Today, AsiaPundit has the Shanghai flu (possibly not, but I’m running a fever and trying to recall if I had ever felt this ill in Singapore, Kuwait or Korea). So, Monday’s links will be short and not thoroughly checked for grammar or spelling. Notably missing from today’s links are Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and India (new pundits for some of these areas are still welcome, e-mail asiapundit @ gmail.com).

Today’s top story is the revolution in Japan. Koizumi and the lipstick ninjas have secured a decisive victory, now is the time to act on their mandate. Japundit has a wrap. And for the rest of us, from a pre-vote post, it’s time to reevaluate Japanese politics.:

In one speech I saw on television, Mr. Koizumi laughed as he made the
point that the roles of the parties in this campaign are reversed. For
years, the LDP was perceived as the party of vested interests and the
status quo, while the opposition clamored for reform. The prime
minister seems to have turned that on its head in the public’s mind,
casting the LDP as the reformers and the opposition as the hidebound
traditionalists supporting the status quo. If he pulls off this
sleight-of-hand, it would be enough to rank Koizumi among the world’s
most talented political operatives.
Mr. Koizumi and the LDP do go on to victory in the election (ed. they did), it
could also bury an old canard that short-term foreigners frequently
employ to denigrate the Japanese. These folks love to trot out an old
Japanese proverb warning that the nail that sticks out gets pounded
down; i.e., don’t be too original, call attention to yourself, or make
waves.
I’m sorry, but after all these years in Japan, it seems clear to me that the Japanese love
the nail that sticks out just as much as anyone else–especially in
politics. I wonder how long it will take the rest of the pack to catch
up to the prime minister and figure that out.

Good news, AsiaPundit can now report on death tolls from Chinese natural disasters without being prosecuted. In other news, all erotica will remain soft-core.:

One of Xinhua’s shortest reports in history was published today:

Death toll in natural disasters no longer kept as China’s state secret

BEIJING, Sept. 12 — The death toll in natural disasters was no
longer regarded as state secret starting from August this year, a
government spokesman said here Monday.

Well that’s nice to know, but is probably of little comfort to
people like journalists Zhao Yan, Shi Tao and Ching Cheong, all three
of whom are currently in prison after being accused of leaking state
secrets.
So what is still a state secret then? Christy Zhong is evidently not a
state secret, judging from Xinhua’s photo gallery entitled "Can you
breathe in front of her?" (pictured), although the area between her
legs was clearly felt by the Xinhua editors to be divulging a little
too much and was pixellated to avoid causing social upheaval.

Indeed, in order to preserve social order, and prevent a visit from  Shanghai state security, AsiaPundit will refrain from publishing any nudity that has not been pixelated, or at least covered with body paint…

That’s a certain naughty ShenzhenRen mugging beside the show-stopper, a human billboard.

Sun Bin weighs the prospects of a war in the Straits, his conclusions are similar to my own beliefs, although I am far more skeptical about Mainland China’s ability to win a war, and I also expect that a war would have popular support (I fear that almost six decades of Communist propaganda has left much of the populace more dogmatic and irrational than those governing.):

Taiwan has 2 defense options

1. Plan on declaring independence, and prepare for a war. In this case perhaps $15bn of weapon will not be enough, not even $150bn
2. Quietly maintain the status quo, do whatever it like of
   self rule, even preach democracy to the mainland, just don’t declare
   independence. There will not be a war, and hence no need to get into an
   arms race. From CCP’s perspective, their focus is on economic
   development. The last thing they want to see is a war, or even an arms
   race.

The choice is easy. As discussed in my

earlier post

, Sun Zi said, "supreme excellence is winning the war without fighting" , better still, without even the need to arm.
Whatever objective Taiwan’s leaders want to pursue, be it Ma’s
unification, or Chen Shuibian’s independence, all they need to do is to
buy more time. Some years into the future, maybe as long as 20-30
years, or as short as 5-10 years, China will be more open or even
become a democracy, by then no one can stop Taiwanese people making
their own decision. In between, let’s make peace and make money.
In addition, while there is no reason for James Soong (or the
Taiwanese people) to take Hu Jintao’s words at their face value, one
should recognize that there is absolutely no reason
for CCP to wage a war if Taiwan did not declare independence. It would
not only be stupid, they would also be lacking internal support.

If you can come up with 301 ways to tell that you’ve been lining in China too long … You’ve Been Living In China Too Long.

Laowiseass visits the China-North Korea border and muses on patriotism.:

The U.S. army bombed this bridge in half during the Korean War. The
Chinese built a new one, left, into North Korea, background, and turned
the bombed leftover into a paid-admission (20 yuan) park. You can walk
out to the end, foreground, and read signs about how the Americans
wrecked the bridge. The signs call our viewing pleasure a "patriotic
education." The Americans screwed us, remember? Patiotism.
That’s
what historical relics authorities and visitors say about the Old
Summer Palace ruins, 145-year-old rubble piles open to all for 15 yuan
last I checked. Allied European and American armies bombed or burned or
both the Beijing site in the late 1800s to weaken an already weak Qing
Dynasty. As one visitor told me in an interview about the palace
grounds’ expansion, "it makes me hate the Europeans." Any white person
walking toward the palace into a headwind of departing Chinese visitors
feels that quotation without asking for it.
When I went to school,
patriotism meant remembering whatever we fancied was cool about the
United States, stuff like the Bill of Rights and civil rights, not
struggles against other nations (more a source of embarrassment than
pride anyway). We also had to say a pledge of allegiance full of words
we were too young to understand, but we hated only the teacher for that.

Bingfeng test drives democracy on the Chinese internet, his message is to stop using "dem0cr," good old-fashoned democracy works just fine.:

avoid the GFW? i doubt i find many bloggers prefer the use of
dem0cr when it’s related with china. is it necessary to replace "o"
with "0" and replace "a" with "@" in order to avoid the GFW? i doubt it. here is what i found with baidu search for "democracy in china":

Democracy in China: feasible or not?

Glutter(.org):
Awaiting a Democratic HK

Grassroots Democracy Taking Roots in Rural China …
Here is what i found with google search for "民主" (the chinese equivalent for democracy):

欢迎光临中国民主建国会！

民主进步党[ 繁体 ]

民主党[ 繁体 ]

if this is not convincing enough, let’s take a look at xinhua forum, the favorite place premier Wen often visit:in one article titled "wil it become democratic if the secretary
office is cancled?", there are six "democracy".well, i don’t see why dem0cr becomes such a label that must be attached to china every time,

Fear Nevada-tan:

Internet users in the West have Bert Is Evil. Japanese users have Nevada-Tan.

On June 1, 2004, an online feud between two 11 year old girls attending the same elementary school in escalated into murder. “Girl A” (there’s also a “Boy A”
who committed an even more gruesome crime) slit her classmate’s throat
and arms with a boxcutter knife, in the same classroom where they
attended school.

The victim, Satomi Mitarai, bled to death.

Shocking
enough as the murder may seem, the story didn’t end there. “Girl A”
became “Nevada-tan” after after images of the suspected murderer were
published showing her wearing a pullover hooded sweatshirt with the
word “NEVADA” emblazoned across the chest (the “-tan” suffix is a
child’s pronunciation of the honorific “-chan”), according to Wikipedia.

Internet users on Japan’s 2ch soon discovered that Nevada-tan had a very active life online. Says Wikipedia:

It
appears that “Girl A” was heavily influenced by some of the more
visceral aspects of Internet culture. An analysis of the case states
that she “was a girl fascinated with urban legend, internet subculture,
even going as far as guro. From her site she had linked shock
flash movies and bizarre ASCII movies that would unnerve even the most
hardened internet warriors”. Her website showcased her interests, which
included fanfiction about her favourite film Battle Royale and strange
“recipes” (with names like “Curse of the Purple Skull” and “Demonic
Art”). A particularly strong influence was the “Red Room” horror flash
video, which she based the site’s design around.

Singapore will soon be recieving . Co-host Cecilia Larson is, incidental, much hotter than Dr Ruth Westheimer.:

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Singapore’s first television show dedicated to sexual
matters will be aired by national broadcaster MediaCorp this month.
The weekly half-hour "Love Airways" show, featuring the city-state’s
self-proclaimed love guru and a blonde Swedish co-host, will air on
Mandarin-language Channel U from September 21 at 11:30 pm. Singapore is
76 percent ethnic Chinese.
The show aims to discuss "sex and intimacy-related topics" like dating,
anatomy, wellness and diseases in a fun, non-clinical style, said a
statement from government-linked MediaCorp.
Its host is Dr. Wei Siang Yu, a local celebrity who has branded himself
"Dr. Love" and has his own business offering advice to Singaporean and
foreign couples finding it difficult to have babies.

Singapore’s crackdown on blogs has started. SPG was able to get away with nudity, Stephen McDermott of rage-against-the-PAP blog Singabloodypore was just allowed into the country undisturbed by customs, but racism, Cowboy Caleb notes, is a no-no.

Two bloggers charged under  Sedition Act over racist remarks

SINGAPORE : For the first time in Singapore, two bloggers have been
charged under the Sedition Act for making racist remarks.
They are 25-year-old Nicholas Lim Yew and  27-year-old Benjamin Koh Song Huat.
A subordinate court was told that  both their blogs had content that cast aspersions on the Malay community. . .

Mandrake emailed me this snippet of news.
The channel news asia website seems to be down, so I’ve pasted the text
here for you to read. I say, Jolly Good Show! We should not let racists
get away lightly. The Intarweb is a public place, and as such if you have nothing nice to say then shut the hell up.

While I haven’t read the offensive comments, AsiaPundit is has a very narrow view on free speech issues. While boundaries on libel and slander can be acceptable if damages can be proven, sedition seems a harsh sentence for what were likely ill-advised and ignorant comments. This doesn’t solve the problem of racism, it forces it underground to fester.

mr brown has more, offering this comment from the (often NSFW) Sammyboy forums.:

About itself, Sammyboy himself
says: "Based on the the list, just about every mother’s son and
daughter who has ever posted any messages here will soon be in jail."

Also see Miyagi, Mr Wang, Singapore Ink, Omeka Na Huria, SingSingapore, and hundereds of other Singapore blogs (they aren’t always apolitical).

Finally, AsiaPundit is happy to report that a comic-art rendition of Taiwan leader Chen Shui-bian was allowed to be seen at last week’s APEC meeting. Soon, perhaps we’ll have a Taiwan hand puppet at the World Health Organization.

The cartoon figure of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has finally been
granted permission to appear in the exhibition to celebrate the
upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Busan,
South Korea, thanks to the efforts of officials from the Taipei Mission
in South Korea and the Busan Cartoon Club.
The cartoon figure of Chen was put on display yesterday at the APEC Summit
Cartoon Figure Exhibition in Busan City—the venue of this year’s annual
event—along with those of other heads of state slated to attend the APEC summit in November.