Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the 'self-defense' incident in Tibet earlier this week.

The Sydney Morning Herald just reported that the whole Chinabounder blog seems to be a hoax! The blog was set up by performance artists, both men and women, from Britain, Australia, Japan and China. They 'fabricated its content as an investigation into online vigilante behavior.' If this is true they did a good job!

John references a Sydney Morning Herald article which reported that the iTunes store is blocked in China allegedly due to Olympic athletes downloading pro-Tibetan music in (not so) silent protest.

After six decades in control, Communist officials are accustomed to issuing sweeping draconian edicts such as this, confident that they unfailingly act for the benefit of all. Citizens end up angry but are helpless to act on their frustrations.

I’ve noticed at least three different waves of local propaganda since we’ve been here.

Oiwan Lam has translated an interesting article by Ip Iam-chong that originally ran in Ming Pao Daily and discusses China's "610 Office" whose mandate is to "coordinate the collection of information, monitor and arrest dissents across the country". The comparison of this unit and the Gestapo that Ip Iam-chong makes is not hard to see.

A Chinese student fell to her death in Sydney after being sexually assaulted. Liao Wei and her boyfriend fell from their third-storey apartment. Liao, her boyfriend and two other flat mates were all sexually assaulted by an intruder.

A collage made from a series of images found on the People's Daily website. The images show people around the country watching and listening to Hu Jintao's opening speech to the Communist Party of China's 17th National Congress. Who says the fine art of propaganda is dead?

Six lawyers have stood up to defend a convicted practitioner of the outlawed FLG movement. The article, from FLG-tied NTDTV, is weighed down by pro-FLG propaganda, which calls into question the validity of the report - but good to know regardless.