| Home page To receive this publication via e-mail, click here. The Week�s Links: Feature and Opinion Pieces on Communist China September 20, 2003 Link of the Week �We believed the myth that we didn't care about politics. Then half a million people showed up.� That�s how Hong Kong resident Ko Tin-lung described the sudden, and dramatic, transformation of the people of that city from apathetic residents to adamant defenders of their own rights. Ko made the comments to John Pomfret of the Washington Post. On the Falun Gong War and Charles Li Katherine Mangu-Ward, in the Weekly Standard, updates the efforts to free Falun Gong practitioner Charles Li (she spells his surname �Lee�), an American citizen imprisoned in Communist China for his beliefs (see 1/30 Update and 2/21 and 3/21 Week�s Links). On Communist China and Trade Bruce Bartlett, a leading opponent of anti-PRC trade measures, marshals the economic arguments against the Schumer-Graham tariff bill (see last Update) in National Review Online. Once again, however, Bartlett completely ignores the issues of national security, as well as the fact that unlike Japan, Europe, etc., Communist-owned firms dominate the PRC economy. On Communist China, Trade, and the 2004 Presidential Campaign Democratic Presidential candidate Richard Gephardt has criticized fellow candidate Howard Dean for backing Communist China�s entry into the World Trade Organization back in 1999. Dean supported �linking admission of Taiwan to the WTO to pushing China into the WTO,� an idea Joshua Kurlantzick of The New Republic found particularly hideous in the �TNR Primary.� On �Capitalism� in Communist China Many have chirped about the supposedly dynamic real estate market in Communist China. John Pomfret, Washington Post, finds a few things missing. Among them are such trifles as the rule of law, land rights, and a neutral government authority. On Communist China, Taiwan, and the United States Tom Carter, Washington Times, interviews Alexander Chieh-cheng Huang, vice chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, who told him the real arena of battle between the island democracy and Communist China �is in Washington, not across the Taiwan Straits.� On Tibet Philip Pan, Washington Post, examines the state of Tibet�s Buddhist faith as it continues to suffer under Communist oppression. Jamie FlorCuz, CNN, has a tradition vs. development series on Tibet (I, II and III). His series has one major omission, however � he completely ignores the Communist occupation and what it�s done to Tibetan culture. John Derbyshire of National Review Online (and Member since 2003) reviews Patrick French�s Tibet, Tibet. Derbyshire is a little weak here, especially when insisting, �the cooperation of the Chinese government is of the utmost importance to the free world in all kinds of areas.� That reveals an erroneous assumption that said cooperation is actually happening. Sign up for the North Korea Report before the next edition is sent on Monday. Check out the Communist China and the Terrorist War page. Sign the petition for an American boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Miss an Update, Weekly Links, or a North Korea Report? Find it on our home page. 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 or North Korea that you happen to find to the same address. |