Michael Anti was certainly prophetic.

Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of Youtube descends on it one day.

“Indeed.”

Seemed as if 50 percent of the tweets recently have been about Tiananmen Square. I guess this was inevitable.

Update: Hotmail was blocked late this afternoon as well, and I can’t get onto Bing either. These could be entirely unrelated things, perhaps just a server issue or odd coincidence or…. We all know how erratic and irrational and unpredictable the Chinese Internet can be. That said, I’m suspicious as hell.

Oh, Flickr, too.

Update, Wednesday 11.30Am: Hotmail works now.

From today’s Times:

The South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper based in Hong Kong that has frequently featured articles on Tiananmen and other sensitive issues, has also seen its distribution on the Chinese mainland curbed in advance of the anniversary on Thursday. And some Beijing readers of last weekend’s edition of The International Herald Tribune discovered that an inside page of the newspaper with an article on the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious leader, was missing.

The anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, in which army troops killed hundreds of student demonstrators, workers and ordinary citizens, is one of a series of politically sensitive dates this year that have provoked sweeping security measures by Chinese officials.

In recent days, the government has detained a number of political dissidents seen as threats to public order during the anniversary period, including one who had released an open letter complaining about economic hardship visited on former Tiananmen demonstrators who were jailed after the crackdown.

While Hotmail is back, Bling is still down. The Times piece says Microsoft’s Live.com wasn’t working.

Because that’s as good as I can do at the moment. Leave your links and comments and anything else here.

I’m having a debate with a commenter/blogger about that topic over here. Very interesting, especially considering the great pains to which China is going to make sure the US gets 100 percent of the blame. And let me add, I believe the US deserves the lion’s share of the blame. But when you keep repeating it ad nauseum and reflexively, people begin to wonder what the motivation is. To those who say, “But it’s true!” I would respond with an analogy: It’s also true, for example, that Hillary Clinton is a white woman, but to add a parenthetical phrase about that every time her name comes up would be bizarre. “Today Hillary Clinton, who is a white woman, met with so and so…” That’s what the Chinese media are doing across the board with the economic crisis. “Washing machine manufacturers in Dongguan are losing their jobs due to the global recession, which the US caused.” “The crisis, which was caused by greedy bankers on Wall Street, may go on for years.” Again, it’s factually not inaccurate, but journalistically absurd. It’s called overkill.

Back to the debate – check it out and you can leave your comments there.

A non-China quickie during a workbreak. Seconds ago this article in the NY Times jumped out at me for its dramatic headline, and then for the big hole in the opening grafs.

4 Accused of Bombing Plot at Bronx Synagogues

Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, provided by an informant with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The arrests capped what officials described as a “painstaking investigation” that began in June 2008 involving an F.B.I. agent who had been told by a federal informant of the men’s desire to attack targets in America. As part of the plot, the men intended to fire stinger missiles at military aircraft at the base, which is at Stewart International Airport, officials said.

Alright. We all know the inverted pyramid of journalism, the importance of who, what, where, when, how and, if possible, why. All of that is supposed to be delivered upfront, hopefully in the lede. Not here. The immediate question I had the second I saw the headline was, Who planned the bombing and what was their motivation? Were these Islamists or skinheads or an enraged former employee or…? But to find out, you have to look a full ten grafs down:

They are all Muslim, a law enforcement official said.

Mr. Cromitie, who is of Afghan descent, had told the informant that he was upset about the war in Afghanistan and that that he wanted to “do something to America.” Cromitie stated “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already,” according to the complaint.

The point isn’t about Muslims or Jews. It’s about what appears to be the media’s insistence on tiptoeing around what they see as sensitive topics. But to bury in the 10th graf some of the most revealing and useful information, stuff readers expect to see in the first, is inexplicable. I’m trying to imagine a report on the first arrests made for the September 11 attacks, but not mentioning Al Qaeda or the suspect’s home countries until midway into the story. Impossible. In this story, the suspects are simply referred to generically as “the men,” without a word of background, until halfway through.

This is not the way they taught us at NYU Journalism School.

(Note, I use a question mark in the title because maybe it really is good journalism and I’m just not seeing it. A part of me says the NYT couldn’t be so amateurish, and I must be missing something.)

The Internet has slowed down dramatically here in Beijing and everyone I know is complaining. Blogspot/Blogger are nicely blocked again. A search for “tank man” on google immediately makes the screen go white. Even my daily email of google alerts of sites linking to mine won’t open, and makes the screen go white. And yet, a search for “Tiananmen Square massacre” is fine, and you can even get onto this site with no problem.

The consensus seems to be that they’re tightening things up as the big day gets closer, funneling just about everything through the filter as they sniff out unharmonious content. But it seems, as usual, random and irrational. And soooo annoying.

I’m kind of baffled by a post over at one of my favorite blogs on China’s controversial quarantining of Mexicans (and later some travelers from Canada as well).

The general theme seems to be that these measures are overly aggressive.

Yet six years ago, when the SARS virus was spreading through China, the government’s response was widely criticized as not aggressive enough: it was “evasive and tardy“. Many interpreted this as par for the course from communists, and the lesson the Weekly Standard took away, for example, was: “Democratic, accountable, transparent governments do a lot better at dealing with a health crisis than a Communist one.”

Although the Chinese government is perhaps more resilient than most when it comes to ignoring international ignominy, they certainly didn’t look good, and of course, they also had their citizens to answer to.

When the swine flu stories broke, China was ready. Armed with experience from the SARS epidemic, the government acted swiftly and aggressively, issuing a notice requiring people with flu symptoms who were flying into China from affected areas to report to quarantine authorities. They issued notices on prevention, stocked drugs and researched quick and accurate tests. They even donated aid to help Mexico, despite unsubstantiated reports from that country and others claiming that the origin of the swine flu virus was China.

Okay. I’m all for screening and acting aggressively – if you also act intelligently and rationally. And I’m always in favor of donations for worthy causes. But this is a pretty flawed argument.

The response to SARS by the CCP cannot simply be described as “evasive and tardy,“ although it was each of those things. More importantly, however, is that it was criminal, it was consciously and inexcusably irresponsible, it led to unnecessary deaths and hysteria, it was a shining example of the party holding the idiotic spectacle of its annual rubber-stamp National Party Congress above the health and well being of its citizens. It was a cover-up that so shocked the world that the government is still struggling to recover its tarnished image.

So it’s little surprise that now they would rush to show the world how zealous and diligent they are. But I see this as akin to George W. Bush ignoring documented terrorist threats that were thrust in front of his nose weeks before 19 jihadists brought America to its knees, and then using the occasion to launch an irrational and ineffective war on terror showcasing the torture of anybody rounded up by bounty hunters in Pakistan and Afghanistan and then wasting America’s resources invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack.

Not an exact parallel (the Hu administration is smarter than Bush’s) but the basic point remains: Jumping into action and “doing something” without rhyme or reason does not show aggressive leadership. To me, it’s just the opposite. But don’t just take my word for it. The WSJ has an excellent story on China’s over-zealous attempt to show how responsive they are to the health crisis. Tell me if you think this illustrates good judgment:

Mexicans who were on the flight to Shanghai with the 25-year-old flu victim complain about how China has enforced its quarantine, offering little information and only basic medical testing. Among them is a family of five, including three young children, who transited to Beijing. They were roused from their hotel room in the Chinese capital in the early hours of Saturday and whisked to an infectious diseases hospital. There, according to the father, Carlos Doormann, AeroMéxico’s finance director, they were isolated in a room with bloodstained sheets and what appeared to be mucus smeared on the walls.

“I’m frustrated and sad,” said Mr. Doormann, whose family has since been moved to the nearby Guo Men Hotel on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, where they are in quarantine along with five other Mexican nationals, including Mr. Carrillo.

According to accounts from Mexicans in the hotel, Mexican travelers arriving on various flights from Mexico and the U.S. were singled out by health officials who boarded the aircraft wearing white protective suits, masks and rubber gloves. They led away Mexican passport holders. Several travelers said Chinese television camera crews surprised them at the doors of their aircraft as they emerged. They said the filming continued through the windows of an isolation ward at the Beijing Ditan infectious diseases hospital….Chinese authorities allowed Mexico’s ambassador to China, Jorge Guajardo, to enter the hotel on Sunday but refused him permission to see the quarantined Mexicans or to call up to their rooms, Mexican officials said.

Welcome to China.

So to make sure my point is clear: Action for action’s sake isn’t necessarily better than no action at all. Some of those rounded up in China hadn’t even been to Mexico in recent months, but the Mexican passport was grounds enough for quarantine. None of the Mexicans rounded up like criminals showed any symptoms of the sickness. They were rounded up only because they were Mexicans. And that is irrational and hysterical.

One of the most maddening defenses I’ve read of this passport-based quarantining was in a Chinese editorial claiming this was “best for the passengers” because they’ll be under close medical supervision in case they begin to show symptoms. You see, it’s all for their sake, and it’s only because we care.

Really? Let’s go back to the WSJ:

The Mexican guests at the Guo Men Hotel have had no contact with Chinese officials, except health workers, and have no idea how long they will have to stay. “We’re held hostage here,” said Mr. Doormann. Twice each day, nurses leave thermometers outside their rooms. No other medical testing is carried out.

So before we congratulate China for their bold and aggressive tactics,let’s first ask ourselves: Do these tactics actually make anyone safer? Are their actions based on science or hysteria? (And I love the way the WSJ refers to them as “the Mexican guests at the Guo An Men hotel” – maybe a bit of black humor?)

And let me add, I thought the quarantining of the hotel in Hong Kong,while extreme, at least made sense. We had an actual infection there. In Beijing, nothing. Just fear and ignorance. Kind of like police who put on latex gloves and face masks when questioning a suspect who has AIDS. I don’t applaud them for caution, I attack them for their ignorance and bigotry.

As you can see, this topic renders me humorless. Anything that brings back memories of the CCP’s bungling of SARS in 2003 has that effect. Because, as the whistleblowing hero of that ugly event can tell you, lives were at stake. People died. And it didn’t have to be; it was an executive decision to let people die so the NPC could carry on in harmony. (If you are a new reader, please see that post for a better idea of what it was like to be here during “the good old days” of SARS. It was a pivotal moment in my first stay here.)

To end on a lighter note, I absolutely loved this post about the quarantine by another great China blogger. It starts out semi-serious:

Charitably, the jury is still out on the epidemiological efficacy of quarantining the Mexicans. Uncharitably, it was a scattershot, poorly-thought-out bit of knee-jerk policy that did for Chinese-Mexican relations what the notorious P3 incident off of Hainan did for Chinese-US relations in 2002.

And then it gets very, very funny. I wish I could feel that funny today.

Update: For some excellent perspective, please go here now.

This is truly rich: copies of the light classic Mein Kampf are flying off the shelves in India as business students seek to learn the “secrets of the author’s success.” There’s a lot they can learn from him about winning friends and influencing people, not to mention problem-solving.

Dressed for success?

On a more serious note, this is thoroughly repulsive. I can see going through the torture of reading this stultifyingly turgid tome if you wanted to better understand one of the great aberrations of human history.

But the idea of emulating any of this beast’s “thoughts” and looking to him as some kind of role model is literally sickening.

Looking over the different points of view, I’d conclude simplified characters are here to stay, for better or worse.

I’ve read lots of arguments about this. I started by learning traditional characters, then had to make the switch when I moved back from Taiwan to China, and can ony speak about my own experience: Simplified characters were easier for me to learn and all in all helped accelerate my reading ability. That doesn’t mean I’m enamored with simplified characters, which can be irrational and annoying. I just know that my brain, which is much more aural than visual, processes them more easily.

Just a prediction based on what I see. (Links via Shanghaiist – in an post that further proves the point.) That’s China Daily. And it’s bolder than what you’ll see in most US dailies.

There’s something to be said for a society that isn’t blinded by the foaming-at-the-mouth intolerance of the fundamentalist religious groups (Muslims, Jews, Christians, fill in the blank). Granted many Chinese have their own customized blinders – party dogma and a culture that makes it all but impossible to tell your parents you are not getting married. But the new generation of Chinese are amazingly tolerant and they simply don’t possess the wild-eyed ideology to make them fall for such hollow nonsense as gay marriage “threatens the sanctity of traditional marriage.”

Rehabilitating one of the world’s most reviled tyrants. It’s no small task but the author’s heart is definitely in it. It’s a fascinating book review, whether you agree with it or not. Loved the last sentence:

Perhaps Chiang has emerged victorious after all. For surely today’s China resembles his vision more closely than it does Mao’s.

It’s especially interesting to read this review now, as CCTV seems practically on the verge of announcing that the long-lost baby is about to return to its mother’s arms. Definitely an interesting time to be watching Chinese media.