If the Communist Party of China which rules absolutely over the People's Republic of China says awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the imprisoned democrat Liu Xiaobo, then we of the Western democracies should advocate in Dr. Liu's behalf.

We of course would do more than advocate in the behalf of a specific or particular individual, altho awarding the Peace Prize to Dr Liu Xiaobo might help him by shortening his miserable incarceration in some remote dungeon and camp of "re-education by labor" of the People's Republic of China.

Dr. Liu is of course a prominent embodiment of the Western Liberal idea of a free and open discourse, of democracy, of free and unfettered debate and discussion, of the human right to freely and openly exchange ideas in the marketplace of ideas. Dr. Liu is the thesis and the CPC/PRC is the antithesis of this proven successful formula to having a free and prosperous society and a democratic government which is accountable directly to the sovereign citizens who have agreed to create it for the purpose of serving the people.

Awarding the prize to the political prisoner Dr. Liu Xiaobo would draw the attention of the world to the fact that the economically developing CPC/PRC continues to remain the 5000 year old repressive dictatorship it always has been, that the CPC/PRC offers nothing new or better to the world than does the West - indeed, that the CPC/PRC are a reactionary force of human history in their bedrock belief in authoritarianism and repression, in their rule by absolute diktat.

It might also shut up those haters of the USA who like to think they can put down the US by citing the rise of the CPC/PRC as an economic power. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the political prisoner Dr. Liu would remind everyone globally that the CPC/PRC is more than a rising economic and political power, that it is in fact an authoritarian anti-democratic regime of dictators who are ruthless cutthroat tyrants. After all, who in a Western democracy, or in rising democracies of East Asia and elsewhere would be long term imprisoned for advocating and exercising free speech?

Dr. Liu Xiaobo advocates democracy in the CPC/PRC and gets a long prison term. Now that's one hellova tyranny that the world needs to pause to focus on.

Awarding Dr. Liu the Nobel Peace Prize also would help the other signers and supporters of the Charter 08.

Few matters globally are as important to peoples and governments everywhere as is drawing the attention of the world to the unyielding belief of the elites of the Jung Gwo (the Chinese) in authoritarian rule for everyone globally. This belief is the ultimate purpose of the Jung Gwo in the world, for the world, by the Jung Gwo.

We must check and limit it now.

Award the Nobel Peace Prize of 2010 to the miserably imprisoned democrat Dr. Liu Xiaobo of the miserably and eternally authoritarian and cruelly repressive People's Republic of China.

Boy I hope Liu Xiaobo wins... then the big story next day would be Liu Xiaobo took over 650k from the US to advocate abolition of China's constitution.

Under our own law (FARA), financial sponsorship by foreign power, in part or whole, substantiates foreign agent status. But such law to safeguard our sovereignty doesn't apply to China, right?

Evidence of Liu Xiaobo taking several hundred thousand dollars from the US government is available in the NED's own China grant publication.

Now, how would we feel if China paid someone to advocate abolition of the US constitution? Give him the Nobel Peace Prize?

Thanks for calling this China's first Nobel. The Dalai Lama has won one -- but then, as your headline acknowledges, Tibet is not part of China.

Barry, Liu is not calling for abolition of the Chinese constitution but for its fulfillment in the end of one-party rule.

The only thing Nobel foundation manages with this prize is to ridicule itself. Just hours after the award all the media is hailing it as an "achievement" that "deals a huge blow" to the Chinese "antidemocratic" system. It does not. China can just shrug his shoulders and leave that guy in prison to rot.

What would the US do if a Guantanamo detainee (who is held there without trial, unlike Liu, I might add) got the prize? Would they release him immediately, parade him as a hero and give in to all his demands? Most certainly not. So what was the Nobel committee thinking? Sorry, my bad: it is the same bunch who gave Obama the prize last year, so they've surely given up on thinking years ago.

Chinese dissident wins Nobel Peace Prize
By the CNN Wire Staff
October 8, 2010 -- Updated 1341 GMT (2141 HKT)

Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel Peace Prize

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Wife: "I never dreamed about this"

His lawyer worries the win may mean a longer prison term

CNN is blacked out in China as the winner is announced

Liu Xiaobo is serving an 11-year prison term

(CNN) -- The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Liu Xiaobo, a leading Chinese dissident who is serving an 11-year prison term after repeatedly calling for human rights and democratization, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.

Liu was sentenced in 2009 for inciting subversion of state power. He is the co-author of Charter 08, a call for political reform and human rights, and was an adviser to the student protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Liu's wife, Liu Xia, told CNN she could not wait to visit him in prison in northern China and tell him the news. She said she was packing under the surveillance of police officers who have promised to take her to visit her husband the next day.

"I am totally shocked and feel so happy," she said. "I've never dreamed about this. Friends have asked me to prepare for a speech, but I've only prepared one for Xiaobo not winning the prize."

Liu Xia said she regretted her husband couldn't share the moment with her. She said he will be "surprised and humbled" to find out, but also feel "a greater sense of responsibilities" because of the great honor.

"It's an affirmation of what he has fought for," she said.

His lawyer, Shang Baojun, said the win may mean Liu will have to spend longer in prison.

"I hope that he'd be released earlier because of the prize, but in reality, that will not happen," Shang told CNN.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said the awarding of the prize to Liu was "blasphemy against the peace prize" that could harm relations between China and Norway.

"Liu Xiaobo is a convicted criminal sentenced to jail by Chinese justice. His acts are in complete contradiction to the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize," spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said.

The human rights group Amnesty International called on the Chinese government to release all "prisoners of conscience" following the win.

"Liu Xiaobo is a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. We hope it will keep the spotlight on the struggle for fundamental freedoms and concrete protection of human rights that Liu Xiaobo and many other activists in China are dedicated to," said Catherine Baber, the deputy Asia-Pacific director at Amnesty International.

It was unclear whether Liu Xiaobo had learned of his prize from prison, but he was the favorite of many around the world to win

The president of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, said Liu won for his "long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

In announcing the prize, he said, "The Norwegian Nobel Committee has long believed that there is a close connection between human rights and peace. Such rights are a prerequisite for the fraternity between nations of which (prize founder) Alfred Nobel wrote in his will."

Liu's struggle has made him the "foremost symbol" of the struggle for human rights in his country, Jagland said.

Despite the criticism from China, the committee stood by its choice and said it had expected China to react strongly.

"We have a very strong tradition of awarding the prize to human rights activists of many different kinds," Geir Lundestad, director of the Nobel Institute, told CNN.

The institute assists the committee in selecting the prize each year.

Lundestad cited German pacifist and journalist Carl von Ossietsky in 1935, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in 1986, Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, and Iranian campaigner Shirin Ebadi in 2003 as examples of human rights activists who have won the prize.

"This is a tradition we are very proud of, and this is a tradition for which the Norwegian Nobel Committee has received much applause," Lundestad said. "We felt that if we were serious about this tradition, we did have to come to terms with the question of China in this perspective, and this is what we then did this year."

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize receives 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.5 million), to be picked up at the award ceremony in December -- though it was unclear whether Liu would be allowed to attend.

Liu spoke of his work in 2007, while he was between a series of house arrests.

"From my personal angle, I feel in a dictatory society if you want to be a person with dignity, if you want to be a honest person, fight for human-rights improvement, fight for free speech, being ... [in prison] is part of what you are undertaking, and there is nothing to complain," he told CNN.

"Since you chose to do this, you must have a preparation for being in prison," he said. "Entering the prison you must face these things peacefully, not complain [about] others. I even don't complain [about those] ... who arrested me, because this is their inevitable action. I can also not let them arrest me if I chose other way."

Twitter users in China were unable to discuss Liu or the Nobel Prize on the micro-blogging site, but some still reacted to the award.

"I am so excited when I heard this news! Finally good people is recognized by the world!" wrote one Twitter user.

"They censored what I've just posted on micro blog! Can you really stop people in this Internet age!" wrote another.

At least two international television networks -- CNN and BBC -- were blacked out to their limited number of users as the Nobel Committee announced the winner. Both continue to be blacked out anytime either network reports the prize in its news programming.

The regional Asia News Network based in Singapore also was blacked out during the announcement and continues to be censored anytime it reports on the prize.

Foreign residents in the country were once again able to see CNN coverage when the announcement ended and the channel returned to regular programming, though CNN and BBC continue to be blacked out of any reporting of the prize.

Access to global news programming on mainland China is restricted to only expatriate communities and certain tourist or upscale hotels used by foreigners.

Liu's sentencing prompted a groundswell of support from former Peace Prize laureates and perennial contenders.

Vaclav Havel, the hero of Czechoslovakia's 1989 Velvet Revolution (who never won the Nobel Prize), retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who did, in 1984), and the Dalai Lama (1989) were among a group of intellectuals who publicly urged the Nobel Committee to give the prize to Liu shortly after he was sentenced.

With Havel, American writer Kwame Anthony Appiah, the head of the American PEN center, a literary and human rights organization, nominated Liu in January, Appiah said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that foreign ministry spokesman Ma said it would be "totally wrong" for "such a person" to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and that the comment was later scrubbed from the official transcript of the briefing.

The Irish bookmaker Paddy Power had already paid out on bets for Liu to win the prize, it announced Wednesday, after a surge in betting led it to suspect that information had leaked.

"It is people's affirmation of his 20 years' work," Liu's wife told CNN in September in response to his nomination. "It means many people in the world believe that China needs change in its political system and people's freedom of speech."

Of his condition in prison, she said, "He is doing OK spiritually and physically. The hospital has been giving him stomach pills. His stomach is not very good. They also said he might have some problem with his liver, hepatitis B maybe. I worried about it. He reads, runs and writes every day. He runs one hour every day.

"There is nothing else we can do. The judicial procedure is to the end already," she said.

"I know that some friends wish Liu Xiaobo to win this award more urgently than himself," she added. "They believe it is an opportunity for China to change."

Lest the world get the wrong impression, access to CNN and the BBC on the mainland PRC is prohibited to the general population. Access is restricted to only foreigners and at foreign gathering spots, such as certain tourist and upscale hotels used by foreigners.

The population of the mainland PRC receive only the same-same 44 channel CCTV (Central China Television) owned and operated by the state.

Very few Chinese ever see any foreign news broadcasts such as those of CNN or the BBC. The sheeple of the PRC get only the CCTV news Beijing likes and in the ways Beijing likes.

Global satellite cable tv is permitted by the PRC government only to foreigners and at a huge price and cost per annum. The Chinese sheeple never see CNN or the BBC unless Beijing believes something being reported proves Beijing's warped point.

The only :"news" the Chinese sheeple are getting about this prize is the news from the state owned and operated CCTV.

However, CNN and BBC can be accessed on the mainland via internet.

The Google "UltraReach Unblock and Uncensor" system with Microsoft enables the more daring netizens of the mainland to access prohibited sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Otherwise, its strictly CCTV.

What would you call your near monopolization of this discussion? Are you not rabidly denying the opinions of your detractors? Liu is not representative of the majority of Chinese, or they would say so. He is indeed an embodiment of the western way, but it is not accepted in China as the only way. You should give up your attempt to incite hatred toward China, because the people there are as cultured and informed as you are, often more so because f their respect for knowledge, and will not appreciate your derogatory remarks. The Chinese civilization has been more stable, less warlike, and more innovative than your modern American fundamentalism. Instead of screaming its supposed merits, why not remain silent and let the world decide who to emulate?

MISHMAEL, save your lectures about the CPC/PRC for someone who is naive enuff to listen to them.

If the FP members want to respond to me, they can. I would accept that they are able to counter my arguments and capable of responding to my assertions.

Your attempts to intimidate and to censor views you don't like or respect are unwanted and unwarranted - you are however free to express them in particular and to express yourself broadly, as is anyone else here.

The Jung Gwo are closed intellectually and culturally to the world. They know only that which Beijing tells them and in the ways Beijing tells it. They are not knowledgeable, they are sheeple.

Liu Xiaobo and his associates are the rare exception to the 5000 year old authoritarian mentality and attitudes of the Jung Gwo. Dr. Liu should be the leader of China, not the fascist CPC. But then this IS China, isn't it?

Congratulations to the Nobel Committee and the many around the world who are hailing this award decision and to the few and oppressed in the PRC such as Liu Xiaobo who can take great encouragement from this.

The hard fact is that the awarding of this prize to Dr. Liu focuses the world's attention on all that I and so many others point out about the Jung Gwo. Further, it stops in their tracks the advocates of the CPC/PRC systems of belief and institutions of society - government in particular.

Prove that China is closed to the world. Get off this page and look at what Chinese people do for themselves. I am not narcissistic enough to presume to tell others what to think, and I am only responding to what I think are flaws in your little speeches. If you think that free speech means that the one who drowns out all other voices wins, then I will sadly sign off. But if you know what it is supposed to mean, then I can hope that you will take my advice and learn something from all this.

You have made your stance very clear, but you have made it with malice. Heated rhetoric and extreme, unforgiving statements do not inform, they distort. I want to know more about China, and I want others to do so as well. If it should be through the opinions of others, then at least it should not be one-sided. It is my belief, unfortunate though it is, that you do not care about the good of China or the Chinese people, but only of the uncontested existence of your opinions here. I urge you, wherever you are, to think about what you appear like to someone who reads about themselves and their homeland for the first time in such terms. I urge you, to try and see the world from another perspective.

When for my educator certification in the United States I took the graduate level program course "History of Modern China," I studied under a professor who had lived in Taiwan (China was having the Cultural Revolution at the time) and who married a Chinese woman he'd met while there and raised a family. The prof is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and in Taiwan Chinese (as you know far better than do I, there are many Chinese dialects (languages, really).

Included in the course readings were the works of Bertrand Russell who, as I'm sure you know, spent a lot of time in China to include being faculty at the elite Peking University.

One of Russell's writings caught my attention and imagination. It was the one in which Russell wrote that, "If one wants to learn and find out what one thinks of one's own culture, society and civilisation, then one should go abroad, not to live in a similar or same environment, but to live in a radically opposite society, culture and civilization."

I took up the suggestion of the British aristocrat who had rejected his own rigid class based society - I went to live and work in the PRC. The rest is history.

burn Baby (internet) burn

Now in the hands of dissidents, about the world as never before, "broadband's"
imaginative uses as "weapons of choice".

Next phase, the degree to which these technologies (non-violent) may be"leveraged" (quickly) as massive world opinion (s).

Multiple surprises, via peaceful means, our Internet's horizon, await our world community. Boot-up protesters.

Champaign & salmon & toasts to Norway, Mr. Liu, his prize, each's spontaneity.

When Liu Xiaobao's wife visited him in his frigid prison in the barren and forbidding northeast of the PRC to inform him he'd been chosen a Nobel Peace Laureate, Dr Liu said he dedicates the prize to the victims of the CPC/PRC slaughter by the People's Liberation Army of the peaceful pro democracy activists of Tianaman Square, 1989 where Dr. Liu was a negotiator in their behalf. After Tianaman, Dr. Liu got a two year prison sentence for his presence at Tianaman.

We recall that the CPC/PRC billed the parents of the slaughtered democracy activists the cost of the bullets and bombs used to kill them. The leaders of the PRC are a gang of ruthless, heartless murdering tyrants of the first order of history.

Praise to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for its timely and significant decision. The Nobel Committee will not change China, but it will change the perceptions of the CPC/PRC globally.

Ask the CPC Comrade Princeling Xi Jinping who in 2012 will become the new leader of the CPC/PRC what he thinks of China's first and only Nobel Laureate, the Peace Laureate Liu Jiaobo. Comrade Xi will tell you that, not only is the Nobel Laureate Dr. Liu a criminal, but that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee encourages and promotes "criminality" in the PRC.

Comrade Xi certainly has evidence to support his (demented) point of view. I mean, look at some other Nobel Peace Laureate 'criminals,' such as Aung San Suu Kyi, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Woodrow Wilson, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Yitzhak Rabin, Nelson Mandela, the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres, Lech Walesa, Mikael Gorbachev, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Jimmy Carter, the Dalai Lama and so many others.

Liu Jiaobo is the one, which is why he's in a desolate and remote prison in the frigid northeast of the PRC. Let Comrade Xi show the world Chinese humanitarianism by openly advocating the release of Dr. Liu Xiaobo. Let Comrade Xi show his humanity by at the least leveraging for the immediate release of Liu.

Not in a million years.

There certainly isn't any precedent for it over the past 5000 years in China.

Taipei Times

Editorials
Fri, Mar 12, 2010 - Page 8

China shows signs of neo-fascism
By J. Michael Cole

With its strong emphasis on technology, the military, strong single-party leadership and a collective national identity that refuses to recognize pluralism, the PRChina is displaying increasing — and worrying — symptoms of fascism.

From the military parade surrounding the 60th anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Oct. 1 to forced relocation and assimilation programs targeting ethnic minority groups such as the Uighurs, the PRC is in many ways reminding us of the fascist states that reared their ugly heads in the first half of the previous century.

In some ways, it is difficult to apply that term to the rising dragon, primarily because of some marked differences from its predecessors. For one, fascist states tended to be short-lived and led by strong — and often charismatic — rulers. he PRC, even if we take 1949 as its starting point, has a long history and its leaders, with the possible exception of former premier Zhou Enlai, are not known for their charisma.

The PRC's embrace of capitalism in the early 1990s has also masked its fascistic tendencies, because “unrestrained capitalism” was one of the principal targets of fascism. The fact that the PRC finds its roots in communism and 19th century European class conflict — both of which fascism traditionally opposed — can also mislead the observer.

Still, today’s PRC arguably represents fascism 2.0, neo-fascism or “fascism with Chinese characteristics.”

One of the most peremptory signs of fascism is the state’s negation of individualism and the idea that citizens draw their identity and raison d’etre from the state. Evidence of this emerged earlier this week when Chinese Vice Sports Minister Yu Zaiqing chided 18-year-old Olympic champion short track speed skater Zhou Yang for thanking her parents — but not her country — after winning gold at the Vancouver Winter Games last month.

“It’s OK to thank your parents, but first you should thank the motherland. You should put the motherland first, not only thank your parents,” Yu told the Southern Metropolis Daily.

In his book "Anatomy of Fascism," American historian Robert Paxton defines fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites abandons democratic liberties,” traits that are apparent in the PRC today.

Traits.

In his essay" Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt," published in the New York Review of Books in 1995, Italian intellectual Umberto Eco highlights aspects of fascism that have disturbing reverberations in the contemporary PRC. Features of Ur-Fascism, or “eternal fascism,” Eco writes, “cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”

Let us explore the features unearthed by Eco that apply to the PRC today.

For Ur-Fascism, disagreement is treason.

In the contemporary PRC, this translates into the state’s intolerance of dissent. Reporters (foreign and local), rights activists and ordinary citizens face censure, arrest and loss of employment if they dare criticize the state. Critical coverage of everything from lagging reconstruction in quake-hit Sichuan to calls, recently published in 13 daily newspapers, for an end to the unjust hukou passport — a system introduced during the Maoist era that prevents most Chinese, especially residents in rural areas, from moving to other parts of the country — is seen as treason. Even when motivated by love of country, anyone who criticizes the authorities over such matters as environmental catastrophes, social inequity, corruption, forced relocation, outbreaks of disease (such as SARS) and censorship can be assured of negative repercussions for himself and his relatives. [The Nobel Peace Laureate] Liu Xiaobo and Gao Zhisheng are two recent examples.

This phenomenon is behind Beijing’s oft-used reference to the “feelings of the Chinese people” being hurt by negative news coverage or other counties’ policies that run counter to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) national policies.

Disagreement is a sign of diversity.

Eco writes: “Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

In his book "When China Rules the World," British author Martin Jacques, whose views on the PRC are hardly critical, argues that the greatest problem likely to accompany the PRC's rise will not be political, but rather “Han Chinese” racism. Beijing’s attempts to portray its citizens, regardless of ethnic background, as “Han Chinese,” is part of that feature. Its refusal to regard Taiwanese or Aborigines as ethnic groups in their own right is also a symptom of its enmity toward diversity.

To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country.

This, of course, is the very core of nationalism.

“At the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology,” Eco writes, “there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”

Yu’s berating of Zhou for thanking her parents but “neglecting” the nation — her “only privilege” — stems from this phenomenon. The obsession with plots, both domestic and international, is also prevalent in CCP rhetoric, from fears of US “encirclement” and “containment” to “splittism” in Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan.

The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.

“However,” Eco writes, “the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the democratic opponent.

This obviously applies to perceptions of the US and, to a lesser extent, Japan and India. It also explains fears, mostly expressed by political scientists, that the PRC could “miscalculate” by expecting that it could prevail in a conflict in the Taiwan Strait despite US participation. As the PRC's military modernizes, reinforced by notions of victimhood and nationalism, the likelihood that it will embark on military adventurism — either against Taiwan or elsewhere, such as a border conflict with India — will increase.

Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology … [and] cruelly implies contempt for the weak.

“The members of the party are the best among the citizens [and] every citizen can [or ought to] become a member of the party,” Eco writes. However, “knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically, but was conquered by force, [the leadership] also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler.”

The CCP’s claims that Chinese are “not ready” for democracy also derive from this aspect of fascism.

Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism.

“For Ur-Fascism ... individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter,” Eco writes.

Not only do Chinese citizens have no “common will,” but the “interpreter” — the CCP — endeavors to ensure that no large group can achieve common will, which would threaten its hold on power. Religious groups like the Falun Gong and the Roman Catholic Church, opposition parties, ethnic groups and protesters — all are closely monitored, forced underground or dispersed when the “threat” of organized opposition to central rule begins to form.

This fear is also inspired by memories of warlordism, which for decades compelled the CCP to impose restrictions on each region’s control over the armed forces, even at the cost of loss of effectiveness.

“There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People,” Eco writes.

The CCP's control of information, its use of Internet Police to monitor Web and SMS activity, and a strong emphasis on Chinese symbolism and culture that is prevalent in the film industry are Eco’s future, and it has arrived.

Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.

“Elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning,” Eco writes.

The CCP’s imposition of simplified Chinese, which deprives Chinese citizens access to ancient texts and, in many ways, created an intellectual Year Zero in 1949, is such an instrument, as is censorship of the media and control of the material allowed to enter the country.

“Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes … [It] can come back under the most innocent of disguises,” Eco writes.

It is rising next door.

(J. Michael Cole is a journalist at the ‘Taipei Times.’)