| Our web site has undergone some changes, including a new page dealing entirely with North Korea. Take a look! Link of the Week John Pomfret, in the Washington Post, takes a long, hard look at village elections in rural Communist China. He finds winners repeatedly removed from their posts, jailed, and victimized in various other ways if they stray from the party line. As social scientist Yu Jianrong put it, �The goal wasn't democracy, it was a reassertion of the party's influence in the villages.� On the �one billion customers� and other PRC myths David Jamieson (BBC) examines the myth of Communist China�s technological and economic prowess, as well as the harsher reality. On Shanghai versus Hong Kong As Hong Kong loses the freedom that made it a unique city, its nearest rival within Communist China � Shanghai � continues to breath down the former colony�s neck, as Ian Jolly (BBC) reports. On Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji, and those who would succeed them Willy Wo-Lap Lam (CNN) provides a status report on Communist President Jiang Zemin � likely to leave as head of the Communist Party but stay on as Chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission � and his �legacy thing.� Lam also looks at outgoing Premier Zhu Rongji, likely incoming Party chief Hu Jintao, expected incoming Premier Wen Jiabao, and the reclusive Politburo member Li Ruihuan. An Accidental Mirror to the American Establishment�s Soul David Ignatius (Washington Post) reveals a great deal in his column on Communist China today � about himself and much of the American establishment, not the PRC. Ignatius� perfectly vapid column focuses on various cultural and cosmopolitan matters, with which he then to ignore deep resentment in the rural areas and political repression and blithely declare Communist China an �apolitical country.� On Taiwan This begins with an embarrassing apology from yours truly: apparently, Doug Paal, the dangerously PRC-sympathizing Asian analyst and businessman, got the de facto ambassadorship to Taiwan months ago. How this slipped under the radar screen, I�m not entirely certain, but however it happened, I fell down on the job, pure and simple. I humbly apologize. � D.J. McGuire Meanwhile, Paal was kind enough to remind everyone how dangerous he is by telling the island democracy not to view �the mainland through the prism of economic threat.� Gary Schmitt, of the Project for the New American Century, rightly takes Paal to task for this myopic view of the Communists, particularly in view of one official he cites: �We won�t attack (the Taiwanese). We will buy them.� On PRC rival India S. Rob Sobhani, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and president of Caspian Energy Consulting, calls for closer ties between the U.S. and India in the Washington Times. Check out the latest on Communist China and the Terrorist War. Sign up now for the next North Korea Report, due out on Monday. 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. |