Watch: Chinese Activists Push Past Security To Visit Liu Xia, Wife Of Liu Xiaobo [UPDATE]

Liu Xia video
On Friday, December 28 -- the birthday of jailed Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo -- a group of activists made a daring visit to the residence of his wife, Liu Xia, currently under house arrest. You can watch them in the above video, uploaded yesterday to the YouTube account of Hu Jia, activist/dissident and director of the June Fourth Heritage and Culture Association. Hu writes that he and Hao Jian, Liu Di and Xu Youyu, among others, arrived at about 9 pm and basically overpowered a surprised guard.

Open letter, petition warn of “violent revolution,” “chaos” if no political reform

The East is Read
On the footsteps of an AP article about a petition warning against “revolution and chaos,” Reuters has just reported on an open letter signed by 73 scholars calling for reform, or else. “If reforms to the system urgently needed by Chinese society keep being frustrated and stagnate without progress, then official corruption and dissatisfaction in... Read more »

Blogging The Bloggers: Another New Year, Same Old Mug’s Game

Peeping weekly at the best (and worst) that was, is, and will be on the China blogosphere. Aside from family animosities, hangovers and relief in seeing in another year relatively unscathed, there is little worth celebrating in the Sino-English gulag. Drawing up lists of the best and worst sites is a fool’s errand. Ditto content. It... Read more »

The LA Times profiles Shen Jianzhong, China’s modern-day Bruce Lee, whose son is still in jail for fighting in self-defense

Forced eviction attempt in China
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXGIk9x-FI0] Shen Jianzhong, who fought back a pack of hoodlums in October who broke into his house and assaulted his wife, is making the most out of his 15 minutes of fame — but out of necessity. The LA Times recently caught up with him as he offered a grim update to his situation, specifically all... Read more »