Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo (1955-2017) Dies at 61

Here is a writeup and an overview. China needs more like him. I'll leave you with the indelible image of his empty chair at the 2010 Nobel ceremony that China's leadership did not permit him to attend, for it had imprisoned him the year before. Oh, and do take a look at his lecture.

The Evil Plan That Backfired: China Fears Baby Bust

Disastrous. So now Beijing is begging women to have babies. Who could have guessed that its cruel one-child policy of social engineering would have resulted in chaos, misery, human rights abuses, and now a feared "demographic time bomb"?  Who indeed, except anybody with any sense at all.

Interview with a Chinese Dissident

The New York Review of Books sits down with filmmaker Ai Xiaoming. (Her films are banned in China, by the way.) The whole thing is fascinating, but here is a piece of it:

Q; I’m curious about how you became politically active. During the 1989 protests you were not involved with the student movement. 

A: People like me who went through the Cultural Revolution, we are often skeptical of politics. I was a teacher and I watched the students but didn’t participate directly. I went to Tiananmen Square twice but mainly watched this from a distance. 

Q: What changed? 

A: In 1999 I spent a year abroad at the University of the South in Tennessee. It had a huge impact on me. I saw how people discussed social problems. I remember participating in commemorations for Martin Luther King, Jr. on his holiday. I thought: this is how a university ought to be; I want to bring this back to China.

China to End One-Child Policy

Well, good, because it was a stupid, evil, destructive policy in both the short and long term that has caused untold amounts of human misery and social damage.

Disgustingly Cute: Meet the Ili Pika of Northwest China

Funny name, weapons-grade adorable furry face.

Meet Joshua Wong of the Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Protests

Wong is 17.

3 Notes on Asia

One:  "Big Yellow Duck Creator Brings Giant White Rabbit to Taiwan"

Two: Starting a Letter with "Dear Kung Fu Panda ..." 

Three: Mooncake industry eclipsed by Chinese corruption crackdown 

The Great Chinese Exodus

"Should I stay or should I go?"

2100-Year-Old Royal Tomb Discovered in China

Liu Fei must have looked snazzy in his jade burial suit.

Japan Gives Vietnam 6 Navy Ships

Japan and Vietnam cozy up against China? Who could blame them?  Don't take your eye off the South China Sea.

Quirky Asia Files: Selling Peaches In China

I don't even know what to say.

China: Frozen Dumplings, Fridges, and Environmental Impact

Here's a stat for ya: 

In the 12 years between 1995 and 2007, China’s domestic refrigerator-ownership numbers have jumped to 95 percent from just 7 percent of urban families.

Taiwanese Defense and the UN Charter

Is it technically illegal?  Whatever. Does anyone really think the major players in Asia are going to care about use of force rules in the UN Charter if/when things get dicey?  Give me a break.

China's Extra-Wide Pink-Painted Parking Spots For The Ladies

Haha.

Drone Surveillance of China's Coast: Made In Taiwan?

The apparent goal is to keep tabs on the 2000+ coastal missiles that China currently has aimed at Taiwan.

I am also bemused by this related note: "the U.S. has expressed concern to Taiwan over how its drones are being deployed."

O RLY?  Last I heard Taiwan hadn't used any of its drones to kill people and prompt a barnstorming filibuster by Rand Paul.

The Closing of the Chinese Mind

Aka "groupthink makes you stupid."  The CCP is busying itself with "thought reform."  Note too a related academic angle:

... the customarily mild-mannered American Association of University Professors called on universities to cut ties with Confucius Institutes unless academic freedom prevails there. That’s not the case at present. Notes the AAUP, “Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom.” Agreements establishing them make “unacceptable concessions to the political aims and practices of the government of China. Specifically, North American universities permit Confucius Institutes to advance a state agenda in the recruitment and control of academic staff, in the choice of curriculum, and in the restriction of debate.” These cuddly-seeming institutions, in other words, are CCP propaganda mills on American campuses.

HE SAID XI SAID: Dangerous Brinkmanship in China’s Air Defense Zone

OK, I admit it: I first decided to link this story because I thought the headline was so clever.  Still, we would do well to keep an eye on the increasingly tense jockeying for position in East Asia:

Ships belonging to the various players in Asia’s game of thrones have been menacing, tailing, and ramming one another in the seas around China ... Now, things have taken an even more dangerous turn: China and Japan have started to do the same with aircraft.

Thoughts on Tiananmen and Taiwan

Food for thought.

Indian PM Narendra Modi Reaches Out to Taiwan

New Delhi and Taipei ... while both also watch Beijing.  Here's an interview with Taiwan's ambassador to India.

Forgetting Tiananmen Square

It's been 25 years, and three new books consider how it has been suppressed.  If you're in a hurry, you can jot down the titles of the books and take a look later:

• The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, by Louisa Lim, OUP USA
• Tiananmen Exiles: Voices of the Struggle for Democracy in China, by Rowena Xiaoqing He, Palgrave Macmillan
• Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in the New China, by Evan Osnos, Bodley Head

Well, here we're not forgetting!  Please take a look at:

• NatGeo's story of two photographers (twin brothers!) who were there
• (still imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner) Liu Xiaobo's poem from his collection June 4 Elegies
• Another poem inspired by those events
• How a gangster became a savior: the story of the Triad who helped smuggle 100+ dissidents to safety after the massacre
• Footage of Tiananmen survivors telling their stories at the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee; one is Chai Ling, founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization combatting gendercide in China.
• The world's first Tiananmen museum that has opened in Hong Kong
• Demonstrations in Hong Kong and Taiwan

25 years ago I was only a child watching the news on TV, and from that year I remember two overwhelming feelings that were so intense that they probably shaped my adult take on foreign relations more than I realize: 1989 was defined by the joy of the fall of the Berlin Wall with all its jubilant crowds ... and the absolute, stomach-churning horror of Tiananmen Square.  God, what kind of monstrous, despicable, (what the hell, let's use the word and call a spade a spade) evil government sends its tanks and troops to mow down unarmed students?  And you wonder why I practically have an allergic reaction to people saying that Taiwan should be part of China. 

UPDATE: The Onion nails it again.