"... the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more."
“Chinese assertion has backfired,” says Andrew Carr, an expert on Asia-Pacific security at the Australian National University in Canberra.Seriously, what do you say about a course of action that makes Japanese rearmament look great even to Japan's neighbors?
“They don’t see the connection between upping the tempo on the maritime operations and the fact that so many countries in the region are moving towards the very counter-containment strategies Beijing doesn’t want,” says Michael Green, former Asia director at the National Security Council ...
... his policies toward both Syria and Sudan increasingly seem lame, ineffective and contrary to American interests and values. Obama has shown himself comfortable projecting power — as in his tripling of American troops in Afghanistan. Yet now we have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world.What might be even more interesting is the fact that this op-ed was in yesterday's New York Times. Well, well, well. The worm turns? Hopechange! Of course, that Nobel Peace Prize was a joke as far as I'm concerned.
The apparent agreement between Beijing and Washington to allow Chen to go to the United States as a visiting scholar in the very near future may have put an end to this heart-wrenching episode for now, but the fallout from this event, both for Chinese diplomacy and the ruling Communist Party’s ability to maintain control in an increasingly volatile political environment, will be significant and lasting.
On the diplomatic front, the relative flexibility demonstrated by Beijing in handling this crisis has definitely prevented an even more damaging outcome. The all-important U.S.-China relationship was spared another body blow.
Yet, Beijing should find no cause for cheer. The damage done to the Chinese government’s image abroad is incalculable. For almost a week, the world was riveted by the unfolding drama of Chen’s escape. People all over the world cared about Chen’s wellbeing because he was a powerful symbol for courage and social justice. This couldn’t be good news for Chinese leaders, now seen as complicit in Chen’s mistreatment by thugs hired by local government officials. China may have invested tens of billions of dollars, including extravaganzas like the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai Expo, to boost its international standing. All it takes to undo such “soft power” offensives is one lonely blind man who dared to show to the rest of the world the cruelty and repressiveness of the current Chinese political system.Read the whole thing.
Those few all had a certain distinct type of personality: skeptical, contrarian, prickly, stubborn, and antisocial — the Awkward Squad. The first job for anyone serious about being a totalitarian dictator is to identify these people and hustle them off to the camps.Well, CRAP. Add the fact that usually academics, teachers, and nerds get hustled off to the camps too, and I am doubly screwed.
