Saturday, September 19, 2009

Go fly a kite...but not in Beijing!

October 1st will be the 60th anniversary of Chairman Mao's proclamation of the People's Republic of China. This year's National Day will therefore be the occasion of great celebration by all right-thinking (left-thinking? ed.) Chinese, whether in the PRC or overseas.

Or not.

It seems the Communists are more than a little nervous at the possibility that some "splittists" or "rightists" or "dissidents" might mark the anniversary by staging some sort of anti-government demonstration. Shades of "the events of 6/4", as the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 is known.

To guard against this, the Communist authorities -- an appropriate word if ever there was one -- have launched a security crackdown undreamed of by even the most paranoid Americans. One of a long list of banned activities is flying over the capital city.

We're not just talking about airplanes here. They mean any kind of flying, including kites and pigeons!

Walt is not making this up. According to a report in the Shenzhen Daily, in its latest efforts to beef up security ahead of the National Day celebrations, Beijing has widened a ban on flying activities to include pigeons and kite-flying.

The ban, which is effective September 15th to October 8th, applies to sports, recreational and advertising flight activities in the capital. Residents are prohibited from releasing pigeons, and flying kites and balloons, even at celebrations and shopping promotions.

In Walt's observations of China, the ban on pigeons should hardly be necessary, since they, along with any other living thing that flies through the air, will already have been eaten.

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