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7 January 2009: Thou Shall Put No Other Gods Before Me

FOR THE EIGHTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR, the Christian NGO Open Doors has ranked North Korea the world’s worst place to be a Christian.

You can’t understand North Korea until you grasp that it’s a theocracy — a cult with nuclear weapons and a seat in the General Assembly. Open Doors, by the way, has actively supported human rights in North Korea for years. They’ve long been one of the most dedicated groups working on this issue, often making their impact felt in Congress.

ROBERT PARK’S FAMILY ASKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS and good wishes.  I have reservations about what Robert Park did, but I have no reservations about Robert Park’s intentions or about encouraging prayers for his safe return.

GORDON CHANG, WRITING IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, thinks the North Korean regime won’t survive the crisis provoked by the Great Confiscation. He may be right if Kim Jong Il loses the support of the people with the guns, but if Chang thinks (as he seems to) that Kim Jong Il could be deposed in a popular uprising, he’s mistaken. It will take an organized, broad-based, opposition to topple him, and even that will only succeed if the opposition can manage to undermine the loyalty of the security forces.

THE OLD VIEW OF CHINA was that economic growth would melt away its hostility. The new view of China is that economic growth allowed it to retool from Maoism to fascism and made it arrogant, nationalist, and more hostile than ever. The old China was a danger to its people. The new China is also a danger to our people, and it’s our money that created this danger. Note the quotation of Shen Dingli, who held up Beijing’s green light immediately before North Korea’s nuclear test, notwithstanding China’s pretense that it’s helping us disarm Kim Jong Il.

AS IT TURNED OUT, IRAN’S FATE was not decided on New Year’s Day, but here’s some interesting video of Iranian protestors confronting Basij thugs.

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6 Responses

  1. Mr. Stanton, in my humble opinion the “arrogant, nationalist and hostile” label fits the US much better. Arrogant – “We are born to lead the world”; nationalist – “America is the best country in the world! American interest uber alles!”; hostile – “You are either with us or against us. Don’t you dare to mess with America! You will suffer the consequences!”

    While I am totally against sentencing Liu Xiaobo for another 11 years, I am completely with the Chinese government in terms of carrying out the death penalty on any convicted drug smuggler. It’s about time the Chinese rid themselves of this sick inferiority complex which turned them into zombies who are obsessed with outside opinion.

    By the way where is that petition to Obama or your congressman to expel the Chinese ambassador? I will sure sign it.

  2. As it happens, I don’t object to the execution of drug dealers or Mr. Khan in particular. Drug trafficking kills people, and I can justify killing those who are duly convicted of it by competent evidence.

    But China’s most dangerous arrogance is its arrogance toward its own people. Chinese officials aren’t accountable to anyone but other faceless Mandarins. If the system abuses a person, the person can’t even complain for fear of arrest. China doesn’t allow town meetings, petitions, protests, mid term elections, or any other kind of elections. Grievances aren’t ventilated, so all the regime can do is whip up nationalist antagonism toward foreign enemies. Absent any real accountability toward its own people, the Chinese government cultivates a culture of arrogance toward everyone it deals with — Chinese or otherwise.

  3. Looking at that Christian blacklist, it’s worth noting that with the possible exceptions of Laos and maybe the Maldives, all of those states would rank as the worst places on earth to be a human being. Sad to see India (28) so high on the list.

    China’s execution of the mentally ill Khan was not surprising, but it is FAR from the worst miscarriage of justice seen in the PRC in any given week.

  4. “China doesn’t allow town meetings, petitions, protests, mid term elections, or any other kind of elections.”

    Wrong. There have been so many protests and petitions, so many that the Chinese government has lost count (said to be around 90,000 a year according to some foreign NGOs). And there are low-level (village-level) elections.

    But I agree with you in general that the Chinese government needs to be more accountable and transparent.