News of the Day (November 30)

Canada’s election date is set – January 23. Read our endorsement of the Conservative Party of Canada here and/or here.

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: Member One Free Korea’s guest blogger Andy Jackson attended a lecture by Kang Chol-hwan, a former child prisoner in Stalinist North Korea. Meanwhile, the Communists’ would be colony sent “670 secret dispatches to the South over the last four years” (United Press Int’l via Washington Times).

Chi Mak admits to passing military information to Communist China: Chi Mak, brother of Phoenix TV engineering/broadcasting director Tai Mak (second item), “admitted passing data on U.S. Navy arms technology to China for 22 years, including information on next-generation destroyers, an aircraft carrier catapult and the Aegis weapons system” (Bill Gertz, Washington Times). The Mak brothers were arrested by the FBI for their role in the espionage ring earlier this month. The information has done grave damage to American security (second item).

Communist China developing long-range cruise missiles: Meanwhile, Communist China “has been working hard on developing an indigenous long-range land-attack cruise missile” (UPI via Washington Times). While the Communists are “focusing on acquiring the relevant technology from Russia and Ukraine,” they also gleaned information from “U.S. cruise missiles fired in August 1998 at al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan. European intelligence sources say that 40 of the 75 missiles launched during the raid never exploded and were sold by Osama bin Laden to China, where they were disassembled and reverse-engineered” (emphasis added), which just happens to confirm a report first relayed by this quarter (fifth item).

Amid more Communist religious arrests; Reverend Palau backtracks: Oregon-based evangelist Luis Palau retracted and apologized for his assertion (fourth item) that “underground” Christian churches should register in Communist China and allow themselves to come under Party control: “It's not my role as an evangelist to suggest that churches in China should register” (Cybercast News). Meanwhile, reports of more Communist arrests of Tibetan Buddhist came to light (Cybercast News).

Cadres insist Harbin water is “safe”; locals not so sure: Local Communists “declared safe” (BBC) the water in Harbin city. Several residents were skeptical – understandable given the cadre’ lies on the pollution of Harbin’s water and the Petrochina explosion in Jilin that caused it (seventh, fourth, and ninth items). Said “Slick of Lies” led the editors of the Washington Post to note in the Enlightened Comment of the Day: “Rather than acting to contain the country's latest environmental disaster, Chinese authorities offered a demonstration of why their political system poses a menace to global health.”

Mongolia inks coal deal with Communist China: The Communists will help Mongolia “develop its coal fields” (BBC) in exchange for “coal to burn in (their) power plants.”

Commentary on Communist China: John Derbyshire, National Review Online (and Member since 2002), examines the growing concerns in Asia about Communist China, the perceived lack of American resolve in resisting them, and the Jilin-Harbin fiasco. Quentin Sommerville, BBC, examines the Communists’ lies about the people of occupied East Turkestan. Rick DelVecchio, San Francisco Chronicle, examines the debate at the University of California (Berkeley) surrounding Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s Mao: The Unknown Story. Nataly Teplitsky, Epoch Times, finds a letter from Leo Tolstoy to “a Chinese Gentleman,” and marvels at its relevance more than a century later.