The Chinese Symbol for "Crisis"

The Chinese Symbol for “Crisis” is Actually Two Words — “Oh Shit”
The Washington Times (motto: “The Next Newspaper of Record”) reports that China is furthering its crackdown against religious groups.

Coming just days before born-again Christian President Bush visits, you have to wonder what the butchers of Beijing are thinking.

Perhaps the Party thinks a strong show of force will convince the new — and certainly young by Chinese standards — US President of their strength. If there’s one thing we learned dealing with the Soviets, it’s that repression is the first sign of weakness, not strength. Any regime that feels the need to beat, arrest, torture, and imprison its people just because they don’t pray in an officially-sanctioned manner is not, by definition, a strong regime. If the ChiComms can’t weather a few Christians, how are they going to last under the openess and legal rigors of WTO membership? I’m not religious, but I know the power of religion in the face of tyranny.

Or maybe the crackdown is like Reagan’s Moscow summit with Gorbachev in 1986. Just three years before the Fall of the Wall, Moscow was in bad shape — and looked it. So Soviet Planners, always quite thorough, figured out beforehand each street Reagan would see — and then re-paved and re-painted all along each route. Wherever Reagan traveled, Moscow looked good. It’s no coincidence that “Potemkin Village” is a Russian expression.

Now the Chinese are heirs to the Communist throne, to mix metaphors. Is this crackdown a way to make sure Bush doesn’t see any nasty dissent while he’s in town? The Chinese are fooling only themselves, if that. While it doesn’t make the papers, we know of the strikes and protests that occur quite often in China — away from the media, away from the rich coastal cities. And I’m sure the Chinese don’t beleive their own lies, either.

They’re just going through the motions of a dying regime.