The LongBow Papers

Liberal-oriented columns, commentary and archived articles on national and international news, politics, and the communication arts--with emphasis on China--by Joseph Bosco, author, journalist, director and actor; Professor of Drama and Communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Beijing Bike Ride

9:31 PM

By Leslie Collings

As I rode my bike along the bicycle lane, which was right on the edge of an expressway and separated, thank goodness, by a narrow, cement block strip, I realized the breeze was getting stronger against my chest and significantly, much warmer too. I also knew my legs were getting tired and my mouth was dry. No. Not me! It couldn't be that I was not up for it. After all, I'd biked along this road many times in the past, even when I'd lived in Beijing during the early nineties. I pushed on, but a voice inside was telling me that all was not well and that I should 'take a rest.'

Yes. It was a hot afternoon and I'd been pedaling for about an hour from my home on the east side of Beijing heading west towards a very prestigious university where my dear friend, a senior professor, was expecting me. We would spend time in our favourite coffee lounge, discussing world events and how to change them. I could envisage maybe more than just a couple of drinks would follow our almost regular meeting. I'd decided to 'bike it' this time, instead of getting a taxi, but now I was beginning to realize I was not even half way and that I had a problem.

Bicycle lanes abound in Beijing and most are set alongside wide tree-lined streets and offer plenty of shade. Right now though, I seemed to be in an almost treeless section and concrete walls and curbs were everywhere. I had navigated across busy intersections and entrances to the expressway, seemingly at times taking my life into my own hands as I 'judged' that the car behind would not 'take me out' as I crossed its path. It was not so much the cars that worried me as it did the drivers. Imagine all of them with brand new driving licenses, mostly within the past 5 years!

Suddenly ahead I saw a bit of green, which quickly turned into a park with lots of trees. Shade and a place to relax was just what I was looking for. Once there, I realized that a drink was urgently needed as I had started to feel sick and slightly giddy, which I knew was the onset of dehydration. Where to get a drink? Straining to see clearly ahead, I saw a bus turn onto the road and realized there was a bus station just further up, so I got back on my bike and slowly made my way there. I found a place to park my bike, next to a big tree and with a comfortable looking seat, right next to a bus passenger waiting area.

Better still, was the little kiosk that sold all sorts of refreshments and I was quickly gulping down some bottled water. I sat there. I had no plans to move and, indeed, did not have the slightest intention of moving, as I realized I was right out of energy and felt quite exhausted. I had a sick feeling and just wanted to stay there on my new-found seat and watch the world go by. I was in the right place for that too, as bus after bus kept rolling out of the bus station and I was camped right next to the main exit.

After awhile I began to take an interest in the buses, as they roared past me, not more than 3-4 meters away. Some were the very latest models twisting in the middle like a snake as they rounded the corner to then proceed on their journey. Others were the absolute opposite; old, falling apart it seemed, rusty everywhere and looking as if they were about to collapse at any moment. However, I noticed they all had one thing in common, which was the latest item of electronic technology for collecting fares and it really intrigued me.

As I watched, while bus passengers from 'my own' queuing area boarded a bus, each of them flashed a card at a device just inside the bus door and then proceeded on into the bus. Here was the very latest technology being used on every bus, no matter its condition and no matter that the passengers were just ordinary people from the bus-traveling level of society. I marveled that technology could be integrated and utilized so easily into the daily life of all these people around me.

I looked long and hard, but kindly of course, at the people around me, while I sat there on my seat as they queued for their bus. They were all sorts and a veritable cross section of people who ride on buses. Quite different, say, to another cross section of those who fly on aero planes, ride in taxis or have their chauffeur pick them up, 'timely please.' I was amongst very real people from the very heart of the city and who were, no doubt, its heartbeat. They looked and smiled at me. They showed warmth and interest. They saw an older man, a foreigner, a total stranger, but I did not feel alone, not anymore.

Then suddenly, from across the road that went through inside the bus station, came a lady in a two-piece blue uniform and a big and friendly smile on her face. She came right up to me and immediately made it known that she was concerned about my health and how I was feeling. She spoke in Chinese, which I did not fully understand, but her attitude and her manner made it quite clear that she was there to help, care and be friendly. I was so very appreciative of her good intent and after she had left for several minutes she returned with a large bottle of hot tea, which she pushed into my hands.

Then she started to daub ointment onto my face. It was a type of Chinese 'tiger balm,' which has a strong aroma, but is well known all over Asia. She put it on my forehead, behind my ears, on my cheeks, under my chin, on the back of my neck and made really sure I was well and truly anointed. She had such a lovely smile and a happy expression that my memory of her will stay for a long time.

I continued sitting there, on my seat and just relaxed. I also called my friend via my mobile, to let him know of my problem and that I would not make it to his place. When I was finally feeling better, I turned my bike around and headed back towards home.

However, just before then, my happy smiling friend brought another lady to meet me and by now I realized that they both wore the same uniform, that of a bus driver. She was perhaps a little bit younger and spoke some English, enough to understand my appreciation and for her to tell me she would get some more water for me. She came back with 2 plastic bottles, frozen solid and which no doubt came from the very bottom of their bus station refrigerator. Later, as I was about to leave, I saw a no. 125 bus pull up in front of me and my happy smiling lady friend waved, before she put the engine into gear and drove her bus out into the busy world of Beijing traffic.

I felt good. I felt cared for. I was happy again and especially to be in this unique city containing so many special people. The next time I take off on my bike to visit my friend in west Beijing, I'll make sure the weather is suitable and that I stop at a certain friendly bus station for a rest and visit the kiosk to buy some water and a bottle of hot tea.

Editors note: Leslie Collings, the author of this fine slice of Beijing life, is not just a dear friend, he is a priceless resource of information and wisdom; he left the U.K. as a young lad more years ago than either of us choose to mention in these pages. He has led--and still robustly does--a life in all corners of our rounded globe that is more colorful and enriching than any novel a writer could invent. There are many parts of Les's life that only he can choose to amaze, entertain and educate you with.

Suffice it to say that over the last five decades he has dealt with kings, dictators, presidents, premiers and, as in this piece, the salt of our Earth. He has spent most of those years in Asia, with a few stops elsewhere as his heart and his humanity led him in between. As far as China is concerned, I believe he arrived with Marco Polo, stayed longer and learned more. It is a great honor to publish him here in these pages. If we are fortunate, it will not be the last time he graces us with his insight.

The picture below is from our work together on the film China, 1949, in which he does a star's turn of work that you will see in a Chinese theater in your neighborhood soon.

9:31 PM / Editor / permalink 6 comments

Monday, June 26, 2006

1949, All Over Again

1:57 PM

Yep, there's Bosco acting out again. It was a short but significant role in a movie called China, 1949, you can read all about the film in the article linked to here and below. My contribution was done in one quick weekend when the producer and director were kind enough to fly me down to Nanjing and back so that my schedule here at Beiwai was not affected.

Oddly enough, I played the French ambassador during the final days of the Chinese Revolution when the western powers were deciding what they were going to do with the impending defeat of the Guomindang forces under Chiang Kai-shek by the People's Liberation Army under Mao Zedong. Over a few fateful hours, the future of what came to be the 'Cold War' was very much up in the air.

(I wish I could identify the pretty lady next to me who played my assistant, but I am just too absent-minded; she is an American student in Nanjing University.)

I will not give away exactly what transpired during those crucial few days so that you might better enjoy the movie. Suffice it to say that one cabled message from America forever changed history--but there were days and hours when it easily could have gone the other way. Frankly, I believe it would have been a much better world if that cable had contained another message.

My scenes were all about the French, English and American ambassadors huddled together--palatially--jawboning and waiting for instructions from each of their respective governments in Washington, London and Paris. We shot these scenes in the actual Presidential Palace in Nanjing, which is a beautifully restored museum of almost living history--I certainly felt the presence of the ghosts whose portraits were on the walls of the very rooms where they played out one of the most important events of the 20th Century.

Strange as it seems, of the four movies and one TV series I made over the last 12 months, this one China, 1949, the one that wrapped last, will probably be released first. Just the other day, I spent a few hours in a recording studio dubbing in some dialogue to sync with my mouth as I watched it on a large television monitor. We had to shoot those scenes without sound because the Presidential Palace remained open to tourists as we shot; so there was too much ambient sound to mic it normally.

To my amazement--and pleasure--I discovered that the film is all but finished and might even be released before August. The pleasure was realizing that the film looks great!

Read all about it: A fresh look at history in Beijing Today.

By the way, the photograph was taken by my dear friend Les Collings, who did truly excellent work as the American ambassador--and he's from the U.K.! Ah, the magic of making movies in China.

Update: Dummy me had the name of the movie wrong, it is China, 1949.

1:57 PM / Editor / permalink 4 comments

Sunday, June 25, 2006

PLEASE in Translation, Please?

7:35 PM

I have been a published writer since I was 19--it was only a small chapbook of radical, youthful poetry now happily lost to posterity; I didn't really become a pro until my early thirties. I have had a few successes and zero complaints; both of my dreams since baby-hood came true: To write and publish books and to play ball for as long as I could. However, other than articles written about me in foreign publications--particularly in Italy, my ancestral home--none of my writing has been translated and published in a foreign language.

Dear readers--and that is not a cliche, each of you special few hundreds are ever so valuable to me--the statement above is no longer true. An expat friend of mine, who wishes anonymity at present, very recently translated into Chinese the poem PLEASE, which is down the scroll-bar a bit, and sent it to me. I was honored beyond adequate expression.

It is above. Please understand he is not a scholar in Chinese; he is just a very bright (and colorful man) teaching himself to write and speak in a language other than his own, Chinese, perhaps the most difficult language for native English language speakers to learn. That is why he has asked for anonymity; he does not relish being too harshly corrected, by name, by those lucky billions fluent in Mandarin.

I have great interest in the subject of poetic translation from Chinese into English, and English into Chinese. Because of my interest in classical Chinese literature, particularly the Tang poets, I have come to some small understanding of how great a difference there is from one translation to another; it is, in truth, a creative art in itself.

So, please, all of you whom have expertise in this field, speak up in the comment box, perhaps we can all learn something. But do not be mistaken, it is pure vanity that compels me to publish the piece in Chinese; fortunately, the academic half of my persona gives me the credibility to at least suggest a more noble reason to see my thoughts and emotions--these are pretty stark and raw--expressed in Chinese.

However, I truly do want interaction on this: Oh students dear of mine, past and present, I know you are busy, but chime in, please.

7:35 PM / Editor / permalink 9 comments

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Is It Huxley? Orwell? Or Something a Whole Lot Worse?

3:00 PM

The rate at which American citizens are willingly surrendering their personal liberties is scarier than any repressive hell I can imagine. I and others are at a loss whether to use Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, or George Orwell's 1984, in search of metaphors when writing about something no American could have imagined only a few years ago. It wasn't enough that Bush & Company tapped our phones without judicial or Congressional oversight; now it's our bank accounts!

As an old crime writer and investigative journalist, I very much understand, advocate and teach the axiom "Follow the money." It works quite well in both police work and journalism. But, ethically, cops and reporters only do it in hot pursuit of folks under direct suspicion of committing a crime. Police officers need a warrant to do it, and journalists need the approval of their editors and a lot of worn gumshoe spent looking through old, dusty, public records--or someone who owes them a favor in the right place and slips them a file or two. But this mess? Get outta town!

Dubya says his crew of snoops is only reading the records of people actually transferring money in and out of the United States with known ties to terrorist organizations. Yeah? Buy that and I want to offer you some beachfront property in Kansas at a great price. Who and what is a terrorist organization? And who is in charge of defining it today, tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade?

I live and write in China, and have been for some 4 years now; but my bank account is still in Los Angeles. I transfer money all of the time electronically with a click of my mouse here in Beijing. I don't know enough about the fine points of international banking to know whether my transactions are crossing national boundaries.

More importantly, though, I do not know whether I am a "target" or not. I know this administration has every reason to believe I am not its friend. In my five decades of life, I have been called many unpopular things in America: a communist; a socialist; a hippie; an atheist; a n***er lover; a revolutionary; a radical; a troublemaker; a bad seed, etc., etc., you get the idea.

But to my knowledge never a terrorist. The trouble is that phrase: "to my knowledge." I know I was on an "enemies" list of a couple of administrations in the 60s and early 70s. Who is to say that with as much carping as I do on the criminal behavior of this administration that I am not on their list of enemies?

Now, I have so little money compared to the numbers that Shrub & Twigs do their accounting in, it is highly unlikely they would find my banking of any interest at all, other than perhaps to laugh at. But I don't know that for a fact. I also do not know if my e-mails and international phone calls are being monitored since I am so decidedly unfriendly to the current administration.

Rather than Huxley and Orwell metaphors, I am more concerned with a philosophy 101 phrase: A Slippery Slope. It surely appears to me that we are slipping mighty damn quickly down a slope so slippery with White House malfeasance and unimaginable hubris that it feels and smells like something that regularly goes down my toilet instead of underneath my rights as an American citizen. And what is at the bottom of this slope? I believe a cesspool that will make us someday think that 1984 and A Brave New World were comic books.

A whole lot of no-nothings back west harp about the monitoring of Chinese citizens by their Central Government; and yes it is a fact, the Internet and publishing is quite closely watched--manually! They say there are some 30,000 employees of the government whose job is to monitor what appears on blogs and university Internet bulletin boards; there are students whose volunteer jobs are to report on the Intranet chatter within the closed LAN systems of universities. But this is spotty and inefficient as hell in a country of 1.3 billion people!

Repression of free speech and individual liberties is more a threat than it is a real danger to the great majority of Chinese citizens. Here the government wants the people to think that what they say or do is being big-brothered--it does the trick without the dirty deed coming from Beijing; self-censorship is the shame of China, but it is increasingly not working.

In America under Bush, the "Central Government" wants like almighty hell to hide its efforts to spy on its citizens. This is a distinction with a difference. It was reported in The New York Times article excerpted and linked to below that, yet again, as in the wiretapping scandal, the administration tried to coerce The Times into not publishing the story.

It argued to The Times that national security would be gravely endangered if Americans found out that, like their telephones and Internet, their bank records were also being vacuumed up into a humongous electronic spying apparatus that looked for patterns of suspicious activity to then target and monitor up-close and personal. Dandy, but what constitutes a "suspicious pattern" to a bunch of neocons who believe they know best what Americans should be doing, saying, or spending their money on? It's not enough that they want to "nation-build" abroad, they want to citizen-rectify at home.

If this doesn't wake up even the most sublimely ignorant, apolitical yahoo in America, then I guess the whole lot of us deserves to slide down that slope greased with sewer waste into the foul pit stewing so unseemly below.

But, damn it, when did we lose our will to be free, and why?

Please read the opening graphs below and then click on through for the rest of a very sad and chilling story.

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN
Published: June 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, June 22 -- Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

The program is limited, government officials say, to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda by reviewing records from the nerve center of the global banking industry, a Belgian cooperative that routes about $6 trillion daily between banks, brokerages, stock exchanges and other institutions. The records mostly involve wire transfers and other methods of moving money overseas and into and out of the United States. Most routine financial transactions confined to this country are not in the database.

Viewed by the Bush administration as a vital tool, the program has played a hidden role in domestic and foreign terrorism investigations since 2001 and helped in the capture of the most wanted Qaeda figure in Southeast Asia, the officials said.

The program, run out of the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, "has provided us with a unique and powerful window into the operations of terrorist networks and is, without doubt, a legal and proper use of our authorities," Stuart Levey, an under secretary at the Treasury Department, said in an interview on Thursday.

The program is grounded in part on the president's emergency economic powers, Mr. Levey said, and multiple safeguards have been imposed to protect against any unwarranted searches of Americans' records.

The program, however, is a significant departure from typical practice in how the government acquires Americans' financial records. Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

Please continue reading at: The New York Times

3:00 PM / Editor / permalink 11 comments

Graduation 2006, My First Class at BFSU

2:17 PM

As previously noted, Graduation Ceremonies were recently held here at Beijing Foreign Studies University and the photographs are starting to come in. The group picture below is the very first class I taught at Beiwai. I remember so clearly that morning almost two years ago as my first students after leaving The China Foreign Affairs University started entering the classroom. Each one of them is very special to me. (All of them were shocked to see me in a suit and tie and without my Panama hat--yikes, I need a haircut!)

It would be unwieldy for me to "call the roll" here, which is something I also do not do when I teach. University students are adults and I like to treat them as such. I will identify the young lady I am fortunate to have my arm around, her name is Song Mingming (Jerry is her English name) and she is the monitor of this class, and was of invaluable assistance to me throughout that first semester.

The photograph below the group shot is of me with Zhao Mengnan (her English name is Natalie); she has already landed a fine job with a major U.S.-based public relations firm. I am not surprised; she is an excellent student and an exemplary young lady.

2:17 PM / Editor / permalink 1 comments

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Bosco Blues In June?

4:38 PM

It's been a tough year; but it's over, I hope, but do not really yet believe that it is. I reckon my years according to the academic calendar, late August to late June. In late August 2005, Katrina destroyed almost everything of physical matter that I loved and held dear beyond all normal measurement. In early May, Ellen and I separated, amicably and with love, to be sure, but it was an ending nonetheless. I have only doubts and big-time life questions to accompany me as I plunge blindly forward into a frightening host of tomorrows.

Today, as I was looking for something in my myriad folders scattered pell-mell throughout the files on my new computer, which is still very much in transition, I found a poem I wrote and first published some twenty years ago.

Frankly, it tells the tale of my mind and soul at yet another crossroad of my life as accurately now as it did when I first wrote it. That is scary as hell. But by publishing it again, here, perhaps the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" it denotes will be mitigated by the light of exposure.

PLEASE

Would you forgive me
could you forget it
Would you hold it against me
if I did?
Because
I'm tired
I've seen too much
and too much I've seen
I have also felt
And too much I've felt
brought little joy
and too much joy
was only an illusion
of lost salvation
And too many illusions
brought only pain
and too much pain
was self inflicted
So
if you could forgive
forget
and hold no grudge
Then
I'll ask your permission
to quit

4:38 PM / Editor / permalink 8 comments

So Is It 'Hanoi Hastert' Now?

4:12 PM

Well, why the hell not? As you will quickly read below and come to understand, it's probably the most meritorious endeavor that the current Republican Speaker of the House has undertaken in his entire political career, in the not at all humble opinion of this liberal ole 'Yellow Dog' Democrat.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I must state something that probably only a few of you know--but probably most of you suspect--my anti-Vietnam War sentiments during our salad days were not the Peacenik sentiments of my fellow 'heads' and 'long-hairs.' (I did not resist the draft, the Army sent me home almost immediately after discovering I had a collapsed left lung--I mean, every writer needs his war, popular or otherwise.) No, my problem with the war was that we were fighting on the wrong side.

Mr. Ho Chi Minh was only trying to first unify and then maintain his nation's sovereignty after he had beaten the Japanese, the French and the secret CIA war against that sovereignty during the decade before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution put U.S.A. boots on the ground against him in large numbers from 1964 onward.

And he whipped our asses, too, in a politically limited war; surely if General Curtis LeMay had gotten his way, along with General William C. Westmoreland, whose daughter took my class "Writing the Non-fiction Book" at U.C.L.A., we surely would have 'won' by annihilating several million 'noncombatants' that are now feuling the capitalist movement in the resurgent nation called Vietnam--no north or south appended.

But, no need to fight that battle again, that's for damn sure. You don't think so? Read the opening graphs from an article by Jane Perliz in The New York Times, and then click on for the rest of the story.

U.S. Competes With China for Vietnam's Allegiance

HANOI, Vietnam -- With the fastest growth in East Asia after China and a capitalist game plan that is attracting global investment, Communist Vietnam is emerging as a regional economic power as it moves steadily from rice fields to factories.

And with the wounds of war all but healed, Washington is paying attention.

Trade talks between House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, and his Vietnamese counterpart turned into a lovefest here recently, choreographed by the hosts to show their affection for America.

"At last we're having dinner together," said Nguyen Van An, the leader of the Vietnamese National Assembly, as he hugged the speaker and presented a copy of a letter from Ho Chi Minh to President Harry S. Truman appealing for American help against the French. "We should have met 60 years ago."

Mr. Hastert's presence in April was part of a larger dance that has since starred Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as visitors, and will feature President Bush when he attends the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting here this fall. Vietnam's leaders have made plain they want the United States on their side for equilibrium against China, a longtime occupier. Vietnam, though an ideological ally of Beijing, fears an expanding Chinese sphere of influence and being reduced to an economic appendage by China, its northern neighbor.

Please continue reading at: The New York Times.

4:12 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

"There's Something Happening Here"

3:56 PM

I quote Stephen Still's classic protest song in the title of this post because it immediately came to mind during a conversation I had yesterday with an exceedingly knowledgeable China scholar, and then even more strongly when I read Joseph Kahn's report in today's The New York Times on student rioting at a college in China's Henan Province.

Why? Because for sometime many of us who live and work here in China have been feeling a certain rumbling tension just beneath the surface of Chinese society. We, of course, felt it later than did our Chinese friends and colleagues, whom have been aware for quite a spell that "Everybody look what's going down" for them wasn't just another lyric in the Buffalo Springfield's anti-war anthem vintage 1966.

Perhaps the Central Government felt it before anyone else, which would explain many political decisions that have confounded even the most experienced old and new China hands.

Below are the opening graphs of Mr. Kahn's article, with a link to the rest of it in The New York Times. If you have any interest in China, you need to read all of it.

XINZHENG, China, June 21 -- Shengda College in central China has a diverse curriculum, foreign faculty members to teach English and a manicured campus, where weeping willows shade a recreational lake.

But many students paid the college's rich tuition -- at $2,500 a year one of the highest in China -- primarily because Shengda promised that their diplomas would bear the name of its parent, Zhengzhou University, a more prestigious national-level institution, and not mention Shengda at all.

So when the graduating class of 2006 received diplomas that read "Zhengzhou University Shengda Economic, Trade and Management College," students erupted last Friday, ransacking classrooms and administrative offices, shattering car windows, scuffling with the police [...].

The protest, still simmering on Shengda's now tightly guarded campus, reflects the reality that the country's exploding population of college students must grapple with petty fraud, substandard instruction and an intensely competitive job market. Students, a traditional bellwether of political volatility in China, have become a fresh source of unrest in a society already angered by land grabs, unpaid wages and environmental abuse.

Once a magic ticket into the government or business elite, college has become an expensive gamble for millions of cash-short families who find that even the most prestigious degrees cannot guarantee success in a market economy.

Please continue reading at: The New York Times.

3:56 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Not Your Usual Best China Blog Awards

4:47 PM

Try imagining somebody believing in the value of blogging so much that he puts up big Chinese bucks to further the art and science of blogging in China. It's not easy, is it? Well, a gentleman and a scholar who originally hailed from my neck of the woods in Deep Dixie, but is now a confirmed expat living and blogging in China, fondly known in blog circles as 'The Admiral,' the proprietor of China Moon, is putting up 10,000 RMB prize money to be distributed over seven categories of blogging.

No, that is no typo--he is putting up his own money! And he is no crazier than most of us bloggers in China. Well, at least he appeared sane enough when we all got together last month in Beijing to celebrate a visit to the mainland by Richard, the exalted ruler of that magical kingdom known as The Peking Duck.

Enough of the chit chat, go pay a visit to the Best China Blogs site hosted by the Admiral, and get to writing or nominating, preferably both.

4:47 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

A Crying Shame

4:08 PM

Most of you know the story of the arrest of Zhao Yan, perhaps the most egregious and far-reaching instance of the use of state authority upon the rights of a journalist in the very recent history of the "New China." That story just took another horrific turn.

I am angry. I am ashamed. I am useless. Indeed, I am uselessly sputtering as I type and cry out for a brother journalist brave enough to risk prison for the right of his people to be informed about their governance.

The crying shame is that he is not being prosecuted for his stellar reporting. His freedom was taken from him due to guilt by association for having the audacity to accept a job with still the best newspaper in the English speaking world, The New York Times.

Because of my position as a professor of journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University, which means that I am employed by the Central Government that is prosecuting Zhao Yan, I must therefore mind my manners towards my employer and host and keep most of my thoughts on this case to myself. However, I can let my students speak for me, and others--interestingly enough, there is a great diversity of opinion among Chinese citizens on this matter.

Please read the lead paragraphs below of an article from The New York Times, and then click through for the rest of the story.

And when you are done with that, click on for a special series about the case at WOW: We Observe the World, the blog and news magazine of the English Language journalism majors here at Beiwai: Journalism and the State.

China Trial of Times Researcher Ends Without Verdict

BEIJING, June 16 -- The closed trial of a researcher for The New York Times accused of disclosing state secrets and fraud ended here on Friday without the court's reaching a verdict.

The researcher, Zhao Yan, 44, was tried at the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, but his family, friends and journalists were denied access to the hearing, which was completed in a single day. He pleaded not guilty to both charges.

One of Mr. Zhao's lawyers, Guan Anping, said the law allowed the court to deliberate for up to a month before releasing a verdict.

Mr. Zhao's trial was held before three judges in courtroom No. 6, and as is customary in Chinese hearings, he sat alone in the front of the court facing the judges, Mr. Guan said. The prosecution and defense teams sat on either side of the judges on the bench. In Chinese courtrooms, there is no direct private contact between the defendant and his lawyers.

Mr. Guan, a former legal adviser to a Chinese vice premier, Wu Yi, said there were no other people in the courtroom apart from the security staff. The court had ruled that no witnesses were necessary for the prosecution or the defense.

The hearing lasted the whole day apart from several procedural breaks. Mr. Guan said Mr. Zhao requested on Wednesday that his legal team file a motion stating that the handling of the case had violated his constitutional rights.