It could only happen under the compassionate reign of Commander Codpiece.

The United States’ image is so tattered overseas two years after the Iraq invasion that communist China is viewed more favorably than the U.S. in many long-time Western European allies, an international poll has found.

The poor image persists even though the Bush administration has been promoting freedom and democracy throughout the world in recent months — which many viewed favorably — and has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in relief aid to Indian Ocean nations hit by the devastating December 26 tsunami.

“It’s amazing when you see the European public rating the United States so poorly, especially in comparison with China,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which surveyed public opinion in 16 countries, including the United States.

In Britain, almost two-thirds of Britons, 65 percent, saw China favorably, compared with 55 percent who held a positive view of the United States.

In France, 58 percent had an upbeat view of China, compared with 43 percent who felt that way about the U.S. The results were nearly the same in Spain and the Netherlands.

The United States’ favorability rating was lowest among three Muslim nations which are also U.S. allies — Turkey, Pakistan and Jordan — where only about one-fifth of those polled viewed the U.S. in a positive light.

Only India and Poland were more upbeat about the United States, while Canadians were just as likely to see China favorably as they were the U.S.

See the article for sampling info, and to see how Iraq, the McWar on Terror and the little man who started them have virtually obliterated our international image, which was so outstanding under our last “real” president.

CDN does us all a great service by posting this translation of an article by Radio Asia’s Liang Jing on Hu and Wen’s dilemma in the face of acts of brutality performed by insatiably greedy local cadres. It’s pretty obvious that they care and want to end it, but they’re caught in a web that their own beloved Party has spun.

The first thing we pick up from these events is the savagery of the local power groups. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao have repeatedly expressed open anxiety that local offi¬cials may press the people so hard they revolt. They have stressed people-centred government, a harmonious society, and tried to use “advanced-type education” to make the PRC’s scores of million government officials reflect on their misdeeds and practice self-restraint. But now it seems that the lure of material interests is really too great for these local power groups to bother with scruples, they have no hesitation in “committing crimes regardless”, adopting extreme illegal methods to deal with peasants who dare to defend their own rights and interests.

Something else we pick up from the events in Dingzhou is that the peasant revolt to safeguard their rights is robust. Despite dozens of them being killed and injured, they didn’t retreat. We can see from this that the people in some places have already been pushed to the point of having nothing to lose.

The Dingzhou mafia must really have been blinded by greed to choose such stupid means of dealing with the peasants of an area so imbued with a tradition of martial resistance. They had obviously forgotten that this was where Zhu Laozhong and his mates, heroes of the novel and film “Keep the Red Flag Flying,” were once active. But while the event may look extreme, it was certainly no accident: it occurred against the background of the “people-centred” proposals of Hu and Wen failing to result in the slightest self-restraint on the part of the local power groups. It has on the contrary only confirmed their belief that they have no tomorrow, only today to grab what they can more crazily than ever. For the most part, they do not need to do something as dumb as hiring murder squads, but use their power and influence to speed up the plunder of resources, whether it be by wantonly discharging pollution, racing into large-scale projects vastly harmful in future like dam-building, etc.. For the sake of individual personal gains of a few hundred thousand or million, the PRC’s local bigwigs do not hesitate to let society and later generations suffer losses of tens or hundreds of billions. People in the street are aware of but can do nothing about the crazed minds of such corrupt officials.

Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao are undoubtedly aware that there will be extremely ser¬ious con¬sequences if, like Jiang Zemin, they continue to allow local power groups to brazenly grab personal gain. The problem is, in the game between Hu and Wen and the local power groups, it’s becoming ever clearer that the former have been unable to come up with any effective way of containing the actions of the latter.

This is an awesome article and required reading. It inevitably brings to mind the ongoing debate about the New Leftists. It’s nice to think that market forces and trickle-down money will ameliorate the catastrophic plight of the oppressed villagers as the pie “grows higher.” But I don’t believe it for a minute.

I know, I’m quoting her a lot lately, but she is the most prominent blogger on China (as a former CNN journalist there) and she has a lot to say. Today she clarifies her position on Cisco and Microsoft and other US corporations so eager to tap into the China Dream they forget about their own codes of ethics.

I am not calling for a boycott of China or of Cisco or any other companies. I am calling for closer scrutiny of exactly what is being sold directly to whom, and to what extent U.S. companies knowingly sell technologies to Chinese state-controlled entities who are obviously going to use the equipment or software for censorship and surveillance purposes. I want to know if these companies are providing service or customization which would make it clear that they know exactly how those technologies are going to be used – despite public claims of innocence and clean hands.

I agree, China is better off – and the future of democracy in China is better off – thanks to the existence of Cisco routers in China. But to me, there is an important difference between selling routers to China and providing software services to China in general – with the understanding that one can’t control how the technology ultimately gets used – and the sale of technology directly to Chine.

It’s her best post yet and there’s a lot more to it. I love the way she caps it all off:

Why does this matter? Our President says that America stands for freedom and democracy, and that we are prepared to sacrifice the lives of our men and women to uphold these values around the globe. Yet at the same time, our corporations aren’t asked to forego a penny of potential profit for the sake of these values. They dishonor our men and women in uniform and our hard-working diplomats trying to represent us under difficult and often dangerous circumstances. No wonder so many people around the world think Americans are hypocrites.

Now that is a novel idea. Ask American corporations to live up to the ideals our leader is so quick to blather on about, and maybe even ask them to make some sacrifices to show the world these ideals are more than hot air. Sacrifice profits? What planet is she living on?

This is a guest post from a reader in Taiwan. The writer’s views don’t necessarily reflect my own (personally, I wouldn’t call the PRC “Communist China” anymore), but the piece sheds light on what must often be going on in the minds of many people living in Taiwan today.

The roar of F-16s practicing drills in Taiwan is deafening, reassuring
by Dan Bloom

Chiayi Cit, Taiwan — The apartment where I live in Chiayi City in
southern Taiwan is just a few kilometers away from one of the
country’s Air Force bases, with F-16s practicing take-off and landings
almost seven days a week, and flying high above the Chianan Plain with
ear-piercing roars. I don’t mind the sound of the military jets taking
off early in the morning or even at night, because I know that
Taiwan’s Air Force is playing a vital role in the nation’s defense.

But the daily sound of the F-16s from the nearby Air Force base remind
me of my childhood in Massachusetts, during the old days of the Cold
War between the U.S. and the USSR, because my parents’ home was close to an important American military base for massive B- 52 bombers and other kinds of military jets. As a teenager in the 1960s, I knew that
if Russia attacked the USA mainland, this local Air Force base —
Westover Air Force Base, it was called — would be main target of
Moscow’s missiles and bombs, and I sometimes had nightmares about an imaginary Cold War attack.

My father, now a retired doctor, used to make medical rounds at
Westover Air Force Base, and occasionally he asked me to accompany him in the car during the drive to the base. When he would go inside the base to check on some injured or sick airmen, I would stay in the car, reading a book or doing my homework, and gaze out at the huge military aircraft on the runways.

When I hear the F-16s in Chiayi whizzing by, sometimes in single plane
against the blue sky and sometimes two or three or four planes flying
together, I remember those old days of the Cold War in my hometown in
Massachusetts, and I think to myself: “God forbid a war should ever
break out between Taiwan and China! Chiayi City will be one of the main targets, of course!”

I don’t think there ever will be a war between the two countries, but
I am not a military expert or a diplomat or an anylyst for Jane’s
Defence Weekly. I just live here, work here, mind my own business, hope for the best, cheer Taiwan on!

But some people think there could be a war someday between Taiwan and China, and that Taiwan is immensely unprepared and ill-equipped.
Wendell Minnick, writing for Jane’s Defence Weekly, recently wrote
that, in his opinion as a military analyst, “Taiwan’s air force has
enough munitions to last only for two days in a war with China.” Ouch.
Two days is not a very long time to try to win a war.

Minnick goes even further in his observations, opining that if Taiwan
remains unprepared and under-equipped for a future war with communist China, Taiwan will be “raped” by Beijing if a war ever does break out. He actually used that word — rape — writing that as things stand now, in terms of this nation’s military preparedness, munitions and equipment, “in a war with China, China will rape Taiwan.”

I hope that the Air Force base in Chiayi County will not become the
Westover Air Force Base of my childhood, and I have faith that the
governments of Taiwan and China will make peace someday, rather than
war, although one must await the democratization of the PRC and the
collapse of the Communist Party of China before that ever happens.

In the meantime, on any given day in quiet, agricultural Chiayi, where
large farms predominate along with rural temples and rice paddies, one
can hear the roar of the locally-based F-16s taking off and flying
overhead on their regular practice runs. The sound of the roaring jet
engines is both noisy and reassuring, because I know that the young
men piloting these sleek, powerful planes are practicing in order
defend their homeland, if it should ever come to that, and that is
always a good thing.

Let’s hope good sense comes to the leaders of communist China someday soon, and the sooner the better. No Taiwanese military pilot wants to buy a “one-way ticket” to China, as Jane’s Defence Weekly
characterized the cynicism that sometimes prevails among defense
analysts.

Thank God that while terrorists kill our soldiers in Iraq and the economy continues to worsen for those without trust funds, our government has the fortitude to focus on the really important stuff, those life and death issues so vitally important to all of us. What would we do without them?

Some more seemingly good news from Shengyou, where the villagers on June 11 successfully mobilized against busloads of hired thugs who sought to terrorize them.

Police have arrested 22 people over a deadly mob attack on a village whose residents have refused to leave their land to make way for a power plant, Xinhua news agency reported.

A construction contractor and 21 accomplices were arrested in the northern Hebei province and are being charged with killing six farmers and wounding 51 in the pre-dawn clash, it said.

The contractor, identified only as Zhang, was arrested by police in Dingzhou city after he allegedly hired up to 300 thugs to descend on Shengyou village on June 11, Xinhua said.

The attackers — mostly men in their twenties, armed with hunting rifles, clubs and sharpened metal pipes, and wearing construction helmets — were transported in six buses to the raid.

Sharpened metal pipes. How charming.

You don’t often hear about the police taking actions like this to see that justice is done on behalf of the poor farmers. A part of me is still a bit skeptical and cynical, because so often the police are the ones initiating the violence against the peasants. (If you go back to the original article, you’ll see that the mercenary captured by the villagers begged them not to turn him over to the police who, he said, would kill him for confessing his crimes.)

So is this an example of the police standing up against the rich land-grabbers and fighting to protect the peasants? Or is it a smokescreen? I’ll give the police the benefit of the doubt for now.

She’s mad as hell (her blog is on Typepad) and she’s not going to take it anymore. She puts a lot of the blame on Cisco and other companies that facilitate the censorship, but she acknowledges it’s an extremely complex issue.

The Chinese government is mainly to blame for this, but it’s important to consider the way in which U.S. technology is being used to stifle free speech in China – and the extent to which U.S. companies are responsible for this usage. This includes not only Microsoft, but also Cisco Systems and others.

….Cisco denies direct complicity. There is also an argument to be made that the existence of Cisco routers in China on the whole has done more to facilitate free speech than to stifle it.

It’s a complicated issue. We need greater scrutiny of U.S. tech companies in China by bloggers, journalists, human rights activists, and anybody who cares about free speech and corporate accountability. We need more information about what these companies actually know when they are selling their products and services. To what extent are they actively providing service and support for uses that are clearly aimed to stifle free speech?

She recommends we write our congressmen, but I somehow suspect they couldn’t care less. Some good comments follow Rebecca’s post.

Never a dull moment as the Chen saga continues.

A former Chinese diplomat seeking asylum in Australia broke down and cried at a news conference in Sydney on Wednesday, saying he believed Canberra and Beijing had agreed to send him back to China.

“I am really scared. I don’t know what to do,” said an emotional Chen Yonglin, the former political affairs consul at the Chinese consulate in Sydney.

“I have witnessed so many under the table deals between the Australian government and Chinese diplomats I truely sense I will be betrayed or sold out by the Australian government,” said Chen.

Chen made public his bid for asylum on June 4 at a Sydney rally to mark the anniversary of the 1989 crushing of Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said on Wednesday no decision had yet been made on the asylum request, but Chen was not convinced.

“I feel I may have already been sold out. They have reached an agreement to send me back to China,” he said.

Chen said he feared for his safety if he was returned to China. “It is possible I may face dire consequences,” he said.

…Chen, who has been in hiding with his wife and young daughter, said his life has been a “living hell” since leaving the consulate. He said he had decided to hold a news conference because he was desperate for help.

“Who can help me? I don’t know,” he said. Chen said he was interviewed by an immigration official last Thursday, but had heard nothing since and believed his fate had already been decided.

“I am sandwiched between two major countries,” he said. “I feel I have no choice (but to go public) because I feel my protection application is going to be rejected.”

Play actor or justifiably terrified hero? As usual with this story, all I can say is “I don’t know.”

Gordon may be able to help you.

Go see Simon’s response to my post on the New Leftists, and the comments. And be sure to leave your own.