That’s how President Clinton used to refer to China (does he still?): “our strategic partner.” Would you like a bit of news about our strategic partner? “An elementary school teacher was killed in detention in early October in Shandong province, approximately one month after she was abducted into custody on September 2 for practicing Falun Gong. Over the past eleven years, she and other family members, including her teenage daughter, have been repeatedly detained, tortured, and harassed.”

Oh, yes. For that complete story, go here. Being tortured to death is par for the course in the land of our strategic partner. Can you take another report? “A 53-year-old woman, whose testimony of excruciating and professionally-administered torture attorney Gao Zhisheng relayed in one of his open letters to China’s leaders, died in mid-October as a result of abuse in custody.”

More: “According to sources inside China, Ms. Sun Shuxiang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Changchun, died on October 10, four months after her release from a labor camp, where she was shocked with electric batons, injected with unidentified drugs, and forced to perform hard labor. A photo taken immediately upon her return home and smuggled out of China shows her emaciated body.”

More: “Sun is the third of Gao’s interviewees known to have subsequently been tortured to death. Gao himself has been disappeared since April 2010, with many fearing he may have been killed in custody. This past week, his teenage daughter appealed to U.S. President Barack Obama to seek information about Gao’s whereabouts in an upcoming meeting with Hu Jintao . . .”

Well, we’ll see how that goes. If you can take the entire report, go here. Meanwhile, remember that the policy of the entire world — with the exception of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, oddly — is never, ever, ever to cause the dictatorship in Beijing the slightest discomfort, ever. (Incidentally, I’m very glad — very glad — that Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel. He is one of the world’s great men. But Gao Zhisheng — wow, that would have been a pick.)