News of the Day (November 17)

Bush visits South Korea; host speaks out of both sides of his mouth: President Bush came to South Korea, the second leg of his Asian trip, and met with his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-hyun. Bush and Roh called for talks for “a final peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire that halted the 1950-53 Korean War” (Washington Times), and “insisted that a nuclear-armed North ‘will not be tolerated’” (BBC). The dovish Roh further insisted that he and Bush “have no disagreement at all that this issue must be resolved” (Washington Post). How the issue “must be resolved” is something else again, as Roh himself made clear the day before when he joined Communist Chinese leader Hu Jintao in calling for “sincere flexibility” (United Press Int’l via Washington Times) in the six-party talks on the nuclear ambitions of the Communists’ would-be colony (is this what he meant?). Meanwhile, Wanqing Huang, chief editor of the Chinese Epoch Times web site, asked the President to highlight the case of his missing brother Xiong, a Falun Gong practitioner who has not been seen since his arrest in Shanghai in 2003, when he goes to Beijing on Saturday.

Info gathered by spy ring may give Communist military “a strategic advantage”: According to sources who spoke to Bill Gertz (Washington Times), the Communist espionage unit that the FBI busted last week has given Communist China “extremely valuable details about U.S. weapons systems, from submarines to aircraft carriers, that could give China's military a strategic advantage in a conflict.” Canadian military secrets could also be compromised, according to the Asian Pacific Post. Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor, detailed the cadres’ high-tech plans for their military.

Other Commentary on Communist China: Ross Terrill, Harvard University, examines Communist China’s quest for geopolitical power (albeit with a far too sanguine attitude) in the Boston Globe. Caylan Ford, Epoch Times, puts the travails of attorney Gao Zhisheng (sixth, tenth, fifth, and lead items) in the larger picture of Communist China’s deeply flawed legal system. Stephen Cviic, BBC, examines the Communists’ ability to fight bird flu, but oddly enough does not mention how the SARS-like coverup (lead and eighth items) have hindered things. Sharda Vaidyanath, Epoch Times, finds a “fair trade” craft store (Ten Thousand Villages) that follows through with its beliefs on Communist China: “Ten Thousand Villages does not buy from China . . . ‘We actually have people on the ground that go and visit the artisans’ groups to determine if they are abiding by fair trade rules,’ says Monica Scheifele, who is coordinating the November festival sale in Ottawa. ‘In China it is impossible to do that’” (emphasis added). The Epoch Times also highlighted Pei Pei, a language teacher battling to save the traditional Chinese language from the Communists, who have been hostile to it ever since Chairman Mao.

On Stalinist North Korea: It’s not just Christianity that is on the rise in the the Communists’ would-be colony. According to Chosun Ilbo (South Korea), which itself cited the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “divination and shamanism are apparently finding enough of a following in North Korea to prompt those meant to crack down on the practice to consult fortunetellers themselves.”