A Stitch in Haste

Fark sums it up nicely:

Brit who has spent years trying to convince foreigners that China is not as repressive as Western media often portray it to be has been ordered to stop publication of his newsletter by Chinese media censors.

Details:

The newsletter, China Development Brief, has a staff of 11 people in Beijing who monitor a wide range of news related to poverty alleviation, environmental protection, family planning, international aid programs, and Chinese civil organizations. It publishes Chinese and English editions in print and on the Internet.

Nick Young, who founded the publication in 1995 and edits its English-language edition, said a dozen officials representing the Beijing police and the local statistical bureau told him last week that the newsletter had conducted "unauthorized surveys," which they deemed a violation of a 1983 law on gathering statistics.

Gathering statistics is a crime? Go figure -- well, perhaps not.

China Development Brief did not have a license to publish in China, and its staff members were not registered as news correspondents, meaning that the newsletter had long operated without obtaining the permits that are required for larger publications.

As I have said before: Freedom of the press requires the freedom to own a press. Here we see how the reverse is also true: What good is the freedom to own a press if one is not free to use it?

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Meanwhile:

China's Communist Party, which holds a monopoly on power in the country, said that it added 2.6 million new members last year, the official Xinhua news agency said. That brings total membership to 72.39 million. The party's organization department said the new members were selected from 19 million applicants and that applications had increased 7 percent over the prior year. Despite the growth in China's market economy, party membership is still widely viewed as the way to open doors, cultivate influence and secure high positions in government and state-affiliated companies.

These numbers -- only about 7% of the population actually get to be Communists -- are comparable to the Soviet Union's percentages.

Maybe, just maybe, that's because China itself is comparable to the Soviet Union?

It's quite simple really: It's not a "free market" if you need party credentials to partake in it. "Market-based Communism" is an insolent contradiction in terms.

The poor schmucks at China Development Brief found that out the hard way. When will the rest of China's apologists?