Zeng Jinyan sees Hu Jia in prison

According to zengjinyan.org, Zeng Jinyan saw Hu Jia at Beijing Municipal Prison yesterday afternoon, for about thirty minutes. Hu told her that he had a blood test last week, but didn’t know the result yet. He had used a certain antiviral drug *) for two years, and the prison physician advised him to change the drug.

Hu Jia said that living conditions at Beijing Municipal Prison were better than at Chaobai Prison, although there was no supply of hot water at the showers.

Hu Jia hasn’t started working in prison yet and is currently studying every day.

Ms Zeng also was informed that Hu Jia’s nineteenth letter had been confiscated. The prison administration asked Hu and his family people to discuss issues which were favorable for Hu Jia.

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*) apparently Heptodin; JR

Asian-European Meeting to discuss Financial Crisis

India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh is off to Beijing to attend the Asian-European-Meeting (ASEM) summit, and so are, among others, the President of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar, President of Bulgaria Georgi Parvarov, besides Italian and Vietnamese Prime Ministers Romano Prodi and Nguyen Tan Dung, and Pakistan’s prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, according to the Economic Times / Times of India. I think the esteemed paper’s European database isn’t exactly up to date – I wish it was Prodi for Italy – in fact, it will probably be Slick Silvio. (Personally, I think the paper ought to be forgiven – a country that votes people like Berlusconi into the Palazzo Chigi twice hardly deserves regular updates.)

ASEM is basically a grouping of 27 European Union Members, 10 ASEAN members, the three North-East Asian members – China, Japan and South Korea. Singh hopes for cooperation between the attending countries to address common vulnerabilities “to infirmities in international surveillance, supervision and regulatory mechanisms in the future”.

While the financial crisis (and global warming) are said to be ranking high on the German agenda, human rights issues will also matter for chancellor Merkel. “She’ll bring it up,” says deputy government spokesment Thomas Steg.

German parliament’s Green parliamentary group secretary Volker Beck is critical of what he sees as disagreements between chancellor Merkel (CDU) and foreign minister Steinmeier (SPD). Such disagreements had a negative impact on Germany’s international standing, according to Beck. Merkel had met the Dalai Lama in the chancellery last year – Steinmeier is said to have been critical of the high-profile meeting.

On Saturday, US president Bush announced a summit of world leaders. Bush and China’s chairman Hu talked on the phone the day before yesterday.

Net Nanny: Thanks, Mr Fallows…

No unhealthy stuff

… but no, thanks! Thanks for your nice try to understand how we are ticking, but »you are wrooong. You seem to believe that we, the Guardians of the Chinese People against Unhealthy Stuff, would actually like to please you more than we ended up doing during the Olympics. Well, OK, there were some wussies in our ranks who did want to please you by subtle influence of the sort that would have made strategists from Sun Tzu onward proud, as you like to put it. But fortunately, our patriotic officials stood up to your arrogance and told you to obey our rules.

And you really think we are worried about a bad press in the laowai world? Our clueless subjects are, yes! That’s why we have to protect the little sissies with our Firewall! Because otherwise, they would become very, very angry and neglect their studies or get distracted from working 12 hours a day, because they’d be too busy with public protests against you, or they would feel very, very sick if they did nothing! But we, the Guardians of the Chinese people against unhealthy stuff, could care less about what you think.

Example. Do you think that we organised that Take-the-Sacred-Torch-to-Mount-Everest event because we expected it would engender Tibetan or global love and understanding for us? Maybe our subjects did expect that – I have no idea what they’re thinking, and I don’t care. (I only make sure that there are some things they will never even know about – hehe.) We took our sacred torch to that mountain just to show the Tibetans – and big noses like you for that matter – who the Boss is. Most of our subjects are Han Chinese, and although I don’t know all their thoughts yet, I can tell you this: they loved the Everest show! It made them feel like little bosses, too, and to paraphrase Ayatollah Khomeini, “to be a powerless subject to political and economic monopolists within your own country is ugly, but a dominating foreign culture would still be uglier “*). It was “Hey, Mr Bush and Mr Fallows and Mr Gyatso & serfs and Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel may not like it, but they should like it if they were decent people! And if they don’t understand and accept our greatness, let our great Mother of the Masses teach them a lesson!

That much I do know about the minds of those whom I’m here to protect agains unhealthy drivel from people like you.

You are talking about our self-inflicted damage? Haha, that’s naiiive, Mr Fallows. Let’s get a bit closer to your home, to remove the cultural obstacles in your understanding. Remember how your government announced they’d go after Saddam Hussein to collect his weapons of mass destruction, and **** those whiny opponents to the war? Your president was disappointed later when he learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, yes. Hehe. But did your government bother to find some?

You know what I mean, right? Your intelligence folks could have put some smoking guns somewhere in Iraq and call a press conference and let your smart Mr Bremer tell the world something like Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve got them! But nooooo: your government didn’t bother. You know why? Because Condi and Rummy and Cheney and Wolfie and all them folks could care less about what the world thought of them! They showed the world their contempt by saying “OK, there are no wmd, but we’ve got the bugger instead. Is Saddam good enough for you?” That’s what I’d call tin-eared, but it’s OK! We only criticise your rulers for that in public, because criticising their imperialism strikes a chord with our subjects, and makes them rally behind our imperialism!

For similar reasons, we didn’t play along with that silly plan to grant unfettered internet access in carefully chosen decadent hotels and anywhere we thought big noses would dwell. We could care less about what you think. We are creating our own reality, and more than one bn people already believe in it!

Clear enough? I hope so! And never pass this background information on to any of our subjects, or we will send you Ahmed the Dead Terrorist. This is for your eyes only.

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*) Supposedly a Khomeini quote: “War is ugly, but to be dominated by aliens is still uglier”