Around March each year, North Korea typically asks the South to provide it with about 300,000 tons of fertilizer for its spring planting and 500,000 tons of rice to help overcome its chronic “choongoong,” or spring hunger.

“Spring hunger” must be Commie-speak for “our thoroughly discredited ideology seems to be causing another famine, please feed us”.

North Korea’s “leadership” is in fact so evil, that even China comes out smelling like a rose when it offers aid to the chronically undernourished population. China’s aid typically goes to regimes as evil as its own, such as the one currently practicing genocide in Sudan, presumably on the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend theory, in which the enemy in question is of course the United States. North Korea and China are naturally ideological pals too, but even the odious “Dear Leader” or whatever the fuck he’s calling himself these days knows there’s a limit to how many of his “subjects” he can allow to die in order to prop up his personal supply of hookers and cigars. Based on what we saw in the 1990’s, that limit appears to be at least 10%. It’s possible even the revered Mao himself didn’t reach such a dizzying percentage of deaths on his hands*.

Now it seems the Dear Leader wants to gamble the lives of his people on yet another pissing match with the South (and by extension, the United States). How many millions will die this time?

*In sheer numbers, Mao is generally regarded as the all-time leader in deaths caused by famines, purges, etc. The figures I’ve seen range from 20 to 60 million. With a population of roughly half a billion in the mid-twentieth century, we’re looking at around 10% for that bastard too. Could be more or less, as the numbers are very rough. Still vying with Stalin for evilest human ever, I think. The Kim klan never seems to make such lists, I think, only because the raw number of corpses is smaller.

China’s long-term strategy, which the violence may have only reinforced, has been to wait for the Dalai Lama to die on the theory that it can control his successor as Tibet’s spiritual leader. A new Dalai Lama would likely have little of the same prestige, inside China or abroad.

In 1995, China arrested the Panchen Lama, the No. 2 in Tibetan Buddhism, a 6-year-old at the time. He has not been seen since. China then anointed another Tibetan youth as a replacement, and it has tightly controlled his education and public duties since. Under Tibetan Buddhism, traditionally the Panchen Lama names a new Dalai Lama, theoretically giving the Chinese government control over the present Dalai Lama’s succession.

Countries around the world have been grabbing adjacent territory throughout history, eliminating or “assimilating” the existing populations in the process–my own included. However, in the early 21st century, no country that expects to be taken seriously on the world stage ought to believe that it can get away with such barbarity. A government that “disappears” a six-year-old child in hopes of controlling its conquered territory has no legitimacy whatsoever.

China’s “leaders” are stuck between a rock and a hard place: they must refrain from using their typical brutality meant to maintain “stability” at all costs for fear it will get out to the rest of the world and cast a shadow over their precious Games, which they are hyping for all it’s worth as China’s entry onto the “world stage”. On the other hand, China’s unfortunate citizens might see the unusual “restraint” as an excuse to not shut up and keep protesting. And indeed, the unrest seems to be spreading beyond Tibet itself.

Meanwhile, it’s down to Nancy Pelosi of all people to give America’s strongest public response to the thuggery on display in China. Good for her. One almost gets the impression that she’s one of America’s few leading politicians who seems to understand that the notion that anything that comes out of the Chinese government’s mouth can be trusted is laughable. America’s current president and the presidential hopefuls are too busy falling over themselves kowtowing to China and its vast market to give any meaningful response.

The White House said Thursday the crackdown is not cause for President Bush to cancel his attendance at the Olympics. But it requested access to the region to see how Chinese police were dealing with detained protesters.

Yes, I’m sure the president’s crack investigative skills will get to the bottom of the matter with cheerful assistance from the Chinese government authorities who are sure to allow him every opportunity to witness for himself China’s benevolence toward its citizens. Or something. There will be smiles and handshakes all around, the Olympics will go on as scheduled, and that order for 10,000 crates of salad shooters at $3.99 apiece will help put more money in American housekeepers’ pockets by saving them from having to buy from unproductive, lazy American manufacturers.

America’s most common-sense writer on China today remains John Derbyshire, an old-style paleoconservative with whom I disagree on many topics but whose writings on China are spot-on. Here for example, there is some perspective on recent Tibetan history that China’s government would just as soon brush under the rug. In short, China invaded Tibet, a land with a language and culture of its own, and its leader (the Dalai Lama) has been in exile ever since. The Communists would have us believe that Tibet is just another happy piece of China’s great tapestry, which means that the opposite is probably true. Tibetans and other minorities, some conquered, some living in the Motherland for centuries, are granted special protections in the Chinese constitution, which again has little bearing on reality. Numerous arguments are trotted out in support of China’s sovereignty over them.

The response of an actual Tibetan to all this bluster is simple and straightforward. He will just say, with some passion: “But we are not Chinese!”

Unfortunately, Derbyshire uses Tibet’s very real cultural difference with the Han Chinese majority to go off on another one of his patented tribalist tangents, carrying on his long-time argument that American whites and blacks just don’t mix. This time it has the ugly sheen of “white man’s burden” written all over it. Nevertheless, there’s some interesting stuff in the argument, which shows that even if he’s wrong at least he’s thinking, which most Americans can’t be bothered with. His China writings remain some of the best I’ve read.

… singer Bjork caused controversy by shouting “Tibet, Tibet” at a Shanghai concert. … China’s culture ministry said the outburst “broke Chinese law and hurt Chinese people’s feelings” and pledged to “further tighten controls”.

“Hurt Chinese people’s feelings”? Hold on while I vomit…. There, back now. One would think Chinese people’s “feelings” are hurt more by their illegitimate government’s detainment and torture of their countrymen who do things like… advocate freedom for Tibet. Foreigners get off with a warning and perhaps banishment; natives disappear.

Rights groups on Wednesday praised Hollywood director Steven Spielberg’s decision to shun involvement with the Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies because China was not doing enough to help end the crisis in Darfur.

I can think of a lot of reasons to condemn China’s corrupt, murderous regime without dragging the Sudan into it.

China is believed to have special influence with Sudan because it buys two-thirds of the country’s oil exports, while selling the regime weapons and defending Khartoum in the U.N. Security Council.

Oh, it’s about oil. Well that explains it.

But one has to wonder whether some are finding it easier to criticize China via its propensity to stir up trouble in third-party proxies like Darfur than to directly address the even more appalling way it treats its own citizens. They probably know that China’s leaders tend to go ballistic at any direct criticism of the motherland, and resort to nonsensical cries of “victimization” (”It is hard to see Western bias dying down in the short term”), as if basic human dignity is a “foreign”, “Western” concept.

Look for more tip-toeing around China’s dreadful human rights record both at home and abroad in the run-up to this summer’s Olympics. This ought to be interesting.