Obama says Tibet is part of China

Now I have never been a huge Free Tibet advocate, but many progressive Obama supporters are, and this comes as the latest in a long string of middle fingers from Obama to his liberal base. Turley notes that Obama, in a break from past presidents, has affirmed Tibet as being part of China. Never let anyone tell you that Obama hasn't worked for change... for the worse.

China's "HOWTO abuse people" document revealed

The tactics of the “urban management officers” are now in print, as a Chinese newspaper has published a government document about how to rough up dissenters. Something tells me a few editors are going to get a little visit from the government soon, but let's hope not.

China shuts down leading Chinese civil rights organization

No one mistakes the Chinese government as a friend of human rights, so it is unfortunate, though not entirely surprising, that it has shut down the Open Constitution Initiative.

Chinese surveillance one-ups itself

Chinese citizens must now must have their picture taken and id card scanned when entering an Internet cafe. This in addition to, you know, being constantly monitored by their government while on the internet, being monitored by big mamas and the whole blocking access to any kind of information that interferes with the regime's dogma thing. Oh, and these details are entered into a city-wide database. Just when you thought Chinese surveillance couldn't get any more intrusive...

eBay linked to Chinese text-message surveillance

Man, if one Silicon Valley giant after another isn't caught red-handed aiding Chinese government evildoers. This time it is eBay, who in a joint venture with a Chinese company owns the company that operates the Tom-Skype text messaging system. Apparently the Tom-Skype system was logging user-identifiable messages that contained certain topics that might be critical of the Chinese government. Luckily, the New York Times article that mentions it at least has the decency to mention the NSA is doing the same thing over here, avoiding the rank hypocrisy that permeates much American coverage of Chinese government policy.

Coverage:
Seth Finkelstein
New York Times

Nike tries to out anonymous Chinese blogger

This is quite an interesting interplay indeed going on between China an US Corporations. Some, such as Yahoo, are taking fire for outing formerly anonymous Internet commentators and do so only when they have to. Others, such as Nike, jump at the chance to subvert freedom of speech. Nike is trying to co-opt the Chinese government to out an anonymous blogger who said some not-so-nice things about their brand. It's sad to see American corporations to stoop to the level of an oppressive authoritarian state, but I guess I should have seen it coming. Something tells me China won't have much a problem complying with Nike's request, given all the other ways in which they mistreat their citizens.

"We want to act to protect our brand reputation in the same way as any corporation would want to if people were posting or writing false accusations," [the Nike spokesperson] said. "This isn't about a debate on freedom of speech. It's simply helping us to identify the person who posted it."

Sure this isn't about freedom of speech... if you're brain dead.