News of the Day (May 17)

Yesterday’s News of the Day was, of course, for May 16, not 14; apologies to all.

Communist China keeping Tiananmen massacre soldiers in isolation: An unnamed laborer told the Epoch Times that Communist China has herded all of the military personnel who took part in the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre into isolated compounds. The anonymous source said he was told this by the person who recruited him to work one of the “farms.” The recruiter told him that “the Chinese communist government forced them to live together and brought their family members to stay with them. They were labeled as workers at the farm but in fact they had nothing to do. Namely they had freedom but in reality they are put under house confinement. They have not been able to go anywhere for more than ten years and they never had a chance to go home after the June 4th Incident.” Why was this done? The answer is painfully simple: “to prevent these soldiers from spreading the truth of the June 4th Incident to the public and create possible social and political turmoil after their demobilization.”

Communists and World Health Organization collude to block Taiwan bid: In its efforts to keep Taiwan out of the World Health Organization, Communist China took a creative approach, signing “a memorandum of understanding allowing the health agency to send experts to Taiwan in a health emergency” (Cybercast News). At present, the WHO has not released the memorandum, but it was enough to shut down the island democracy’s effort. Communist China continues to insist it is the only legitimate ruler of Taiwan, despite having never set foot there.

Hu Jintao wants $4 billion economy by 2020: Chinese Communist leader Hu Jintao announced his regime wants “to lift the size of its economy to $4 trillion by 2020” (CNN, CNN transcript of full text). Hu set the goal while addressing the Fortune Global Forum. What no one bothered to notice was that this would require economic growth of nearly 10% annually, well above the Communist target of 8%.

Communist China sends wrong official to visit Japan: Communist Vice-Premier Wu Yi is in Japan “for a week-long visit which could help repair damaged relations between the two countries” (BBC) stemming from the Communist-inspired textbook riots. There’s only one problem: “(Japanese) Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had actually invited her boss, Premier Wen Jiabao.” Can you say “snub”?

European Union may follow U.S. on Communist Chinese textiles: European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson demanded Communist China “start urgent, formal talks on ways to restrict imports of two types of Chinese textiles or face penalties” (BBC). The U.S. already imposed restrictions on Communist imports last weekend (second item) in reaction to a dramatic rise in said imports after world restrictions on the textile trade were lifted this past January (fifth item). The Communists have also crowded out numerous developing nations: “EU imports of T-shirts from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have all fallen.”

Another cadre goes down to corruption: Lu Jianzhong, former Deputy Mayor of Heyuan City (Guangdong Province), is headed to jail for “taking bribes of 1.62 million yuan (approximately 196,000 US$)” (Epoch Times).

Did the editors not catch the election returns? The Washington Times embarrasses itself with a column from John Hall, Media General News Service, with nice words for Lien Chan and James Soong’s visits to Communist China (lead item, second item). Among other things, Hall misnames President Chen Shui-bian’s Democratic Progressive Party (calling it the “Independence Party”) and says of last Saturday’s National Assembly elections: “The timing of Mr. Lien's visit was moved up ahead of this weekend's constitutional elections in Taiwan, which the Nationalists appear to be on the verge of winning.” In fact, they lost (fourth item).

A bad column on Communist China, Taiwan, and Stalinist North Korea: Fareed Zakaria’s Newsweek piece on SNK starts out well (“The problem is not that the United States has a flawed policy on this issue, but that it has no policy on it at all”) and gets progressively worse (“now is a good moment to try to forge a common Sino-U.S. position”) before finally flaming out with praise for the Administration’s worst moment: his verbal slap at Taiwan’s elected President Chen Shui-bian. Will he never learn?

Other Commentary on Communist China: Wang Zhen, Epoch Times, notes the passage of the anniversary of Falun Gong’s founding (eleventh item). The BBC notes the ten-year anniversary of the Communist arrest of Tibet’s Panchen Lama, who became a political prisoner at age six (thirteenth item). CNN interviews the first basketball player from Communist China to come to the United States: Ma Jian – since he came without the consent of the Communists, he is now a nonperson.

World Food Program wants more SNK food aid: The leader of the Stalinist North Korea mission for the United Nations World Food Program “told the BBC that without new contributions famine-like conditions would be likely to reappear.” Donations from the rest of the world “have slowed in the last two years.” Left unmentioned was the regime’s practices of using food as a political weapon (fifth item) and stealing international food aid from its own people to feed itself and its military (fifth item, ninth item), which might have had something to do with the donation fall-off.