News of the Day (May 22)

Communist China is lead contaminator of exports to United States: The American Food and Drug Administration "turned back 257 Chinese import shipments, far more than from any other country" (Orlando Sentinel).

Delegation from Communist China in U.S. to talk trade (but not, apparently, contaminants): Contrary to what I wrote yesterday, Communist Chinese trade negotiators are coming to Washington for talks (BBC). Stunningly, no one seems to be interested in ensuring the issue of poisoned exports be on the table; neither Bill Powell (Time) nor James Dorn (National Review Online) seem to think it worthy of consideration.

Refugees sent back to North Korea by Communist China describe Stalinist torture: Twenty Koreans who escaped the Stalinist North revealed the horrific torture of Kim Jong-il's prisons (Globe and Mail). Maddeningly, many of them could have been spared the ordeal completely: "Most of the 20 ex-prisoners had been captured in China and sent back across the border to North Korea after failed attempts to flee the country from 1998 to 2004."

More news from "another China province": NRO's Stanley Kurtz lambastes the Beijing surrender in the Corner; a Freedom House conference discusses the repression in Stalinist North Korea (Daily NK); and Kim Song A (Daily NK) examines how SNK hides the "SN" part abroad.

News on the occupied nations (Tibet and East Turkestan): Communist China rips the Dalai Lama (Between Heaven and Earth and Washington Times); Rebiya Kadeer discussed the Communists' brutal persecution of the Uighurs at MIT (Uyghur Human Rights Project).

More on Communist China and the rest of the world: Jennifer Chou (Worldwide Standard) examines how the cadres are mixing the military and diplomatic arenas.

Guangxi residents revolt against forced abortions: Forced abortions, nearly $1 million in "social child-raising fees" (International Herald Tribune), and threats to bulldoze the homes of violators are the typical measures Guangxi cadres are using to enforce the hideous "one child" policy. Local residents had enough and revolted against the Communist "gangsters." In one town, "villagers broke through a wall surrounding the government building, ransacked offices, smashed computers and destroyed documents, then set fire to the building itself."

Communist China considers its own citizens "the biggest threat to the Games": The top concern for cadres looking after the 2008 Olympics is the prospect of "mass protests by disaffected Chinese" (Ottawa Citizen, h/t Boycott 2008). Thus the emphasis is on arrests, beatings, and torture - or as the Beijing police chief put it, "harshly penalizing one to teach many a lesson and to frighten many more into submission." Of course, outside Beijing, the cadres are taking it on the chin (Strategic Forecasting via Uyghur American Association).

Communist human rights abuses ripped by outside groups: The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights (Spectator, h/t BH&E) and Freedom House (Daily News-Record, h/t Boycott 2008) noted the regime's lack of liberty.