"The Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xu Wei, 28, and Jin Haike, 26, to ten years. Yang Zilin, 32, and Zhang Honghai, 29, were sentenced to eight years . . .

"The case has long enraged human-rights advocates, in part because the group's activities seemed to be innocuous and in part because the four men had been imprisoned for over two years without a verdict in their trial."

That report was filed by Elisabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times. (Incidentally, Rosenthal has just won the first-ever Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism. Elliott is a former Newsweek editor and, from my experience of him, a capital gent.)

A few years ago, I did a piece on the Falun Gong, and the Chinese government's insistence on killing it. It is not a political group, and it should pose no threat to the PRC. These are people who just want to follow their philosophy/religion and do gentle, slow-motion exercises (usually in parks).

I asked Harry Wu, the great dissident, why Beijing should consider the Falun Gong so threatening. He said that the regime is so fragile, "they do not want people organized for anything, for any purpose, no matter how benign." I have never forgotten the example he used: Say you're Chinese, and you have an interest in matchboxes. You meet a neighbor who also likes matchboxes. Then the two of you discover a collector in another town.

Uh-oh. "That's when the government gets worried," said Wu. "Today, you are a matchbox organization. But tomorrow, you may turn your group to another purpose."

Some people say that the PRC is not Communist anymore — that they're just an authoritarian one-party state, not dissimilar to old Mexico under the PRI.

I don't believe it. Just read the newspapers.

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Source: "National Review Online".