Biden Throws Taiwan, Tibet Under the Bus

Let's face it, he knows who his real boss is.

Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden has said that his country is committed to building a close, permanent and friendly relationship with China. Biden expressed these view during talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping here Thursday morning, official media said. During the talks, Biden exchanged views with Vice President Xi on furthering bilateral ties. He said that since strategic trust is crucial to the lasting and steady development of U.S.-China relations, both countries should increase their contact in order to enhance mutual understanding and avoid strategic miscalculations. Biden said that cooperation between the two nations plays a vital role in stabilizing the world economy, adding that the United States welcomes China’s sustained economic growth and is ready to make joint efforts with China to ensure the steady growth of the global economy.

Biden stated that the United States fully recognizes that issues related to Taiwan and Tibet are part of China’s core interests.

He said the U.S. will firmly adhere to the one-China policy and will not support “Taiwan independence.” He said the U.S. fully acknowledges that Tibet is an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China.

Biden also pledged to boost cooperation with China to properly handle regional issues and global problems in order to promote world peace and stability.

Can't wait for the "clarification" on this one.

China 'Glory Project' Highway Collapses After Two Days

A Chinese product falling apart after two days? Go figure.

A Chinese motorway has collapsed just two days after it opened, causing the deaths of two people, after builders were ordered to rush the project so it could be unveiled for the 90th birthday of the Communist party.

The 57-mile-long Xinsan motorway, through the mountains of Yunnan, was supposed to be a perfect example of how the Communist party has rolled out pristine infrastructure to even the most remote areas of China, creating economic prosperity.

Despite warnings from the construction team in charge of the project, it was included in the list of "glory projects" to be unveiled for the party's 90th anniversary on July 1.

Huge banners were slung on the cliffs above the road, reminding its builders: "Work hard, work quickly, we have 60 days left".

According to the Chinese media, party chiefs in Beijing warned the local government that if the motorway was not finished on time, its 2 billion yuan (£194 million) cost would have to come out of local, rather than central, coffers.

However, two days after the road opened for trials, heavy storms crumbled the red earth underneath it and washed a section into the valley below, killing two and injuring two more.

The motorway is only one of a number of major projects which were rushed through to meet the deadline.

The 820-mile Beijing-to-Shanghai high-speed railway, open to the public for only eleven days, yesterday (SUN) saw trains stalled for two hours after an electrical failure.

Can't wait until we start winning the future with all those high-speed rail projects.

White House: No, We Weren't Hacked by the ChiComs

I guess we're supposed to believe them since they'd never lie to us, right?

The White House says no official U.S. government email accounts were accessed during what Google alleges was Chinese hacking of its email systems.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney says the FBI is investigating Google's allegations, but had no comment on whether China was involved. Google says personal Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior U.S. government officials, military personnel and political activists, were exposed.

In all likelihood they wouldn't want to admit it if, as stated, Google says government, military and political activists were hacked.

I doubt they have to hack any left-wing activists since they'd all probably be glad to give it up for the ChiComs.

If we are to believe them, then obviously our government officials all have secure systems, huh? Which makes the weak theory floated by the left that Anthony Weiner was "hacked" by some random "prankster" now null and void.

I've been rather busy today. Has the left concocted any more ridiculous excuses for Weiner today?

Chinese Bloggers Mourn Loss of "Hero"

Aw, poor babies.

[Rubs thumb and index finger together].

That's me playing the World's Smallest Violin for them.

In the hours immediately following U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed, Chinese Internet users appeared torn over how to react to the news.

While some celebrated, many others mourned the loss of a “hero.” Still others seized on the terrorist mastermind’s death as an opportunity to offer veiled comment on conditions at home.

Rumors of Mr. bin Laden’s death began to spread on Sina Weibo, China’s most active microblogging service, at least an hour before Mr. Obama’s speech, with messages of shock and disbelief giving way, in many cases, to expressions of regret at the Al Qaeda founder’s passing.

“Deeply mourning Bin Laden,” wrote Weibo user Jiajia Nuwu in comments echoed widely across the site. “Yet another anti-American hero is lost.”

What, is there a shortage of anti-American heroes out there? We do still have Bill Ayers, Julian Assange, and Michael Moore, ya know.

Not to mention the MSNBC prime-time lineup.

Oh well. At least some of our Chinese friends are glad to see bin Laden go - even if they do have a funny way of expressing their joy.

“Is this real? Excellent!” wrote another. “Now the only terrorist left is the United States!”

Cross-posted.

'In America, the Ultimate Capitalist System, Government is Getting in the Way of Everything'

Gee, you'll never guess who's another big fan of the ChiComs. He's also got an obsession with high-speed trains, suddenly the new rage among our ruling class.

After preaching for years how the United States was losing the race to build high-speed rail, Mayor Bloomberg's frustration spilled over last year when he toured a high-tech train station in China and criticized the US system of government for "getting in the way of everything."

Bloomberg made the remark to Esquire magazine reporter John Richardson, who tailed the mayor to a climate summit in China last year and wrote a lengthy profile of Bloomberg appearing in this month's issue.

"[Bloomberg] arrives at a platform with the feel of an interstellar docking station and returns to the sour preoccupation the Chinese trains have aroused in him," Richardson wrote.

The author then quoted the mayor as saying: "In America, the ultimate capitalist system, government is getting in the way of everything."

I'll agree our government seems to get in the way of things, but he can blame his pal Obama and the regulation-obsessed Democrats for that. It's funny that he makes no mention of the billions we've poured into our rail systems over the years that results in more and more people driving on their own. Who's the blame for that?

Seems the tiny tyrant, who's so fond of our system of government that he rewrote the rules to suit himself when it came to running for Mayor of New York City a third time, isn't too keen on our representatives and much prefers the Chinese.

"If you look at the U.S., you look at who we are electing to Congress, to the Senate, they can't read," Bloomberg told The Wall Street Journal while in Hong Kong for the C40 summit.

"I'll bet you a bunch of these people don't have passports. We're about to start a trade war with China if we're not careful here - only because nobody knows where China is. Nobody knows what China is."

Bloomberg, who went to Johns Hopkins and Harvard and has three private planes at his disposal, fancies himself an independent with business smarts.

But his blunt remarks - seemingly aimed at Republicans who picked up 61 House seats and six Senate spots in the midterm elections - had conservatives calling him an arrogant elitist.

Crony Marxist Barack Obama Touts His GE BFF Jeffrey Immelt in Weekly Radio Address

Remember how George W. Bush would hold out the CEO of Halliburton as Upstanding Global Citizen #1?

Of course you don't, because he didn't do that.

So do you think the BDS-addled moonbats who went berzerk over Bush's cozy relationship with corporate devil!!11! Halliburton will have a problem with Obama gushing over GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt in his weekly radio address?

Of course they won't, because they're dope-smoking hypocrites.

Nothing to see here, move along!



Oh, and speaking of China, you'll be thrilled to learn that Operation Kick Me was a smashing success.

h/t: Breitbart. Cross-posted.

Respect: Obama Blow-Up Sex Doll Goes on Sale in China

Don't feel like a voter screwed over. Relax, progressives, you can still be amorous with your hero. I'm tempted to send these to the folks at MSNBC.

Americans may have fallen out of love with Barack Obama, but the president of the United States is still an object of affection for the Chinese, who have remodelled him as a blow-up sex doll.

A doll wearing a dark blue suit and red tie, and with Mr Obama's face carefully screen-printed onto its head, was exhibited at the recent 8th Sex Culture Festival in the southern city of Guangzhou.

The doll was photographed by Chinese state media nestling behind several other standard plastic female toys.

Mr Obama is widely popular in China, and a "Maobama" t-shirt, bearing an image of his face crossed with a portrait of Chairman Mao, has become a best-seller.

The Guangzhou show, which was only open to adults, cost 30 yuan (£3)to enter and was visited by "tens of thousands" of people, according to a spokesman for the Guangdong Gongchuang Economic Development company, the organisers. One star attraction was a female doll costing 98,000 yuan.

"We do not know which manufacturer produced this doll," the spokesman added.

Not all Chinese are in love with Maobama. Why settle for a poor imitation when you can have the real thing?

"Why can't we have a Mao Tse-tung toy?" asked another.

Booming Business in China: Body Fishing

Tom Friedman among those hardest hit.

From his perch on an overhang above the Yellow River, Wei Jinpeng pointed to a fisherman's cove below and began counting his latest catch. He stopped after six and guessed that perhaps a dozen human corpses were bobbing in the murky waters.

The bodies were floating facedown and tethered by ropes to the shore, their mud-covered limbs and rumps protruding from the water.

Wei is a fisher of dead people. He scans the river for cadavers, drags them to shore with a small boat and then charges grieving families to recover their relatives' corpses. Wei said he kept the faces submerged to preserve their features. Any dispute about identity makes it harder to collect his bounty.

Wei doesn't worry about how the bodies got here, but he's heard tales from relatives who have come to claim the bodies, haunting portraits of average people crushed in the extraordinary stress of China's economic boom.

While some of the 80 to 100 bodies Wei gathers each year are victims of accidents and floods, he thinks most end up in the river after suicide or murder. There's no overt sign of a crime spree, though there's evidence of many people taking their own lives. Suicide is the leading cause of death for women in rural China, and 26 percent of all suicides in the world take place in the nation, according to the World Health Organization.

Most bodies apparently are swept downriver from Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu in the country's northwest. The city boasts rows of new skyscrapers, built by a rush of poor laborers with few rights and businessmen notorious for operating above the law.

The work of "body fishers" has received increased attention in Chinese media lately, including the release of a documentary about a clan that works near Wei. One English-language state newspaper described the profession as "living on the dead"; it noted the filmmaker saw the family retrieving bodies almost daily.

Wei's fishing spot is about 18 miles from Lanzhou. A bend in the river and a hydroelectric dam slow the currents and give the bodies a place to float to the surface.

The relatives who come to claim the bodies whisper about a father who, unable to make ends meet with low pay, jumped off a bridge. Wei also has retrieved bodies with gagged mouths and bound hands, the hallmark of criminal gangs and corrupt police. There are also the remains of young women no one recognizes that Wei eventually cuts loose back into the river, he said.

"Most of the bodies that are not claimed by relatives are female migrant workers who had moved to Lanzhou," said Wei, who drives a red motorcycle and wears large circle-rimmed sunglasses. "Most of them have been murdered. ... Their families don't know; they think they're still working in Lanzhou."

Via Tim Blair.

Seems the Chinese have a serious problem discarding bodies.

Transformational Change: Mao's Great Leap Forward Led to Murder of 45 Million People

Here's a man who oversaw the murder of 45 million and has admirers in the Obama administration. The brutality revealed here is almost unimaginable.

Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

Speaking at The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival, Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, said he found that during the time that Mao was enforcing the Great Leap Forward in 1958, in an effort to catch up with the economy of the Western world, he was responsible for overseeing "one of the worst catastrophes the world has ever known".

Mr Dikötter, who has been studying Chinese rural history from 1958 to 1962, when the nation was facing a famine, compared the systematic torture, brutality, starvation and killing of Chinese peasants to the Second World War in its magnitude. At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years; the worldwide death toll of the Second World War was 55 million.

Mr Dikötter is the only author to have delved into the Chinese archives since they were reopened four years ago. He argued that this devastating period of history – which has until now remained hidden – has international resonance. "It ranks alongside the gulags and the Holocaust as one of the three greatest events of the 20th century.... It was like [the Cambodian communist dictator] Pol Pot's genocide multiplied 20 times over," he said.

Between 1958 and 1962, a war raged between the peasants and the state; it was a period when a third of all homes in China were destroyed to produce fertiliser and when the nation descended into famine and starvation, Mr Dikötter said.

His book, Mao's Great Famine; The Story of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, reveals that while this is a part of history that has been "quite forgotten" in the official memory of the People's Republic of China, there was a "staggering degree of violence" that was, remarkably, carefully catalogued in Public Security Bureau reports, which featured among the provincial archives he studied. In them, he found that the members of the rural farming communities were seen by the Party merely as "digits", or a faceless workforce. For those who committed any acts of disobedience, however minor, the punishments were huge.

State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive or were doused in excrement and urine, others were set alight, or had a nose or ear cut off. One record shows how a man was branded with hot metal. People were forced to work naked in the middle of winter; 80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.

Mr Dikötter said that he was once again examining the Party's archives for his next book, The Tragedy of Liberation, which will deal with the bloody advent of Communism in China from 1944 to 1957.

There are still people out there who believe Communism works. Which is why they must be removed from our government.

Gruesome: Discarded Babies and Fetuses Wash Up From China River

This may be both the saddest and sickest story I've seen in ages. It's bad enough they have forced abortions in China, but to just throw the babies out like trash? WTF? And not just terminated fetuses, but babies that (allegedly) died after birth, or as they might be known here, really late-term abortions.

Staffers at an eastern Chinese hospital have been disciplined after the bodies of 21 fetuses and infants were found improperly discarded near a river, according to officials and media reports.

A total of 21 bodies were found near the Guangfu River, Jining City officials said in a statement Tuesday.

"The investigation has found that the Jining Hospital Affiliated Medical College mortuary staff violated hospital management policies/regulations," the statement said.

No foul play was found in the deaths of the children. "It was determined that the babies died in normal circumstances," Li Wanmei, section chief for the Jining City Health Bureau, told the television network.

The hospital's deputy director and the deputy director of its logistics department were removed, the statement said. In addition, two staffers working in the "repose room" of the hospital were fired "and have been detained according to the law."

The dead children and fetuses were believed to have died from illness, and the two staffers, Zhu Zhenyu and Wang Zhijun, verbally agreed with relatives to dispose of the bodies and took money from them, but instead secretly transported the bodies to the river, the statement said.

The bodies, which officials said "were not fully buried," were found after media reports prompted officials to investigate, the statement said.

Shanghai, China-based Oriental Cable TV reported the initial discovery was made by area residents. "I found the bodies while I was herding the geese," a resident said. "How could I possibly sleep? I haven't eaten for two days."

CNN really doesn't go that far. Al-Jazeera English implies something more sinister.

"There is a great deal more still to come out on this story which is certainly receiving a lot of play [in the media] here in China.

"These sort of scandals ... result often in action from local government officials who want to be seen to act."
...
Interviews with residents who discovered the bodies floating near the shore over the weekend were broadcast on the website of the Shandong Broadcasting Company, IQILU.com.

The footage shows bodies, some uncovered and others in bags, lying on parts of the bank of the river, many covered in dirt.

One of the bluish-green identification tags visible in the video indicates the baby was born in April 2009.

People's Daily said all the bodies were of babies, while Xinhua said several were foetuses.

Teabaggers Tied to Attacks on Google

Oh, sorry, I meant to say the Chi-Coms. I've got to stop jumping to conclusions and ruining my credibility.

A series of online attacks on Google and dozens of other American corporations have been traced to computers at two educational institutions in China, including one with close ties to the Chinese military, say people involved in the investigation.

They also said the attacks, aimed at stealing trade secrets and computer codes and capturing e-mail of Chinese human rights activists, may have begun as early as April, months earlier than previously believed. Google announced on Jan. 12 that it and other companies had been subjected to sophisticated attacks that probably came from China.

Computer security experts, including investigators from the National Security Agency, have been working since then to pinpoint the source of the attacks. Until recently, the trail had led only to servers in Taiwan.

If supported by further investigation, the findings raise as many questions as they answer, including the possibility that some of the attacks came from China but not necessarily from the Chinese government, or even from Chinese sources.

Tracing the attacks further back, to an elite Chinese university and a vocational school, is a breakthrough in a difficult task. Evidence acquired by a United States military contractor that faced the same attacks as Google has even led investigators to suspect a link to a specific computer science class, taught by a Ukrainian professor at the vocational school.

The revelations were shared by the contractor at a meeting of computer security specialists.

The Chinese schools involved are Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School, according to several people with knowledge of the investigation who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the inquiry.

Jiaotong has one of China’s top computer science programs. Just a few weeks ago its students won an international computer programming competition organized by I.B.M. — the “Battle of the Brains” — beating out Stanford and other top-flight universities.

Lanxiang, in east China’s Shandong Province, is a huge vocational school that was established with military support and trains some computer scientists for the military. The school’s computer network is operated by a company with close ties to Baidu, the dominant search engine in China and a competitor of Google.

Eh, they're probably just upset with the lack of affordable healthcare or something.

Awful: Father Chains Two-Year-Old to Tree While He's Working

This photo is just heartbreaking. How could someone leave a two-year-old child chained to a tree?

At first sight it seems the ultimate in child cruelty - a two-year-old boy chained to a lamp post to stop him getting away.

Yet his parents say this is the only way they can guarantee not to lose him.

I guess Dad has never heard of bolt-cutters.

His father Chen Chuanliu works as an unlicensed rickshaw cyclist in Beijing, taking fares all over the city, while the boy's disabled mother collects rubbish at the roadside.

They say they secured their son, Lao Lu, with a padlock around his ankle because his four-year-old sister Ling was 'stolen' from them last month.

Child snatching is rife in China, where strict laws govern the size of families. Concerned passers-by spotted the shackled toddler outside Huaguan Shopping Mall in Liangxiang.

They reported his father to the authorities, who yesterday ordered him to remove the chain although it was not clear what arrangements he would make in future.

There is no nursery place for Lao Lu because his 42-year-old father is a migrant worker from another province, Szechuan, and therefore does not qualify for state help. The family live in one room, 9ft by 8ft.

Chen said he could not afford to pay for childcare on his earnings of £4.50 a day and had refused offers of 'a lot of money' to give his son up for adoption.

Stunner: Police Shut Down Mr. Gay China Pageant

Well, not exactly a surprise since we more or less figured as much last night. Poor bastards. All dressed up and no place to sashay.

Police shut down what would have been China's first gay pageant on Friday an hour before it was set to begin, highlighting the enduring sensitivity surrounding homosexuality and the struggle by gays to find mainstream acceptance.

Organizers said they were not surprised when eight police officers turned up at the upscale club in central Beijing where the pageant, featuring a fashion show and a host in drag, was set to take place.

"They said the content, meaning homosexuality, there's nothing wrong with that, but you did not do things according to procedures," Ben Zhang said. Police told him he needed official approval for events that included performances, in this case a stage show.

"I kind of saw that coming," Zhang said.

'We Are Trying to Make the Chinese Public Understand That We Are Not Just Sissies, We're Not Psychos'

I have the sneaking suspicion the first Mr. Gay China pageant may wind up being the last Mr. Gay China pageant. That is if the inaugural event ever does take place. It's unlikely their state-run media will be giving the event much favorable press.

The Mr. Gay China pageant is coming up and contestant David Wu is a bit worried.

It's not the underwear competition that's making him jittery — he's been working out harder than usual to get ready. And he's looking forward to the opportunity to meet other "comrades," as gay men in China are called.

Just one thing troubles the handsome 30-year-old: His parents don't know he's gay.

"Most Chinese media won't cover it (the pageant), so I think it's unlikely that my parents will find out about me because of this event," said Wu, from the southwestern city of Chengdu. "On the other hand, if they did... maybe it's a good opportunity to tell them."

Featuring a fashion show and a host in drag, Mr. Gay China, set for Friday night in the capital city of Beijing, is the country's first gay pageant, marking another step toward greater awareness of homosexuals in a country where gays are frequently discriminated against and ostracized. Eight men compete for the title and a spot in the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant, to be held next month in Oslo, Norway.

Organizer Ben Zhang said the main purpose of the pageant was to help people realize that there is a thriving gay community in China.

"We are trying to make the Chinese public understand that we are not just sissies, we're not psychos, we're not HIV-infected diseased patients," Zhang said at a recent media event. "We are sunny and sexy and trendy and intelligent people, and we're living among you."

Gay rights in China have come a long way since the years just after the 1949 communist revolution when homosexuality was considered a disease from the decadent West and feudal societies, and gay people were persecuted. Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, and homosexuality was finally removed from the official list of mental disorders in 2001.

But tellingly, all the contestants interviewed asked The Associated Press to use their English names instead of Chinese names, to better protect their identities at home. While treatment of gays has improved in recent years, many are still reticent to draw attention to their homosexuality, particularly in the workplace.

Photo Op Complete, Obama's China Visit a Success

Priorities, folks, they have their priorities. So there's nothing to claim as a diplomatic success of any kind. Barack Obama got what he came for during his China visit.

Dressed in a winter jacket against a biting wind at the Great Wall, Obama led a knot of people for a half-hour jaunt up the crenelated wall toward a watchtower, a restored section originally built 500 years ago.

Obama walked down the last ramp by himself in a choreographed moment for photographers. White House aides were exultant afterward that "the shot" they had planned turned out perfectly.

They were exultant!

Nothing else really matters, does it, other than that staged photo op? Pretty much symbolizes his entire presidency so far.

Meanwhile, Obama is seemingly oblivious it actually gets cold in China. Imagine if Sarah Palin were so dense?

Playing tourist on his first visit ever to China, President Barack Obama drew a chilly comparison between the Chinese capital and his Illinois hometown.

"I have to say I didn't realize that Beijing gets as cold as my hometown of Chicago," the president said Tuesday just before sitting down for a one-on-one meeting with Wu Bangguo, chairman of China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Yes, Beijing is just like Chicago. Just a lot less corruption and a lesser murder rate.

For what it's worth, I like this photo:

Hot Air links. Thanks!

'I Think Chinese People Find Her a Little Scary'

Some serious heartache at NBC News. Michelle Obama didn't make the trip to China with her husband, resulting in a depressing lack of slobbering over her.

OK, I confess. If a Web site features a photo gallery of Michelle Obama’s latest fashions, I click on it.

Like many other American women, I have a certain fascination with our first lady.

So there was a frisson of anticipation when we learned President Barack Obama would travel to China. Would Michelle come with him? What would she wear? Not red, surely? What about when she met Chinese leaders? Or when she met Chinese people? (Had anyone here noticed the fact that she chose a dress by Jason Wu, an ethnic Chinese designer for the inauguration? Even though he was born in that renegade province, Taiwan?)

As it turns out, Michelle Obama isn’t visiting China.

It also turns out the Chinese public doesn’t have quite the same fascination with her as many others around the world.

"I don’t really pay attention to her," was the common reply when, in an unscientific survey, we asked people on the streets of downtown Beijing what they thought of her.

When we tried searching for "Michelle Obama" on people.com.cn, a popular chat room in China, we turned up no results.

And the absence of coverage of Michelle Obama in the Chinese media is noticeable compared to how much attention she receives from the Western press.

"She has been overshadowed by Obama," said Li Xin, a former international editor of a Chinese financial magazine which has profiled Hillary Clinton but not Michelle Obama. "Chinese media coverage will pay more attention to substance – what will make a difference to policy toward China rather than who [the Obamas are as people]."

Yet there's a deep, dark underlying cause to her lack of coverage, and frankly I'm surprised they even report this.

But there’s also another reason some people were willing to comment only anonymously. "I think Chinese people find her a little scary," said one 30-year-old female Beijing resident. "She’s not that attractive to us."

Li put it more diplomatically. "Michelle Obama is seen as feminine in the U.S., but in China the perception of beauty is very different," she explained. "The Chinese standard would maybe prefer someone softer, more petite. She’s so strong and independent and tough. [I’ve heard] from some co-workers and friends, they don’t see her as pretty and don’t understand why she was on the cover of Vogue U.S."

Neither do I.

Naturally, like most American media outlets, MSNBC has a fawning tribute:

SLIDESHOW: Michelle Obama's effortless style

Yeah, her style is so effortless she forgets to realize she's wearing an ammunition belt in public.

Obama Censored in China

Barack Obama's speech in China today had all the hallmarks of a typical Obama townhall meeting. Carefully selected questions and every aspect of the event staged beforehand. Obama laughably said he doesn't want to impose any style of government upon any country, which makes on wonder why he's trying to impose socialism upon the United States. Obama and company naively thought the speech would be seen throughout the country, but naturally it was censored by the Chinese government. That apparently was OK with him and his henchman David Axelrod.

Meeting with a carefully screened group of students at the marquee event of his Asia trip, President Obama on Monday sought to advance what he called America's "core principles" during his first public appearance in China. But the event itself -- billed as an opportunity for Obama to reach beyond Chinese officialdom -- illustrated the Chinese government's tight grip.

The "freedoms of expression and worship, of access to information and political participation, we believe are universal rights," Obama said at a town hall-style meeting in Shanghai, China's most modern and outward-looking metropolis. Liberty, the president told nearly 500 students bused to a science museum decked with U.S. and Chinese flags, should be "available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any other nation."

Virtually every aspect of the event was staged, and it was unclear how many Chinese citizens saw the hour-long exchange, which was not broadcast on national television. One of the most provocative statements Obama made -- about the importance of opening up the Internet -- was posted on Chinese news sites at first, but then was deleted.

Obama's audience, selected and coached beforehand by university officials, came from eight different Shanghai universities. A small, random sampling suggested the vast majority were members of the Communist Party. Many of the eight questions put to the president by students echoed Chinese government talking points.

Nonetheless, administration officials were satisfied with the outcome. "We understood the limitations," said senior White House adviser David M. Axelrod, who is traveling with the president. Regardless of how the questions were generated, Axelrod said, Obama's "answers were his own, and he got a chance to make them to a larger audience on local TV and over the Internet. That made it a very worthwhile event."

Nice to see Obama was allowed to give his own answers. Way to man up, Barry.

"I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama replied. "I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet -- or unrestricted Internet access -- is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged."

He's a big supporter of non-censorship, except he doesn't want you watching Fox News.

Hypocrite.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Obama Repeating Mistakes of the Great Depression

The Obama Administration is repeating some of the same policy errors that were made during the Great Depression that served to lengthen the economic doldrums. One of these is setting tariffs on imports in the misguided fantasy that this will save jobs.

President Barack Obama’s decision to place tariffs on tires from China may be the opening move in a campaign for fewer trade barriers, based on the strategy used by his four predecessors.

Obama announced duties Sept. 11 of 35 percent on $1.8 billion of automobile tires from China, acting on a complaint by the United Steelworkers union that surging imports were pushing U.S. factory workers out of their jobs.

Former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush each took action to protect domestic industries early in their terms before making free trade a focus. Obama, like Clinton, has the added challenge of trying to satisfy trade-wary Democratic lawmakers and the unions that helped them win election.

This only works if you are the only country that can set tariffs. But what quickly happens is other countries retaliate, put tariffs on your goods, and trade slows to a crawl, thus shrinking economic production. So why is Obama doing this?

Pure politics.

“It does buy him some credibility with Congress,” said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents exporters such as Boeing Co. and Microsoft Corp. The decision to impose tariffs may improve the prospects for congressional acceptance of new trade accords sought by the administration, he said.

That's correct. Obama is doing this just to pander to his left-wing base, to heck with the actual impact on the economy.

Now Obama wants to jack up the cost of fossil fuels through Cap and Trade specifically to make such fuel so expensive that we have to go to "green" alternatives. He admits that openly. But now he is trying to also get us to think that doing the same thing to goods like tires will be a good thing.

Amazing.

And yet, you will see economic illiterates everywhere talking about how they think the economy is improving.

Hang on folks, it's going to be a very bumpy ride, and look for the market to pull back.

Cure For Online Gaming Addiction

His parents hoped their teenage son would be home in a month, cured of his addiction to the internet. They never thought that within 10 hours of taking him to an addiction clinic they would receive a telephone call notifying them that he was dead.

Ouch! Apparently online gaming is such an addiction in China that an entire cottage industry has sprouted up to "cure" people of their gaming addiction. Sounds sort of capitalistic doesn't it?

I wonder if this is how they "cure" all of their patients?

Norks Behind Cyber Attacks?

Apparently our appeasement and smart diplomacy isn't quite getting through to the North Koreans. They're firing missiles on seemingly a daily basis and now they're suspected of being behind cyber attacks on South Korean and U.S. sites.

South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces in South Korea committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. Web sites, a lawmaker's aide said Wednesday.

The sites of 11 South Korean organizations including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 U.S. sites suffered similar problems.

On Wednesday, the National Intelligence Service told a group of South Korean lawmakers it believes that North Korea or North Korean sympathizers in the South "were behind" the attacks, according to an aide to one of the lawmakers briefed on the information.

The aide spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the information. He refused to allow the name of the lawmaker he works for to be published.

The National Intelligence Service — South Korea's main spy agency — said it couldn't immediately confirm the report.

Earlier Wednesday, the agency said in a statement that 12,000 computers in South Korea and 8,000 computers overseas had been infected and used for the cyber attack.

The agency said it believed the attack was "thoroughly" prepared and committed by hackers "at the level of a certain organization or state." It said it was cooperating with the American investigative authorities to examine the case.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said military intelligence officers were looking at the possibility that the attack may have been committed by North Korean hackers and pro-North Korea forces in South Korea. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report.

South Korean media reported in May that North Korea was running a cyber warfare unit that tries to hack into U.S. and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service.

An initial investigation in South Korea found that many personal computers were infected with a virus program ordering them to visit major official Web sites in South Korea and the U.S. at the same time, Korean information agency official Shin Hwa-su said. There has been no immediate reports of similar cyber attack in other Asian countries.

In the U.S., the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the U.S. Independence Day holiday weekend and into this week, according to American officials inside and outside the government.

Others familiar with the U.S. outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

Yonhap said that prosecutors have found some of the cyber attacks on the South Korean sites were accessed from overseas. Yonhap, citing an unnamed prosecution official, said the cyber attack used a method common to Chinese hackers.

Gee, there's a surprise.

No doubt a finger wag and strongly-worded letter are forthcoming.