| SPECIAL NEWS FLASH: PRC CONSUL MURDER IN KYRGYZSTAN �A CRIMINAL DISPUTE� ASSAILANTS WERE NOT FROM EAST TURKESTAN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT Once again, rampant media speculation � and the Communist drive to tar the East Turkestani independence movement with anything it can find � has been blown away by facts (but unfortunately not before the last Update fell victim to it). Officials in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, said that a Communist Chinese consul murdered last week was �an accidental victim of what they describe as a criminal dispute� (BBC). The Kyrgyz officials said the target of the assailants was not the consul, but his driver, an ethnic Chinese businessman. Earlier, Russian and PRC media had pinned blame on Muslim Uighurs in support of an independent East Turkestan. The latest came out yesterday morning, the day after last week�s update. This is the second time in two years that the Uighurs � arguably the most pro-American Muslims on the planet � have been suspected of violence, only to have the truth reveal another chain of events. In 2000, a military truck exploded in Urumqi, the capital of East Turkestan (the PRC calls it �Xinjiang�), and after media speculation pointed to the Uighurs, the Communists admitted it was an accident. For more on how the PRC uses September 11 to excuse its brutal treatment of the Uighur people, check out the Communist China and the Terrorist War page. Now on to the Links. Link of the Week The editors of the Washington Post, seeing the decline of freedom and economic vitality in Hong Kong, take their analysis a level above others by making the connection between the two. As they say in their editorial: �As the difference in freedom between Hong Kong and the mainland steadily narrows, so do the competitive advantages that made it a trading capital in the first place.� More On Hong Kong and the Handover Anniversary Five years after Communist China took over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom, the city�s people are not nearly as free, as the BBC�s Damien Grammaticus notes. Meanwhile, CNN�s Willy Wo-Lap Lam analyzes the public dissatisfaction with Tung Chee-hwa�s leadership. Time Asia devotes an entire section to the five years of Communist rule in Hong Kong. It includes a number of stories from throughout the half-decade, plus an opinion piece by Sin-Ming Shaw ripping the HK leadership for its lack of concern for the people of Hong Kong. On Shanghai Francis Markus (BBC) sees Shanghai as a challenger to HK�s title as the most prosperous PRC city. Meanwhile, David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, uses a mix of optimism and pessimism in examining the PRC�s latest boom town. He calls Shanghai �the hottest city on the planet� and �this latest festival of irrational exuberance before it goes the way of Tokyo and Wall Street.� Sign up for the North Korea Report; the next issue comes out on Monday. There�s still time to contact the President and tell him not to appoint pro-PRC Doug Paal as de facto ambassador to Taiwan. Miss an Update, Weekly Links, or a North Korea Report? Find it on our web site. Sign the Boycott Petition: In reaction to the decision of the International Olympic Committee awarding Beijing the 2008 Olympic Games, the China e-Lobby has begun a petition for an American boycott of those games. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in receiving it. Anyone who wishes to join can send his/her name and e-mail address to [email protected]. Please feel free to send any news on Communist China you happen to find to the same address. |