I'm headed back to Hong Kong next week. I just missed Sarah Palin's foreign policy debut, but I'll be getting back in time to catch the "celebrations" for the 60th anniversary of the Chinese revolution. HK should be low key, but in China they are literally moving heaven and earth to make everything perfect.
A friend sent me this music video from a local Hong Kong band called "My Little Airport." They've written a pretty cool birthday song for China:

My friend Rebecca MacKinnon has a great post up now on her blog about the Chinese government's persecution and silencing of the liberal lawyers at Gongmeng (China's ACLU). Much linky goodness. A must read for anyone interested in current Chinese affairs. Which, since China kind of owns our #$ss, should be all of us, right?

Last Wednesday morning around 5am, Xu Zhiyong, a Chinese lawyer, legal scholar, legislator and human rights activist was grabbed by public security police at his Beijing apartment and hustled away. He has not been seen or heard from since. His blog's gone silent.

Will Chinese Buy Top U.S. Tech Providers?

For those interested in the analytical side of universal health care challenges, a fascinating comprehensive series of articles on the current state and future prospects for health care in China is now available online from The Lancet (simple registration required).

This time for babies:

In August, Sanlu's testing "revealed melamine in the baby milk powder and showed that it was contaminated," the ministry statement said. It did not say when Sanlu alerted authorities about its findings. On Thursday, the dairy announced a recall of 700 tons of formula made before Aug. 6.

A New Zealand dairy cooperative that owns part of Sanlu said Friday it believed none of the tainted powder was exported.

Kidney problems in infants were reported as early as mid-July but authorities failed to launch a food safety investigation, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Another news report said the dairy received complaints as early as March.

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog.

As the Olympic Games started in Beijing, the question of human rights in China has been already well discussed. What was interesting to me was a Guardian op-ed by Brendan O'Neill on the journalistic and activist distortions and myth created regarding the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989.

"Many have accused the Chinese of trying to control international perceptions of Tiananmen Square – Beijing's "blackened heart", as one reporter describes it – and no doubt that is true. Disgracefully, the Communist party of China's official position on the 1989 massacre is that it wasn't a noteworthy event. Officials still refer to it as "the incident", a shocking label for the Chinese military's massacre of anywhere between 300 and 1,000 people on the hot, heady nights of June 3 and 4 1989.

One essay on them vs (ironically following at the same site by a different author) another. What do you think about all the hype? Are you looking forward to watching the Olympics, or are you so outraged at the Chinese government's treatment of various minority and dissenting groups you think them an obscene dressing for tyranny? Is it a mockery of environmental awareness to host them in a smog-filled metropolis, or a hopeful sign that the ChiComs are willing to do so much to improve conditions there, albeit for a short time?

I wouldn't want to be an Olympic athlete these days. I can't say I was "close," although I did go to Nationals while in high school and play at the varsity level at a Big Sports College. So at least I can relate to what athletes must do to and with their bodies to compete at the top levels. I'm also glad: I think I was part of the very last generation of top athletes who could compete safe in the knowledge that my competitors weren't regularly doping left and right.

protesting is a sacred right
in light of day or dark of night
those who would control us all
are they who truly fear a fall
let all know no heart can fail
that smiles at a wagging tail

++++

What is Rudd playing at with his Murdoch embrace?

I just lurv the tagline in this post:

Average American Owes Average Chinese $4000

It sums up everything that is problematic about "our" economy. Did you sign a promisary to Yueh T'en-Chih, resident of south side Beijing? I sure didn't. And yet, you and I will pay, and pay, and pay...and Ms. Yueh is unlikely to see that money, if she's a Bad Han and reads Chinese blogs.

Seriously, what's going on here? How did we get to the point where you and I "owe" people on the other side of the planet four grand, and rising? Um, does that include my 3 year old nephew? Cause I'm fairly sure he isn't legally resposible for any debt yet. We buy him toys without lead, usually made in the US or Yurp.

Sometimes, I just can't wrap my brain around it- why do people accept this? I'm not trying to be racist and pick on the Chinese, this same sort of post could be made for any of the larger foreign debt-holders who've propped up the Bush regime's irresponsible spending habits these last eight years. Still, I do wonder- what is the breaking point? What will "we" sacrifice, in order to make good on promises made by people who have essentially run this country into the ground...for nothing?

Seriously, I am so sorry to hear about this. Anyone who has details about his blog, I'd appreciate hearing them.

(CNN) -- Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.

The incident has also alarmed advocates of press freedom, who say municipal authorities had no right to attack a man for simply filming them.

Police have detained 24 municipal inspectors and are investigating more than 100 in the death of Wei Wenhua, a 41-year-old construction company executive, Xinhua reported on Friday.

The swift action by officials reflects concerns that the incident could spark larger protests against authorities, whose heavy-handed approach often arouses resentment.

On Monday Wei happened on a confrontation in the central Chinese province of Hubei between city inspectors and villagers protesting over the dumping of waste near their homes.

A scuffle developed when residents tried to prevent trucks from unloading the rubbish, Xinhua said.

When Wei took out his cell phone to record the protest, more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes, Xinhua said. Wei was dead on arrival at a Tianmen hospital, the report said.

Wrong on so many levels. But unexpected, in an age in which arms dealers and the oil execs that keep their machines humming along rule our world.

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

Like in other places and times in Asia, the Fear of the Black Man takes on different forms, and is expressed in different degrees and brutalities. You think we need to be careful of our police state here? Get a load of this very scary scene from a macbre, high speed techno action flick complete with Tarantinoesque levels of violence. I don't think they got to eat chicken and breakdance back at the station either. Time to jump on the Boycott the 2008 Olympics Bandwagon, Folks:

Beijing Vice: a brutal bust reveals the strong arm of the Chinese law
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 11:55 AM
By Melinda Liu

Where have all the foreign drug dealers gone? Ask the men in black. Beijing expats are buzzing about a weekend crackdown in Sanlitun that struck many of us as more brutal than the norm. (Yes, here brutal can be the norm.) With Beijing pouring controversial investments into Africa -- and preparing to host the 2008 Summer Olympics -- you'd think officialdom would want to avoid incidents perceived to have racist and repressive overtones. Like rounding up dozens of black men -- reportedly including the son of a Caribbean ambassador -- and beating many of them in public during a drug raid. Pan Yali (an expat who's using his Chinese name due to fear of retaliation) filed this eyewitness account about the bust:

One sees shocking things in China. Sometimes they are also not surprising. That they are not surprising may be one of the most disturbing things of all.

Saturday night, I hesitantly pedaled into a small street in Sanlitun, the bar area most popular with expats in Beijing. It is a shoddy, miniature replica of some of the most unappealing carnival-esque streets in the world, the Fourth Circle of Western expat-in-Asia bar hell, a circus that Bosch would appreciate. Two weekends ago, an Australian architect -- a former contestant on the TV show Big Brother -- ordered a drink at a bar here at 3 AM, then slumped over his table, and never woke up. (Drugs or foul play were suspected, but police dropped the case for lack of evidence.) Tonight the entire cast of characters was out in force: drunken foreigners, the locals who "love" them, the shady bar owners, the homeless children and their decrepit pimps, the flower-sellers and the African drug dealers.

And then, the young men in unmarked black jumpsuits wielding batons.

Told you so. Keep this in mind anytime you try to understand why "we" do what we do in the Middle East, and why it often fails to work.

Yesterday I delivered up some of that hideous crap that Maureen can dish from time to time. It's so dispiriting to see Dowd use her national platform to propagate mindless, banal DC-heather claptrap, and it's fun to deride her with a healthy dose of snark.

But in the interest of fair and balanced coverage of the Gray Lady's Op-Ed page, I give you 25 words from Nicolas Kristof (subscription only) today:

Do I really have the right to complain about torture or extra-legal detentions in China when we Americans do the same in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?

I'm not even going to quote any excerpts out of this superb piece from the San Jose Mercury News, (oops, originally WaPo) in large part because people's eating schedules are often irregular on Sundays and you don't want to read this either before OR after eating anything you didn't grow yourself or know who did. Well, okay, I'll just use the least-nausea-inducing graf I can find:

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught - many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

Yum! I mean really, wouldn't you rather eat one of Lambert's zucchini than this Chinese stuff? Go read the story; the Tale of the Wandering Chickens is enough to send you out into the woods to gather nuts, berries and grubs rather than go to KFC again.

Trying to post without my handy little editor is like trying to run in wet sand. HTML is a nightmare to a dyslexic mind. All the wonderful little landmarks are twisted in on themselves and there is no oral or aural component to the language – which really slows down those of us for whom text is way down on the list of preferable communication styles. But - The Circuit City firings:

The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers — immediately — and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible. Full

It's hard to stereotype and not sound like a racist or bigot, and that's why intelligent people avoid doing that. I'm going to come dangerously close to that line, but I hope you can forgive me. They better be labeled.

There is a lot wrong in our culture. The sort of food many Americans prefer is often as close to tasteless and flavorless that it's hard to imagine how we got so fat. I still have a hard time not making a moue of disgust when I see people eat "processed cheese" or order a steak "well done." But one thing I've enjoyed in my life as a spoiled American has been the relatively high standards of food safety. I haven't been food poisoned in my life, and even after spending years in college working behind the scenes in restaurants, I still feel pretty OK with what we eat here.

When was the last time anyone watched “Three Days of the Condor?” "Syriana?" "The World is Not Enough?" Just checking.

Via Blondesense, a Tom Paine dicussion about economic policy and China, and more from the idiots who brought you the fallen Saddam statue.

Yes, the Red Menace that we spent so many years fearing as a military threat now represents a far more serious economic threat. Mao must be turning in his grave with the news that no less than six U.S. Cabinet members are on their way to the Middle Kingdom on Wednesday to beseech, beg, lobby and try to persuade the new mandarins not to sell off their vast reservoir of dollars.
snip
Already, as I have reported , the Treasury Department has opened a global crisis management center that sounds very much like an economic war room. It is headed by none other than Jim Wilkinson, the GOP info warrior who ran the Coalition Media Center during the opening days of the Iraq War, when great victories were all we read about in the news

While we quietly quibble about he Dixiecrats the new space race has begun. And like the one of old this race for the moon is about controlling the new strategic commanding heights. Drone planes dropping DU shells into gravity wells, devastating their targets like mini asteroid strikes, leaving radioactive fallout – the future of warfare.   Read more…

I wonder what will happen now that the election is secured and the conservatives have won? The economy won’t be able to withstand the Iranian oil bourse coupled with an exit from the dollar by China. If/when, that happens, this will be the beginning of an incredibly painful correction in the American way of life.

Read these two stories and tell me that (1) we're not at war with, or at least under attack by, an actual foreign power with the actual ability to do us harm and (2) we're losing. Oh yeah, and neither side really wants us peasants to know what's going on:

WaPo:

Hackers operating through Chinese Internet servers have launched a debilitating attack on the computer system of a sensitive Commerce Department bureau, forcing it to replace hundreds of workstations and block employees from regular use of the Internet for more than a month, Commerce officials said yesterday.

Reuters story in Scientific American:

(Reuters) - China has beamed a ground-based laser at U.S. spy satellites over its territory, a U.S. agency said, in an action that exposed the potential vulnerability of space systems that provide crucial data to American troops and consumers around the world.

It should've been a huge red flag (indeed, it was for some of us) when Bush refused to allow the US to sign on the International Criminal Court system with the rest of the civilized world back in 2002. Just as I pointed out recently that some people were told about an upcoming war well before everyone else, the astute could (and can) tell what the Bush administration is plannning on doing in large part by analysis of what they won't do. They have been planning on smashing laws, treaties and the Constitution since day one. Don't ever forget that.

Anyway, this little story is telling. Here's the main part:

WASHINGTON - Twenty-one countries that had been denied participation in U.S. military training programs are now eligible to take part again under a presidential waiver announced Monday by the White House.