...I was once a big supporter of China. I was in love with Mao's attitude toward literature in his Talks at the Yunan Forum on Literature and Art. I'm not sure I completely disagree with him on everything in this essay, but I'm not quite as fervent as I once was. Part of that calmer attitude is the result of a response from an old CPUSA member to a question to mine as to why the Daily Worker was so anti-China. This episode took place years ago. This wonderful old lady looked at me after I asked the question & said "The ruling class just loves young intellectuals." In some ways I am still recovering from that bit of insight. She was/is right, of course. & now, in 2007, we get the Chinese government doing this:
A Chinese doctor who exposed the cover-up of China’s SARS outbreak in 2003 has been barred from traveling to the United States to collect a human rights award, a friend of the doctor and a human rights group said this week.
The doctor, Jiang Yanyong, a retired surgeon in the People’s Liberation Army, was awarded the Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award by the New York Academy of Sciences. His army-affiliated work unit, Beijing’s Hospital 301, denied him permission to travel to the award ceremony in September, Hu Jia, a Chinese rights promoter who is a friend of Dr. Jiang’s, said Thursday.
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