| 【Special Report and Commentary】 China Bends Over Backward During the Olympics to Conceal the Ugly Truth (Full article) |
Liao Tienchi |
| Behind the grand and scripted stage of these Summer Games - so carefully planned for the cameras by a Chinese government eager for its closeup - is a very different, far uglier backstage. It is rife with pollution, corruption, poverty, bureaucracy and repression. The people of China know that world. They know it intimately. The government of China knows that world too, and tries with all its might to whitewash it out of existence. And here's the sad, funny part. The people are not only used to the deception; they are, by and large, okay with it. |
|
|
| 【Today's Focus】 Government-Run Athletics is Politicization of the Olympics |
Shao Jian |
| Given that the government uses tax-payer dollars for sports, its direction is very clear, i.e., that sports expenses should be used for all taxpayers, or all citizens. Therefore, the government should provide comprehensive athletics facilities for all of China's people, rather than aim for winning gold medals in an occasional competition. |
|
|
| 【Today's Focus】 China's Performance Style |
Yang Kuanxing |
| Sports fans from around the world were probably surprised by the repeated instances of fakery that came out, but it was all just business as usual to people who live in China. The peculiarities of autocratic government predisposed the authorities to hypocrisy and lack of self-confidence. When they could not make any real improvement to their "inside," propping up their "outside" became the main consideration. |
|
|
| 【News】 China Prepares For Major Crackdown In October |
China Aid Association |
| China is in the process of preparing an unprecedented widescale crackdown on "four types of destabilizing elements in society." The destabilizing elements include leaders of Christian house churches, petitioners, rights defenders and dissidents. The crackdown is planned to begin in October. |
|
|
| 【CIC News Express】 Legislation on Body Parts Exhibits Moves On to CA Governor |
Laogai Research Foundation |
| Legislation to regulate dead body exhibits, authored by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), passed the California Assembly Floor on August 18 with bipartisan support and a vote 62-5 and will now move to the Governor's desk. On August 13, the legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 24-10. Assembly Bill 1519 makes California the first state to prohibit the commercial profit and public display of human bodies or remains, unless exhibitors provide documented informed consent of the deceased or next-of-kin. |
|
|
|
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 The Beijing Olympics and Normal Life |
An Zi |
| The Beijing Olympics has been bombarded with censure and nitpicking. The Chinese government has done its utmost to honor some of the commitments it made when bidding to host the games. In this process, Chinese people have discovered how far they are from experiencing what would be considered a normal life. |
|
|
| 【CIC News Express】 Chinese Web Editor: Olympics News Controls Too Strict |
China Information Center |
| Over the last few days, China's Propaganda Bureaus have intensified their control over mainland media reports on the Olympics, and have required all reports of major events to follow the line taking by the Xinhua News Agency. Media bosses and operatives who "break the rules" are penalized. In the face of this strict news censorship, one southern Web editor has recently complained, "The Olympics news controls are too strict." |
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 Olympics Celebrations Can't Conceal Shareholders' Agony |
Mi Li |
| Chinese shareholders greeted the Olympics in the midst of a severe market downturn. The joyful and miraculous celebration that the Chinese government has offered to the world has brought nothing but tears to stock investors. On the one side is the magnificent display presented by the authorities, while on the other is the suffering of Chinese people struggling to survive in the meatgrinder. |
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 Longmen Shan: Bearing Witness for the Children of Sichuan |
Tan Zuoren |
| Regarding the issue of the school buildings, I have kept silent for two months, not because I didn't dare to write about it, but because I couldn't bear to. Just as Tang Shilin found himself too overwhelmed to express himself after visiting the earthquake area, I also made a solemn promise before the ruins of the Beichuan Middle School. Now I am taking up my pen to fulfill this promise, at whatever personal cost. |
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 Tragedy as Triumph and Vice Versa |
Li Dali |
| The Chinese government's habit of treating tragedy as triumph and triumph as tragedy is rooted in the totalitarian system. One of the distinctive features of totalitarianism is to carry everything to extremes. This is because totalitarianism violates human nature and therefore loses the sense of composure that comes from it. |
|
|
| 【Today's Focus】 August 18, 2008 |
Liu Zili |
| What's special about August 18, 2008? It is symbolized by a successor to the Cultural Revolution eulogizing butchery, raising the torch of Beijing and thinking it is a sign of international approval, little imagining that this glow is a substitute for darkness and a false imitation of light. This torch burns shame and is lifted up in the filthy hand of a shameful person, to the disgrace of the sacred flame. |
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 The Hundred-Year Dream |
A Sen |
| The Hundred-Year Dream is a foreign dream; its essence is peaceful evolution and the rejection of war. From the first day it has possessed an international flavor, none of the competition procedures, rules and projects for the Olympics were discovered by the Chinese; the Chinese have joined the Olympic family in the posture of energetic participants, and through hard effort have won the respect of the international community. |
|
|
|
|
|
| 【Special Report and Commentary】 Malcontents Need Not Apply |
Nicholas D. Kristof |
| China today reminds me of Taiwan in the mid-1980s as a rising middle class demanded more freedom. Almost every country around China, from Mongolia to Indonesia, Thailand to South Korea, has become more open and less repressive -- not because of the government's kindness but because of the people's insistence. |
|
|
| 【Observer】 A World Without Solzhenitsyn |
Chen Kuide |
Solzhenitsyn has met his destiny. He answered a sacred call, carrying out a breath-taking competition with that vast empire. It was a competition of "judgments." Although that gigantic and impregnable Gulag sentenced Solzhenitsyn to eight years, Solzhenitsyn turned around and sentenced the Gulag to death. Solzhenitsyn used his pen to compose a judgment against the red empire, and the name of that judgment was "The Gulag Archipelago." He won. |
|
|
|
|
|