Wired Cola

The Beeb is reporting that a group of old-guard commies in China are speaking out against censorship.

This is one of those key "China factors" in my opinion: if China has a free press, and its wild capitalist-ish (it's a big "ish" in some ways...) economy continues, and corruption is limited (hello, Russia...), then the ground-work is laid for China to be a force for good (well, on balance good) within and outside its borders. In other words, a prosperous, free-press China probably won't invade Taiwan (though Taiwan might just decide it's okay to join a prosperous, free-press China; the issue isn't Taiwan's ultimate destiny so much as whether the Taiwanese get to freely choose it).

I don't have a lot more to say: I suppose I should make some noises over how a responsible government is ultimately an important thing for keeping a government's worst excesses in check, but I'll leave that to more thoughtful people to say properly.