From The Time Magazine:
As China prepares to celebrate the Lunar New Year this weekend, there is much hyperbole about the country’s gleaming new skyscrapers, swelling middle class, dazzling preparations for the Olympics and so forth. But it is always worth getting a reality check on what underlies that rosy picture, the fact that China remains a highly repressive authoritarian state. I met recently in a small Beijing cafe with social activist Teng Biao and public-interest lawyer Li Heping, two unassuming gentlemen who are painfully well aware of the lengths the Chinese system will go to preserve itself. [Full Text]
