Just been reading the press conference held by China’s “Prime Minister”

(elected by… nobody) Wen Jiabao following the session of the National

People’s Congress just ended.

Sad stuff. People I assume know what they are talking about tell me Wen is

the best of the current crop of ChiCom leaders, a guy who can think out of

the box. Not much evidence of it here. Nothing, in fact, but the same

weary old cliches about China being a peace-loving, gentle nation, in whose

mouth butter would not melt.

All the problems of the world are caused by others, mainly by their failing

to acknowledge their own moral backwardness by comparison with the Middle

Kingdom.

Tensions with Japan? Must be Japan’s fault: “The fundamental problem is

that Japan should correctly view history. … take history as a mirror and

face forward to the future. This year marks the 60th anniversary of China’s

victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-45). This part of

history reminds us of the untold sufferings the war brought to the people in

China…” Also, of course, a by-product of U.S. meddling: “The security

alliance between Japan and the United States is a bilateral matter between

these two countries. Yet we are concerned in China because it is related to

the question of Taiwan…”

The anti-secession law? Why, the people of Taiwan want to be united

with the mainland: “We have enacted this law to give expression of the will

of the entire Chinese people, including the 23 million compatriots in

Taiwan, their will to safeguard national unity and territorial integrity and

oppose secession of Taiwan from the country.” In any case, the law really

has nothing to do with force or intimidation: “This law is meant to

strengthen and promote cross-Straits relations.”

And always, always, that self-righteous, self-pitying whine: “In the recent

hundred of years, China was subjected to bullying and humiliation. Yet till

now our country has never sent a single soldier abroad to occupy an inch of

foreign land.” (Ask a Tibetan about that.)

You would never know, unless you looked at the past 56 years of Chinese

history, that the smooth-taliing Mr. Wen is front man for a gang of lawless

cutthroats.