The Soul of China: "Harmony."

Nicholas D. Kristof wrote, along with wife Sheryl Wudunn, the most nuanced, insightful book on China of the post-Mao era, China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994).  Since then, Mr. Kristof has become an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. That prestigious sinecure surely has been blessing for Mr. Kristof personally, but not so much for his writing which has often been bloated, as sometimes happens to people themselves in middle-age, twee, and Mr. Kristof had a fair helping of that too even before op-ed-dom (see e.g., writing a book with your wife), and, as consequence of both, annoying.  When Mr. Kristof returns to the subject of China however, he regains his fighting trim. What is, and always has been, wonderful about Mr. Kristof’s writing on China is his pugnacious stance toward the regime. He first entered China by hopping off a train in the countryside and outrunning the gendarmes and as he put it in China Wakes, “it has been a struggle with the authorities ever since."  And it is to him that is owed credit for the—absolutely accurate—re-conceptualization of post-Mao China as fascist.

So with that glory-filled introduction we now get around to the subject of this post, Mr. Kristof’s op-ed article yesterday, “Banned in Beijing!” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/opinion/23kristof.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1295795404-qFhJXwnkvdVdptsLv4FoIw

The guy started a Chinese-language blog on a Chinese server.  Hah!  

Mr. Kristof wanted to test the limits of China’s Great Firewall. His blog “contains counterrevolutionary praise of dissidents. Now let’s count—1,2,3…--and see how long my blog stays up.”  He-he-he-he. Love this guy (when he's not writing like a dolt and when he's not working out at Dunkin’ Donuts). 

In the article, Mr. Kristof reveals some of the clever, hilarious, ways that Chinese get around verboten subjects: “June 4” for example becomes “May 35.”  Hah-hah-hah-hah.

Alas, Mr. Kristof’s blog, at http://blog.sina.com.cn/jisidao lasted only one day after he wrote his op-ed article on it in the Times. He remains optimistic: “the Internet will one day be remembered as helping to transform China, byte by byte. Let a billion blogs bloom.”

I am not optimistic. I do not believe that there are enough Chinese who care about having a free country.