News of the Day (December 19)

Communists trying, and failing, to cover up Shanwei Massacre: Communist China is so desperate to get attention off the Shanwei massacre they have resorted to bribing relatives of the murdered villagers into silence, and threatening to beat them if they refuse the deal (New York Times via China Freedom Blog Alliance Member One Free Korea). Police are still in there in force, terrifying the local populace (Epoch Times), while the police commander the cadres bragged about detaining "was actually released without charge only three days later" (Epoch Times). Literally adding insult to injury, the cadres printed the names of three casualties, ignoring the more than sixty others murdered (BBC). Despite this, word is still getting out, in one case through a website in which the discussion is disguised as a review of a 1926 article (Washington Post), and several members of Congress expressed their outrage to the Communist Ambassador (OFK). The Epoch Times spoke to Dr. Cheng Xiaonong, Editor-in-chief of Contemporary China History Studies, about the significance of this horrifying act.

Communists may close Gao Zhisheng's office for good: Communist China "forced one of the three lawyers of the Shengzhi Law Office to leave the firm" (Epoch Times). Under Communist law, a firm must have three lawyers or close, meaning the Shengzhi Law Office - the firm of human-rights attorney Gao Zhisheng (sixth, tenth, fifth, lead, third, last, twelfth, eighth, and third items) - could be shut down. If the cadres hoped this would silence Gao, or cost him support, they were wrong on both counts (Epoch Times).

European Commission VP rips foreign tech firms aiding Communist crackdown: Margot Wallstroem, Vice President of the European Commission, used a blog entry to take Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google to task for allowing themselves to becoming part of Communist China’s crackdown against cyberdissidents (BBC).

Virologist's lab is shut down; bird flu honesty believed to be the reason: Less than two weeks after Hong Kong virologist Guan Yi blew the whistle on Communist China’s bird flu cover-up (sixth item), the cadres declared that Dr. Guan’s lab in Guangdong province "did not meet state regulations" (Epoch Times) and will be shut down.

The latest on the Falun Gong war overseas: The craven willingness of Thailand to harass and arrest Falun Gong practitioners at Communist China's request (third and fourth items) led to a protest in front of the Thai consulate in New York (Epoch Times). John Nania, also from the Epoch Times, took stock of the Communists' successful efforts to convince democratic nations to crack down on demonstrating practitioners. Meanwhile, Chris Bowen, an opposition MP from Australia, repeated his support for Falun Gong (third item), and his criticism of his government's harsh reaction to it, in an interview with Sound Of Hope Radio (reprinted by the Epoch Times).

New report details Communist Chinese threat to U.S., Taiwan, and Russia: A new report by the Hudson Institute reveals that Communist China "plans to win a war over Taiwan within a week" (Newsmax), which is not beyond the realm of possibility. The cadres are even contemplating the possibility of nuclear war with the U.S. in order to advance its geopolitical interests. Meanwhile, Russia, Communist China's largest arms supplier, is growing increasingly worried about the Sinicization of the Russian Far East.

Moscow grappling with benzene spill from Jilin explosion: Russia has one other thing from Communist China worthy of worry: the benzene slick coming from the Petrochina explosion in Jilin (BBC, see also seventh, fourth, ninth, fourth, fourth, fifth, fourth, fifth, third, seventh, and tenth items).

Communist claim economic growth of over 9%: Communist China announced an economic growth rate of "more than 9% in 2005" (BBC). How much of this is real, as opposed to inflated statistics and useless factory building (fifteenth, twenty-ninth, thirtieth, tenth, sixth, last, last, and seventh items), was not discussed.

O Canada! Carleton University journalism professor David van Praagh’s terrific Ottawa Citizen (Canada) column on the Communist Chinese threat to the democratic world (reprinted by the Friendly Blog Shotgun) scores the Enlightened Comment of the Day.

More on Communist China and the United States: New Tang Dynasty Television (via Epoch Times) details Wal-Mart’s ties with Communist factories where workers "are forced to work 13 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week, for as little as 18 to 33 cents an hour."

On the Communists' would-be colony of Stalinist North Korea: One Free Korea rails against the United Nations World Food Program for abandoning the people of northern Korea, while OFK guest blogger Andy Jackson reports from the Seoul conference on human rights in SNK. Michael O'Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution, argues for the South Korea-U.S. alliance in the Washington Times, while Chosun Ilbo (South Korea) calls on the dovish government there to act more like an ally. Finally, Nina Shea of the Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom, details some of the worse persecutors of Christianity, including the Stalinists, in National Review Online.