CHINA

Fighting China's silicon curtain Numerous efforts are under way in the West to help Chinese web users get around China's censorship of the internet

China does have some conservative traditions: "Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu advised political rulers to rule with the lightest touch: Administer the empire by engaging in no activity. The more taboos and prohibitions there are in the world, The poorer the people will be. The more laws and orders are made prominent, The more thieves and robbers there will be. Therefore the sage [ruler] says: I take no action and the people of themselves are transformed. I engage in no activity and the people of themselves become prosperous."

Christopher Lingle's review of "EAST AND WEST: China, Power, and the Future of Asia", by Christopher Patten: "Patten exposes the proponents of "Asian values" as apologists for authoritarian rule. He stresses that it is inappropriate to attach regional adjectives when discussing essentially universal human values and human (individual) rights. Such references only reinforce racial divisiveness and do little to enhance our understanding of how Asia's economies have developed"

Autocratic Ghosts and Chinese Hunger" by Bryan Caplan: "Only twelve years into his thirty-year reign, Mao Zedong surpassed Joseph Stalin as history's leading mass murderer, according to evidence released recently by the People's Republic of China."

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