They represent a volatile threat to most, indeed, all current governments in the world. I believe we would be hard pressed to find a country in the world today which would have welcomed such a gathering with open arms, ready to listen to their critiques, criticisms, and alternative political and policy recommendations. Hence, when readers of the New York Times , unable to attend the forum, are not offered any substantive coverage of the proceedings of this forum, we should be able to recognize the many and refined ways in which repression works. My point is not to say that since the NGO Forum would likely have been greeted with mechanisms of repression anywhere, as I hope my analysis of the New York Times coverage demonstrates it was, we should refrain from criticizing China. This behooves us to look skeptically at the critical position China occupies in the post-cold war world.
China is both the most populated country in the world and has one of the fastest growing economies.
Hence when the New York Times uses the NGO Forum on Women as an occasion to tell us, day after day for over a week, of the repression of freedom in China, we should not jump onto the bandwagon, beating China with the stick of freedom. There have already been murmurs that a cold war between the US and China might be in the offing. In fact, the very same New York Times has engaged in this murmuring. Keeping this in mind will have a lot to do with our understanding of the politics of politics. As such, all comments of commendation or criticism may be directed to any of them.