Even if you paid Pundita to read The New York Times online, we wouldn't do it. What use it to have the little box that says "Remember me" if a website forces you to go through the entire registration process every time you visit? This is no great loss, which doesn't mean we never read anything the Times publishes. If it's up on Drudge, AOL News or another website, sometimes we find our way to a Times report.
That is exactly how Pundita discovered that China Daily stole an article from The New York Times. The China Daily Website was China's first news Website and according to their own blurb, "one of the country's top news portals today." Yes well if they're one of the top news portals, they can credit a source.
The China Daily 02/01/05 report Russia gets US$6b loan for Yukos Deal is a word-for-word republication of the 02/02/05 New York Times report China Loans Russia 6 Billion for Yukos Deal .
Please no letters to Pundita mentioning the time difference between New York and Beijing. The Times story was filed from Moscow. That means the Times paid to have a reporter endure Russian press conferences conducted by Russian oil ministers and whatnot. Or at the least they paid a reporter to sift news wires and write up the story. The China Daily simply clicked and pasted.
There, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with China. The Chinese are the fox in the fable of the Fox and the Grapes. They want to be a world power but they don't want to pay their dues. Chinese counterfeiting, knockoffs, and just plain theft of intellectual property cost Americans untold zillions of US dollars. But if you confront Beijing on the issue, they revert to cute pidgin English, "Oh we just poor developing country. We too poor to observe copyright and patent laws."
But. But! If America protests to Israel about weapons sales to China, General Cao draws himself up to his full height and tells Bush in perfectly grammatical English, "Mind your own business."
Obviously China is no longer a poor developing country, if they can afford to loan Russia 6 billion (that's in dollars, not yuan) to help Moscow with their Yukos problem, and if they are attending the luncheon at the upcoming G7 meeting.
The last time the G7 met it had to be on island in order to keep anti-Globalist mobs from crashing the meeting. Pundita suggests that American corporations spending billions trying to sue Chinese counterfeiters stage their own mobbed protest at the upcoming G7 meeting.
Come to think of it, that's the best idea Pundita's had since we recommended Eliot Spitzer for the job of World Bank president. Law suits are a waste of time but the Chinese government lives in terror of Disorder.
American corporations should contact George Soros for advice on how to stage a Spontaneous Uprising of the People event. But the basic drill is simple: dress up as a Hippie, smear your face with red paint, and hop up and down outside the G7 cordon.
And just think: after The New York Times writes up the story of the spontaneous uprising, China Daily could steal it for their readers. And Wal-Mart could sell the video of the event, which a Taiwan film company throws together from stolen BBC video coverage and titles, "Ninja Revenge: The Next Sequel."
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