Anju, May 19, 2012

IT’S BEING REPORTED THAT Chen Guangcheng is on his way to the United States. This is great news, and it won’t be lost on the Chinese people where Chen went when he feared the thugs of his own government. I suppose credit is due to the Obama Administration for negotiating this solution, but credit is also due to the Congress, which was making an election-year issue of the Administration’s initial bungling of the matter. In the end, China decided it was better to let Chen go than to invite Mitt Romney to make him a symbol of China’s brutality, and Obama’s refusal to confront it.

I AM SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find that North Korea is still selling weapons to Burma and Syria.

I STILL DON’T REALLY KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON with those Chinese fisherman in North Korean custody, but it’s interesting that the Chinese government hasn’t done a very good job of suppressing the news or the reaction of the Chinese Street. Recently, with the Chen Guangcheng and Bo Xilai stories, public interest has over-saturated the state’s capacity to censor information. According to this report, the North Koreans made a ransom demand for the fisherman, and if that’s true, it suggests the possibility that North Korean military units have branched out into piracy.