News of the Day (November 23)

Happy Thanksgiving to the American readership, the next News of the Day will be on November 28.

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: Member One Free Korea rips former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson for her being AWOL on the Communists’ would-be colony during her tenure. He also makes note of the increasing weariness over South Korea in the United States, and highlights the words of a South Korean columnist who brilliantly dissects the dovish Administration of Roh Moo-hyun and its refusal to condemn SNK’s horrible human rights atrocities. For more on said atrocities, we have the blog Plato’s Stepchild, the chilling testimony of former political prisoner Kim Chol-soo in the Scotsman, and Donald MacIntyre in Time Asia.

Is the United States to weak to stand up to Communist China? This is a question many nations in Asia are asking themselves, and according to Insight, the answer is “yes.” This has led one of our favorites here, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, to recommend “other means to counter China” such as “economic containment” (no quarrel on the suggestion from this quarter). Communist China is also increasingly confident about its growing geopolitical power, as Melinda Liu (Newsweek) noted. This may explain why Japan is more willing to rewrite its pacifist constitution (United Press Int’l via Washington Times) in order to face up to the Communist threat.

More Bush trip fallout – church leader released; Falun Gong blacklisted in SK: House church pastor Zhang Mingxuan, who was kidnapped by Communist China just before President Bush touched down in Beijing, was released after Bush left (China Aid Association via Epoch Times). Meanwhile, a disturbing incident during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit revealed that South Korea is starting to follow the cadres’ lead in keeping out Falun Gong practitioners and activists (Epoch Times). As for the President himself, his speech in Japan won praise from Duncan Currie, Weekly Standard.

Investors getting more skittish about Communist China: After years of fawning over “one billion customers,” investors are finally starting to notice the underlying problems in the Communist economy, and are now “starting to hedge their China bets” (Newsweek). Sadly, DuPont seemed to miss the memo (UPI via Washington Times), as did Cisco (UPI via Washington Times), although their history is far more sordid (fourth item).

Benzene in Harbin water: Communist China is now admitting that the water in Harbin is badly polluted with benzene (BBC), after hedging on the subject yesterday (seventh item). Harbin’s problem may be extreme and new, but when it comes to polluted water, its far from alone, “70% of China's rivers and lakes are polluted - and more than 100 cities suffer from extreme water shortages” (BBC).

Commentary on Communist China: Zhao Ming, Epoch Times, praises the Nine Commentaries. Juan Xu, a Falun Gong practitioner who escaped to Australia, tells James Burke, Epoch Times, of the abuses committed by Communist China. Tian Jing, Asia Times (via Epoch Times), calls on the cadres to apologize for “complicity in the current spread of bird flu” due to deception and incompetence. Alan Connor, BBC, finds that many blogs in Communist China insist they are not being censored. However, he fully recognizes that is one has to say in a place like Communist China, and as such spares himself the ignominy of the Ignorant Comment of the Day (which had no “winner”).