The Chinese Communist Party isn't that bad.....

Stepping off the plane onto pristine tarmac and choking smog it must be easy to miss the signs of a country locked in a bitter fight with its ruling party. In this developing nation surrounded by the latest cellphones and consumer culture, you can see why people may ease their views of the CCP. And yes, China is still developing according to Pascal Lamy the EU Trade Commissioner. It is true that China is opening up its markets, most importantly it’s domestic ones and that it is trying to develop a transparent legal system. I’m sure for the majority of Chinese citizens life is generally agreeable. For those that live in the larger cities, have good jobs and the latest iPhone, life is comparable to a similarly placed Comrade in any developed nation, or even the US. So China is fine, that is unless you choose to believe in the next science Falun Gong, or believe that those pesky monks in Tibet should be able to have their country back (or at least be able to protest against its occupation) or if you don’t think their pseudo-communist ideals are quite the way for a super-power. This is still a country where the civil servant is perhaps the most dangerous person, one infraction of party policy can mean you simply disappear and thousands do. And then you get to news censorship, ever third person in London today has a blog, a concept any Chinese person would undoubtedly find very odd and it’s easy to see why. If you discount every blog that attacks the Government there would only be those inhabited by people who read a newspaper back to front (and I don’t mean Arabs). The BOCOG (Beijing Organising Committee for the Games) displayed its lack of any dignity today releasing a press report so warped by censorship and propaganda it was painful to read. It refers to the tragic incident involving the family of the US Men’s volleyball coach who were attacked and killed. It quickly points out it was a Chinese man who then committed suicide afterwards, crime is so much simpler in authoritarian states, it’s always portrayed as and I quote, as ‘rare and tragic’ and always handled in such a way that closure is immediately had. Further statements such as the ‘police were notified and arrived immediately’ had the sickly stench of propaganda as though this was something that deserves praise! Closing with a statement confirming the safety of the city it certainly seems likely the smog will get you long before a killer will. So would you really want to live in a country where there’s no point in buying a newspaper because it includes less truth than the Mail or where the very people charged with protecting you are actually the most dangerous. So to all the athletes saying it’s really not that bad while drinking protein shakes in their Olympic compound, just think of the peasants thrown off the land to starve or the people that died to give China its Olympic dream. Franklin