News of the Day (May 26)

Next Friday, June 3, commemorations of the Tiananmen Square massacre will take place throughout the world, including in Farragut Square, Washington, D.C., from 11:30 AM to 2PM. For more, see this announcement from the China Support Network.

O Canada! Stockwell Day, Canada’s foreign policy spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, forces us to lead with the commentary section today. In a speech at the Future of Communism in China forum, Day pays tribute to the Epoch Times, the Nine Commentaries (here), and all of those fighting for freedom in China. He also whacks the Communists and their enablers in the rest of the world. In short, he was terrific.

Newsweek misses the story: All you need to know about Melinda Liu and Jonathan Ansfield’s Newsweek piece on the Chinese Communist Party is this – no mention of the Nine Commentaries. Thus it is easy to see how they could say the Party “added 2 million new members since 2003.” What about the nearly 2 million it has lost since November?

More Commentary on Communist China: Roger Bate, American Enterprise Institute, details Communist China’s growing support for Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe in the Daily Standard. Meanwhile, John Tamny once again ignores the national security implications of our trade imbalance with Communist China in National Review Online.

Communist China testing AWACS: Communist China has achieved its long-sought goal of developing Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes. The first of them is being tested at a Communist military base near Nanjing. The new planes “are expected to join a growing force of advanced aircraft poised to take Taiwan by storm” (Newsmax). The Communists had been trying to develop AWACS for years, nearly buying the necessary radar systems from Israel until U.S. pressure killed the deal.

EU tariffs against Communist China won’t last: Peter Mandelson, the European Union’s lead trade negotiator, “has said any measures to curb Chinese exports” on textiles will be temporary” (BBC), and explicitly ruled out a return to pre-January restrictions (fifth item) despite the tremendous damage lifting them has done.

Australia fetes torturer of Falun Gong practitioners: Melbourne’s city council hosted Dai Xianglong, the Communist Mayor of Tianjin whose tenure has included over 30 deaths of Falun Gong practitioners from police torture. Report: Epoch Times

Communists hiding news of foot and mouth disease: An outbreak of foot and mouth disease broke out in farms just north of Beijing. The Communists “killed and buried the ill cattle” (Liberty Times via Epoch Times) and also “prohibited reporting of the news and enforced martial law to stop traffic from going in and out of the town.”

Severe drought afflicts river in East Turkestan: Communist China is once again diverting water from Bositeng Lake to preserve the Tarim River in occupied East Turkestan. The river “has been drying up for a long time due to climate changes, irresponsible development and poor use of the water and soil resources” (Epoch Times). Thus we can add the ecology to the millions of human victims in East Turkestan who have suffered under the brutal Communist occupation that has lasted for over 55 years.

U.S. halts prisoner of war recovery work in Stalinist North Korea: The United States “temporarily halted missions in North Korea to recover remains of U.S. troops missing since the Korean War” (CNN) due to “restrictions placed on the US teams inside North Korea” (BBC) that “were too great to make recovery operations feasible.”