China Arrests Lovestruck Blogger For Crimes Against the State
The People's Republic of ChinaÂ announcedÂ today that is has arrested a young blogger for Â "anti-revolution" and "dissident" activities. Â ZhÅ« YÇnwÃ©n (æ±åç), aÂ 12 year old from outsideÂ Beijing, is accused of inciding sympathies for the Taiwanese and American governmentsÂ thoughÂ his posts on Twitter-like microblogging site WeiboÂ and the socialÂ networkingÂ site Ren-Ren. Although China imprisions more journalists and bloggers than any other country in the world, Zhu's posts are notable because they almostÂ exclusivelyÂ concern the disturbingly cuteÂ Cindy Yen ( nÃ©eÂ è¢åç³)Â ,Â an American born-and-raised overseas Taiwanese who is now a Mandarin language pop star based in her parents' home country. Popular on the mainland and in many Asian countries where Chinese is spoken, Yen performs often in the PRC and unlike some Taiwanese singers in the past is not seen as a political figure in any way. Yet the content of Zhu's online activities was sufficiently troublesome to be detected by China's internet censors, which are on high alert due the current political turmoil in the country.Â Below is a sample of the young man'sÂ offendingÂ tweets, translated from theÂ Mandarin: Zhu also made posts in broken English attempting to communicate with Yen in her other native language: Chinese authorities say the implication that theÂ Taipei-based Yen was not already in China was aÂ stingingÂ violation of Bejing's One-China policy. And in signaling his intention to travel abroad, authorities were concerned the young dissident may defect. Zhu has not been seen in four days, and isÂ believedÂ to be residing in a reeducation camp somewhere in theÂ Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. There will be no trial. His parents could not be reached for comment.  Â