For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.
So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?
There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.
When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.
The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.
Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.
While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.
(In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)
Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.
"China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."
The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.
"There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."
Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.
I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.
I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, tyra
I have and the place is disgusting. The smell is nearly overwhelming. There is rotting trash in the streets as well as animal and human waste. There are too many people and because of religous issues they let all manner of beast wander the streets.
Sure. They were focused on their preselected sour grapes excuse, "the machines are fixed!". They'd been complaining about Diebold et al and focused in on the relevant districts.
You mean to tell me this country of nearly a billion was able to conquor a country as powerfull as Tibet? Arg... I'm gunna be way to afraid to sleep tonight.
You must have an odd definition on character assasination. As best as I can tell, 9/11 was as much Richard Clarke's fault as anyone else's.
Clarke was the counter-terrorism czar SINCE BUSH THE ELDER! He had 9 years to do something about Bin Laden, but he thought cyber-terrorism was a bigger threat. Too bad for America. The guy should be deported to Mexico.
What's offensive about it. I enjoy my SUV, starbucks and the occasional Big Mac. Sorry if you have a problem with it, but if you are offended by it then it's probably one of many.
I spent about a week and a half in the county lockup once until they realized I was innocent and let me go. Believe you me there is no such thing as a country club jail. Being incarcerated sucks. After about 3 days of solitary confinement (all new arrivals are held seprately until they classify your security risk) and you're ready to kill yourself. After a week your ready to freak out. I can't imagine doing serious time, anything more than a few months and your brain would just be mush.
My take now is to give people an appropriate number of lashes in the city square and let em go.
My knowledge of TCP/IP is too limited to know if anonymous and efficient p2p is possible, something other layers of proxies which would just about ensure poor performance.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/opinion/01kristo f.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
China's Donkey Droppings
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.
So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?
There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.
When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.
The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.
Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.
While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.
(In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)
Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.
"China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."
The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.
"There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."
Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.
I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.
I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, tyra
By the parents definition, Drudge is a Journalist. not a blogger. He rarely comments, usually he is reporting news that you wouldn't otherwise see.
I know I snickered to myself when I saw the picture on my friends HD bigscreen and cable.
I think he's going to try the Voom service.
Does anyone know?
Suprnova.org is doing a beta of their own p2p app. keep an eye out.
I have and the place is disgusting. The smell is nearly overwhelming. There is rotting trash in the streets as well as animal and human waste. There are too many people and because of religous issues they let all manner of beast wander the streets.
Sure. They were focused on their preselected sour grapes excuse, "the machines are fixed!". They'd been complaining about Diebold et al and focused in on the relevant districts.
There were quite a few articles about progressives, democrat lawyers, and michael moore's cameramen herassing voters so that might explain it.
Is that the same 2-4 year timeframe in which the Molex flying car is expected to arrive?
We were told 95 would be a flop, 2000 would flop, XP would flop. Instead they keep on dominating.
What's going to replace it? Surely not Linux Distribution of the month.
He seems to be te perfect Democratic Underground victim.
Clarke and the Clinton administration cracked the Millenium attacks
A single solitary border patrol agent decided to search a car. Clinton/Clarke had nothing to do with it.
You mean to tell me this country of nearly a billion was able to conquor a country as powerfull as Tibet? Arg... I'm gunna be way to afraid to sleep tonight.
You must have an odd definition on character assasination. As best as I can tell, 9/11 was as much Richard Clarke's fault as anyone else's.
Clarke was the counter-terrorism czar SINCE BUSH THE ELDER! He had 9 years to do something about Bin Laden, but he thought cyber-terrorism was a bigger threat. Too bad for America. The guy should be deported to Mexico.
Class action baby. Let's sue the hell out of the monitor manufacturers. This will be bigger than aesbestos and silicone implants combined!
What's offensive about it. I enjoy my SUV, starbucks and the occasional Big Mac. Sorry if you have a problem with it, but if you are offended by it then it's probably one of many.
The Inquirer article concerned the 1st Gen P4 Xeons with 1MB L3 vs P3 Xeons with 2MB L2. The article is 2 years old.
SoftSolutions was a great product.
I spent about a week and a half in the county lockup once until they realized I was innocent and let me go. Believe you me there is no such thing as a country club jail. Being incarcerated sucks. After about 3 days of solitary confinement (all new arrivals are held seprately until they classify your security risk) and you're ready to kill yourself. After a week your ready to freak out. I can't imagine doing serious time, anything more than a few months and your brain would just be mush.
My take now is to give people an appropriate number of lashes in the city square and let em go.
and it would have become law. By signing it, he gave his support.
Maj. Ed Dames' astral body may come kick you in the nuts.
Uncle Sam controls the root servers, and it's not giving them up. End of story.
My knowledge of TCP/IP is too limited to know if anonymous and efficient p2p is possible, something other layers of proxies which would just about ensure poor performance.
Can anyone comment (intelligently?)
President Carter was the one to popularize nyü-ky&-l&r and he was a nuclear engineer.
thanks for the correctiion.
I haven't been using the latest release, but I thought it had been updated?