Yesterday, Al-Jazeera English announced that it would be closing its bureau in Beijing after the Chinese government refused to renew the press credentials and visa of its China correspondent, Melissa Chan. Chan, based in Beijing since 2007, has an excellent reputation as a journalist, reporting hard-hitting stories on black jails, the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and Chinese land grabs. (Disclosure: I worked with Chan on the board of the Foreign Correspondent's Club of China and consider her a friend.)

Chan's expulsion is believed to be the first for a foreign journalist based in China since the 1998 deportation of a Japanese journalist; writing in the New Yorker, Evan Osnos described it as the revival of "a Soviet-era strategy that will undermine [China's] own efforts to project soft power," and a clear step backwards for Beijing.

That it is, no doubt. But Chan also fits into the troubling pattern of the foreigners Beijing has targeted over the last decade: those the Chinese government views of having less protection because of their ethnicity and nationality; often with Chinese backgrounds. It appears that someone in the Chinese government wanted to give a warning to journalists without causing an international incident; Chan, a Chinese-American working for a Qatari-based television station, seemed to be an appropriate target. The thinking seems to be that a foreign government will more loudly protest the mistreatment of a citizen who is both born and raised in its own country and working for a domestic company.

It's not just journalists who are affected. In December 2009, China executed Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen accused of smuggling eight pounds of heroin into China. The execution of Shaikh, the first for a European in China in 50 years and despite protests from the British government, came as China wanted to appear tough against crime; Shaikh also happened to have been born in Pakistan.

In 2010 the Chinese government sentenced Stern Hu, a Chinese-born Australian who formerly ran Rio Tinto's iron ore operations in China, to 10 years in prison for accepting bribes and stealing trade secrets, in a case widely viewed as political; his former boss said Hu had been "thrown to the wolves." Xue Feng, a Chinese-born American citizen was sentenced to eight years in prison in July 2010 under China's menacingly vague state secrets laws for purchasing an oil database.

Following the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, a handful of journalists, including Americans working for American papers and Brits working for British papers, were expelled. British-born Andrew Higgins was expelled from China in 1991 while working for London's Independent newspaper for supposedly possessing confidential information. Some journalists expelled around that time were let back in, like John Pomfret, a former Washington Post bureau chief, kicked out in 1989 for what authorities called "stealing state secrets and violating martial law provisions" and what he called writing "about Tiananmen Square." Unlike Pomfret, Higgins, who now works for the Post, has not been given the standard long-term visa to report in China, and instead covers the region from Hong Kong.

The pattern seems to be that powerful countries like the United States will be less likely to protest the mistreatment of an American working for a non-American company, or a foreigner working for an American organization, when it becomes a more complicated procedure of coordinating responses between embassies and ministries. Executives and reporters with Chinese backgrounds have many advantages operating in China. Besides language skills and local networks, they can blend in a country where different color skin clearly identifies one as an outsider. Anecdotally speaking, they seem to be given less leniency when they don't follow China's laws; like they're supposed to "know better." 

Many foreign news bureaus are hosted in two diplomatic compounds in the Jianguomen neighborhood. As a reporter based out of the compound for two years, I entered freely, while foreign reporters who looked Chinese (and, of course, those that were Chinese),  often had to show their IDs to get in. Injustice in China affects more than just the locals.   

Chinese economist Mao Yushi is in Washington DC to receive the $250,000 Cato Institute's Milton Friedman Liberty Prize for his advocacy for "an open and transparent political system." Mao, the 83-year-old founder of the Chinese think tank Unirule, infuriated leftists last year in China for calling for Mao Zedong (no relation) to be held accountable for his crimes. The case of Chen Guangcheng, a blind human rights activist who sought safety in the U.S. Embassy late last month has spotlighted China's current human rights weaknesses, but Mao, who like many Chinese suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution, thinks that's missing the point. I interviewed Mao this morning about American imperialism, Bo Xilai, and Chairman Mao's long shadow (Edited and condensed for clarity):

On China's progress: America thinks the Chinese government oppresses human rights. Yes China has its problems, but in the past thirty years human rights in China has seen a big improvement. The American people and the American government think that Chinese government is evil, but that's wrong: It's not like in Mao Zedong's time, when they killed millions of people for political reasons. In the past thirty years, China has never executed someone for political reasons. (Even the execution of the former head of the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration) was for criminal reasons. Compare China to other countries like Syria, Libya: they've killed political prisoners. China has not.

On Former Chongqing Party secretary Bo Xilai: His (downfall) had a big connection to politics. He wanted China to return to Mao Zedong's time, and this I don't approve of. But many Chinese did. Many thought Mao was a big savior; like he was a God. It's possible that other (high leaders) have this view. They can't insult Mao. They put his big picture on Tiananmen Square. When I was in my twenties, I also believed in him. I thought he was great. But fifty million people died because of his rule. Many youthful people, they didn't have that experience, and still believe in Mao, like sixty years ago. Mao Zedong thought tricked me, and it's now tricking many young people.

On American Imperialism: Many in China and in the government thinks America is China's biggest enemy; that the "American imperialists want to destroy China." That's not happening. Also, the "American imperialists," they occupied Japan and Germany after World War 2, and now they're two of the world's biggest economies. I'm here to receive this prize, and many Chinese have said, you're taking America's money, you're a traitor. The Chinese government has taken so much money from the Ford Foundation, and I have just taken just a little bit of money.

On Chen Guangcheng: Both sides are using this to attack the other. China has used this to say you interfere in my internal politics, and need to apologize. America has used this to attack China on human rights, saying you don't protect your people, you are evil. Many Chinese government officials say America wants to destroy us, but so many Chinese come to America to study abroad. When they have troubles, they flee to American embassies. Wang Lijun (a former deputy of Bo), for example. Many Chinese people think America can protect them. 

On political reform: (Because of the Bo Xilai scandal) The Communist Party has opened the curtain a little, and let people see what's inside. Things are changing, and have changed. In Mao's time, politics was a matter of life and death. Transfer of power now is a peaceful process. From Deng Xiaoping, to Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, there haven't been deaths. You look at (countries like Pakistan) and there were deaths. Most of my opinions I can express freely. Of course, not 100 percent of them, but most of them, as long as I'm fair. Compared with other developing countries' governments, China's government has done a very good job.

The blind, self-taught legal activist Chen Guangcheng has escaped from his village in Shandong province where he was kept a prisoner in his own home and fled to Beijing. The New York Times quoted an official at the Chinese Ministry of State Security as saying Chen had made it to the U.S. embassy, though the State Department hasn't confirmed or denied if Chen is inside.

Chen become famous for filing a class action lawsuit in 2005 on behalf of woman who underwent forced sterilizations; he was later imprisoned for three years for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic" and then kept under de facto house arrest. Chen's house became a spot of pilgrimage for human rights activists, a sort of adventure tourism for Chinese who wanted to experience for themselves the thuggishness their country has to offer. Batman actor Christian Bale tried to visit as well but was forcibly turned away; "What I really wanted to do was to meet the man, shake his hand and say what an inspiration he is" Bale said at the time.  

It's a sensitive time for the United States to consider offering Chen asylum, as China is still reeling from the downfall of high ranking leader Bo Xilai, a scandal precipitated by an associate of his seeking refuge in the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu. 

This is at least the second time that Chen has escaped from house arrest. "The night gives me an advantage," he told Time Magazine, after fleeing from an early house arrest in August 2005 to Beijing. "I can navigate better than people with sight can."

Last week, U.S. web hosting company Name.com received an email ordering them to stop unregister the domain of Boxun, a Chinese news portal run out of North Carolina. Boxun, which has the same retro, link-heavy feel as Craigslist or Drudge Report, serves as a clearinghouse of the rumor and intrigue circulating the web about Chinese elite politics. "We have our sources," says Watson Meng, a Duke University graduate from China who founded the website in 2000 and still runs it, supervising the editing and posting of an average of more than ten articles daily.

Since former police chief Wang Lijun fled to a U.S. Consulate in Chengdu in February, precipitating the downfall of Politburo rising star Bo Xilai and China's biggest political scandal in decades, Meng's site has published and reposted stories about Bo's wife's links to the Tiananmen square massacre, a text message Bo's brother apparently sent last week that said Bo Xilai's case had been "settled," and reports that the Bo case has finally given President Hu Jintao control over the military. "We got the eavesdropping story weeks ago," he said, referring to recent reports that Bo had spied on other leaders. Many of Boxun's stories appear to be true; others feature what could best be called speculation supported by anonymous sources. Still, it's been an exceptional three months for the website, which has seen its traffic increase by 160 percent.

A source familiar with the matter forwarded me the original English-language email Name.com received: "Hello, due to a domain name of your platform: "boxun.com", serious damage to the interests of my company, now we hope you stop any services for this domain immediately...Please pay attention, we would began to attack in a few hours except satisfying our conditions. Please treasure your own commercial interests, if for any loss caused to you, please forgive!!!" [ellipsis mine, spelling and grammar same as in the original.]  

After the email, Meng says Name.com was hit by a ferocious denial-of-service attack of "ten gigabytes" a second and Boxun found a new server. Name.com did not respond to a request for comment, and Meng didn't say where the email was sent from.

By his counting, Meng's website has been attacked dozens of times. Last January, with the Arab Spring gaining steam in the Middle East, Meng posted calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in China from an anonymous group. Pro-Communist Party groups "were pretty hardcore about this," he said. "They put my family's names online. That was the first time that happened." Meng grew up in a small county in rural Hebei province in the 1960s and 1970s, where his parents still live. During the Cultural Revolution, many urban youth were sent to villages across China. I asked if that was the case with him and he replied, "nope, we were always peasants." His father was a local functionary on the county's science committee; his mother was a farmer. His family on the whole is supportive of his actions and he's not worried about them. "The Cultural Revolution has already passed," he said. "There are not too many illegal things people can do to my family."

Meng thinks this web attack was specifically ordered by Zhou Yongkang, the ninth ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee and ideological ally of Bo. Meng describes him as a "very strong person who runs the PSB, state security, or, well, don't know if he runs anything anymore," though he thinks Zhou will keep his position until the next Party Congress this fall. In earlier Boxun posts, Meng has speculated that Bo and Zhou had been working together to overthrow Xi Jinping. "We believe Wang Lijun already told the U.S. Consulate that Bo Xilai had a plot to stop Xi Jinping's rise" he said, citing "reliable sources."

Since Chinese official news outlets usually function as mouthpieces of the Communist Party, rather than trustworthy providers of fact or clearly sourced opinion, Chinese readers are comparatively more trusting of Weibo (microblogs), rumors, and sites like Boxun. Wang is currently looking into a 2002 crash of a flight from Beijing to Dalian, in which more than 100 people died. He thinks Bo orchestrated the crash to kill the wife of a political rival, who was carrying evidence that could have been harmful for the former powerbroker. "He's done so many things to cover up this or cover up that," Wang said. He declined to elaborate on what proof he has for his latest claim and the scenario seems somewhat farfetched, but, like all of Boxun's stories, it falls within the realm of possibility.  

North Korea, the world's poorest, most maddeningly opaque nuclear power, has just launched a long-range rocket. Or at least it was supposed to be a long-range rocket.

Both the Pentagon and the South Korean defense ministry have confirmed that the rocket was launched at 7:39am Seoul time, or 6:49pm Washington, D.C. time; a spokesman for the South Korean defense ministry said that a few minutes after the launch the rocket had broken up and crashed into the sea.  North Korea hasn't commented yet, either through official channels or the usually feisty (and congratulatory) Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK.

North Korea announced the plan for the satellite launch, which it claimed was for peaceful purposes, on March 16, less than three weeks after it had signed a deal with the United States in which it promised to stop nuclear and long-range missile tests. Even U.S. officials and long-term North Korea watchers used to dealing with a mercurial Pyongyang were surprised by the speed at which the country reneged on the agreement.

The fear is that, were Pyongyang successful in actually launching a long-range missile, North Korea could eventually load a nuclear warhead on a rocket and send it as far as Alaska or Hawaii. Seoul, the South Korean capital of over ten million people which is only dozens of miles from the DMZ, has been well within striking range of North Korea's artillery for decades.

Hu Jintao, China's president for the last decade, is the first leader of China since the Empress Dowager Cixi (who died in 1908) to refuse to speak with foreign press. Chiang Kai-Shek gave interviews, Mao Zedong pontificated to Edgar Snow; Deng Xiaoping joked with foreign reporters while expounding on his pragmatic philosophy.  Even Hua Guofeng, Mao's short-lived successor, chatted with a British journalist. China's current premier Wen Jiabao has sat down with CNN's Fareed Zakaria twice for a relatively gentle round of questioning but the top leader, and the other members of China's ruling council the Politburo Standing Committee, have stayed silent. 

More than any other reporter, Mike Wallace, the charmingly aggressive 60 Minutes correspondent who passed away this Saturday at the age of 93, may be the reason for Hu's reticence. A sit-down with Wallace was rarely a pleasant experience for world leaders -- particularly autocrats: he lectured Yassir Arafat on violence, challenged Vladmir Putin on democracy, and suggested to Ayatollah Khomeini that he might be a lunatic and a 'disgrace to Islam.' But his 2000 interview with former Chinese President Jiang Zemin may have played a role in convincing Jiang's successor of the value of keeping his mouth shut. 

In contrast to Hu, Jiang was a flashy (for a Chinese leader) former Shanghai Party secretary, who sang karaoke on state visits and recited the Gettysburg address to foreigners. He told Barbara Walters in 1990 that the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre was "much ado about nothing," and Lally Weymouth in 1998 that "I really don't know what kind of threat China poses" to India.

Wallace's genius was the ability to unblinkingly chastise power. Even during the aired pleasantries, Wallace looks unimpressed with Jiang. During minute 2 of the hour-long interview, aired days before Jiang's 2000 U.S. visit, Wallace tells Jiang "shorter answers, please. More concise" and a touch of panic breaks through Jiang's placid smile.

One of the benefits of China's state-managed media system for its leaders is that journalists cannot embarrass them. Hu comes across far more introverted than Jiang, even during prepared Chinese media interviews. In one netizen conducted interview in 2008 hailed as "startling," Hu answered three questions about his Internet habits. (In case you were wondering, he said "because I'm pretty busy, it's not possible for me to go online every day"). It's a safe way to appear human. 

Jiang had to account for the sins of his administration: Wallace calls him a dictator, criticizes him for cracking down on the banned-in-China spiritual movement Falun Gong, and chides him for his lack of military service. When Jiang waxed about Sino-US relations, Wallace responded that "there's no candor" in his answer.  

Wallace chased Jiang to see if he would admit to admiring the courage of the student who stood down the tank during the student uprising in Tiananmen Square:

Jiang: He was never arrested. I don't know where he is now. Looking at the picture I know he definitely had his own ideas.

Wallace: You have not answered the question, Mr. President. Did a part of Jiang Zemin admire his courage?

Jiang: I know what you are driving at, but what I want to emphasize is that we fully respect every citizen's right to freely express his wishes and desires. But I do not favor any flagrant opposition to government actions during an emergency. The tank stopped and did not run the young man down.

Wallace: I'm not talking about the tank. I'm talking about that man's heart, that man's courage, that man, that lonely man, standing against that.

Jiang refused to answer the question, looking stubbon and weak. Investment banker and China watcher Robert Kuhn in his book How China's Leaders Think wrote that "going one-on-one with Mike Wallace was daring and dangerous but Jiang Zemin's down to earth, open and thoughtful tone scored well." To me, it seems like a lesson to Chinese leaders on the benefits of staying home and keeping quiet.

Jiang also recited lines from the Gettysburg address for Wallace, who used it as a chance to press the president on the autocratic nature of his rule. "Why is it that Americans can elect their national leaders, but you apparently don't trust the Chinese people to elect your national leaders?" Jiang, who Deng Xiaoping appointed with consensus from a small group of elderly party leaders, responded unconvincingly, "I am also an elected leader, though we have a different electoral system."

Explaining power dilutes it. Now Hu is silent. 

Gary Shteyngart, the Russian-American novelist whose books Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook enliven the farcical edges of living in a totalitarian society, returned recently from a two week reporting trip to China, the cruel and prosperous land of the future. "We suck," Shteyngart said over the phone. "The saddest flight in the world is Beijing Capital to Newark." FP interviewed Shteyngart about Jews in China, how to build a successful business, and the world outside Brooklyn, edited and condensed for clarity.  

Foreign Policy: Did you tell people you were Jewish in China?

Gary Shteyngart: I did. They said ‘why are Jews so sad and anxious? Why can't you cheer up?' What I said to that, was, you know, the Holocaust. They said we were kind of similar that way. I don't know what happened [to the Chinese] exactly, I read about it on Wikipedia.

FP: You mentioned in a tweet that you started your own boutique investment firm in Shanghai but it failed after five hours. What did you get from it?

GS: A lot of dignity. You can't really monetize dignity.

FP: What did you talk to the Chinese about?

GS: A lot of people in the United States want to be Chinese. A lot of the Chinese want to be writers. They're adorable. I told them not to do it. It's so sweet -- I was talking to one young lady, she was so touched that I would speak to her. Kind of a rough and tumble society, China. We gentle Jewish professors of creative writing are just incredible to them.

FP: What did you feel after you came back from China?

GS: The saddest flight in the world is Beijing to Newark. Beijing is Charles De Gaulle, Newark is Burkina Faso.  I'd feel better if America looked great -- but we don't. We've been working too hard, we need to retire now and let someone else do it. It's not easy. The pollution in China. I'm still coughing up some weird petro-chemical things out of my lung (and I've been back for ten days). My whole cardio-vascular thing is so affected.

FP: What did you perform at Racist Park [a Chinese theme park that shows all of the minorities living together in harmony, now known in English as China Ethnic Culture Park]?

GS: I did the ol' Fiddler in the Roof. I was the third daughter, the one who married a goy. Fiddler on the Smokestack.

FP: What about Shanghai?

GS: I went to Pudong and saw that they're building the (world's) tallest building there. It's going to be taller than the other buildings.

We went to a steampunk club, called #88; [people were wearing] all sorts of Victorian corsets -- I guess some people had the leisure time to look appropriate. The world is so fascinating, I'm telling you -- this is what I tell young writers: Get out of Brooklyn.  

Oh, and I drank this horrifying thing. If there is one of thing chaining civilization back, its baijiu. You're burping sorghum for the rest of your life. There's no cure for baijiu.

FP: What do you recommend a young writer do in China?

GS: I'd start in the financial side -- young guy or girl, just out of Princeton, gets involved in some sort of private equity thing, learns about the corruption, and at the same time learn about the Asian work ethic. That's amazing that there hasn't been a great expatriate novel; it seems like half of the Ivy League is holed up in Shanghai.

FP: What about for the Williams environmental science grad?

GS: Well, they can go teach English. English teaching is sad, because everyone does it; it's the last resort. Or you could do NGO work. I met some NGO people, they were cute.

Writers, though. You have a lot of power as a writer here; anything with an embossed business card gives you face.

FP: Did you hand out copies of an embossed business card in China?

GS: No, I brought 800 copies of my book to give out to China, and handed them out with two hands to people all across the country, cab drivers...

FP: What did cab drivers think of your book?

GS: The cab drivers loved that it has both postmodern and traditional aspects.

FP: Best business idea in China that would last for more than five hours?

GS: We could have Communist Party youth league people collect used wire, and use this used wire in the penal system to flog people, or just to poke people with the wire. It's green. [environmentally friendly]. It's a good way to get in on China's growing penal system.

In 2003, Volkswagen launched its first ever SUV, the Touareg. ‘"Touareg" literally means "free folk" and is the name of a nomadic tribe from the Sahara,'" they wrote in a press release, explaining their decision to borrow the name of the nomadic North African ethnic group. "A proud people of the desert, the Touareg embody the ideal of man's ability to triumph over the obstacles of a harsh land. To this day, they have maintained their strong character and self-reliance."

The "strong character" of the Tuareg -- as it's more typically spelled -- has been in the news lately. Tuareg rebels, formerly brought to Libya to be mercenaries for Muammar al-Qaddafi's regime, have been steadily advancing though Northern Mali, capturing several military bases as well as the ancient city of Timbuktu. Believing themselves inadequately equipped to take on the heavily armed Tuareg fighters, a rogue group of Malian army officers overthrew the country's president last week.

The nominally Muslim Tuareg are reportedly working with local Islamists who have instituted Sharia law on some of the captured towns. Oxfam says that in some parts of the country as much as 70 percent of the population is facing "acute food insecurity."

I was curious as to whether, with the Tuareg in global headlines, Volkswagen was reconsidering its, in retrospect, odd, decision to name an SUV after an ethnic group that has been involved off-and-on in a low-level insurgency against the government of Mali and Niger since the 1960s. 

"I cannot comment on whether we would consider changing the name of the car. We are not politically involved with this tribe.  We don't have an opinion on this yet," said Christian Buhlmann, a spokesman for Volkswagen AG. "I wasn't even aware of that situation until you told me about it," he added.

Ron Sowell, a salesman at Martens Volvo and Volkswagen in Washington, DC, hadn't heard the news in Mali either, and doesn't think it will affect the car's sales to its target audience, which he describes as "people pretty well educated, degrees, making more than $100,000".  He added, "I just think that an automobile and what a tribe does elsewhere doesn't have anything to do with the car they're driving."

What about VW customers a bit closer to the action? A salesman for Volkswagen based in Accra, Ghana said that "now everyone is hearing about the Touareg, but it hasn't affected the popularity of the car."  People in Ghana "aren't concerned with what is happening in other countries," said the salesman, who wished to remain anonymous.

Buhlmann added that he could only comment on "what kind of engines we have in the car and where the name came from." He said the name comes from VW's view that people living in the desert are "peaceful," and that "our vehicle would be a very good desert vehicle."