.S. out of South Korea, then seize it: Nicholas Eberstadt, one of our favorites, has a terrific Washington Post column detailing SNK’s goals – “pushing American troops off the peninsula” for a future “unconditional annexation of present-day South Korea and liquidation of the Republic of Korea government” – and how a nuclear arsenal is vital to the Stalinists’ plans. Meanwhile, a far more naïve International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei called for more “dialogue” (Agence France-Presse via Washington Times).