China: A post-Olympic hangover

China's been mighty quiet since Beijing closed down their games. Beyond pouring money into our tottering economy, buying up our banks and government bonds, they've been as quiet as Buddhist temple mice.

I read an article today slapped me out of my Sino-complacency.

You've probably heard about their one-child policy, the one that's created a veritable boom in their abortion industry and in orphanages for infant girls (and little boys born with deformities). The fact the implementation occurred a generation ago has led to all those baby boys growing in marrying age men only to find that there are 40 million more of them than there are potential brides. Self-inflicted societal catastrophe.

That's not what the article was about. No, I'd heard plenty about the former issue. This one had me thinking back to the Holocaust museums I'd visited (can you use so tame a verb about such a place?) in Jerusalem and in Washington D.C. It appears that what they do to their political prisoners makes Gitmo seem like the Ritz-Carlton with room service.

To keep up with the growing need for human organs for transplant, they turned to the logical place a totalitarian state would turn - its political prisons. The Falun Gong, the religious thorn in the Chinese posterior, have been on the giving end of this assembly line. Organs. And lives. Seems to satisfy the Chinese state on both counts.

Read the disturbing article here...and then wonder why you haven't heard about it before now.