Hu Jintao admits to the problem

Communist Chinese boss Hu Jintao admitted over the weekend that things were no longer so peachy economically in his realm (BBC, Epoch Times, and the Washington Post).

It's not as if he had much choice at this point. The warning signs are everywhere now (BBC, Bloomberg, the Epoch Times, Time, Washington Post, and the Weekly Standard Blog).

Still, Hu was, as expected, woefully short on specifics. He called for more reform, which could actually mean more trouble, given that Jiang Zemin turned reform into a euphemism for mass corruption. Meanwhile, Hu made no mention of shutting down the cadres' various international endeavors, such as what Agence France Presse (via Yahoo), the BBC and KTVU noticed.

The Korean colony, of course, continued its more traditional method: clampdowns and ginning up propaganda from useful idiots (BBC, One Free Korea, Washington Post)

Then again, coming clean on the economy - even without any real solution - could actually become a useful diversion from all of the other problems the regime is facing domestically - such as a crumbling ecology (Epoch Times), the continuing spread of AIDS (CBC), and the fallout from Shanghai over Yang Jia's execution (Epoch Times) - or internationally - such as human rights (AFP via NASDAQ, Epoch Times, and the Globe and Mail).

Ironically, the only place where Beijing doesn't seem to be facing serious trouble is Washington (Epoch Times), but if that changes, the cadres may soon face the same critical mass of opposition that the Soviets did in the 1980s.

Thanks to the Chinese Communist Party's combination of incompetence and lack of ethics, the rest of the pieces are falling into place.