Simon Elegant guesses what was behind the new rules for journalists:

…Actually, I think it’s an interesting reflection of the way, perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, that foreign reporters actually function as an aid to central government efforts (or perhaps I should qualify that even further and say efforts by some parts of the central government in Beijing) to control the excesses of provincial and local offcials in areas such as corruption, the rape of the environment etc. Beijing is always play a complicated and delicate game with both its own media and the foreign media. In this case, I think they’d rather not have had the criticism which might have accompanied a decision to revert to the bad old days. But I don’t think that was a major factor: if it was really important, as they have demonstrated on many occasions in the past, there would have been no hesitation in going back to the old days. But I think on balance, it was calculated that as foreign reporters are an unavoidable evil, they might as well be put to some use…

Simon Elegant marks the six month anniversary of dissident Hu Jia’s imprisonment, drawing the ire of China’s “angry youth” :

It is exactly six months ago today that dissident Hu Jia was sentenced to three years in jail. His case has received much internaional attention and there is even speculation that he could be in line to get a Nobel Peace Prize, as Austin wrote earlier here.

Sadly the reality is that even if he gets the prize, which will be announced in a week, it will make about as much difference to his situation as giving it to jailed Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi did: none whatsoever. Still, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the details of his case and treatment by the authorities, which are particularly egregious and symbolic of the way that Beijing deals with even the mildest of dissent. I reproduce the first few grafs of a news release by Human Rights watch on the subject …

This year, fewer Hong Kong residents called 1989’s Tiananmen killings the “wrong decision.”

“That’s another way of saying they aren’t basing their opinions solely on what happened 19 years ago. When people generally think better of the Communist Party, as during the run-up to the Beijing Olympics and just after the government has done a good job of disaster recovery after a deadly earthquake, then they don’t think so negatively about a horrible incident nearly 20 years ago. In 2003, when tempers were running high because a killer disease—SARS—spread amid government secrecy and Hong Kong was on the verge of enacting a harsh anti-subversion law at Beijing’s urging, then people were less willing to overlook old errors. That year 62% felt Beijing was in the wrong, which climbed again to 67% in 2004 before beginning a decline to today’s level.”