The Chinese Military Industrial Complex continues going from strength to strength–if they are not squashing kids in Beijing with tanks or herding the poor into sweatshops to stuff the pockets of the nomenklatura or banning independent workers’ organisations, they are massacring Tibetans, arming the Sudanese and Burmese dictatorships and attempting to ship ammunition to Zimbabwe to facilitate the suppression and murder of those Zimbabweans–the majority–who didn’t vote for President for Ever, Bob Mugabe; or shipping those noted agents of western imperialism–North Korean refugees–back to the Kim thanatocracy. Further protests and violence attended the Olympic torch relay in Seoul, a procession surrounded by 8,300 police.

Thousands of young Chinese assembled to defend their country’s troubled Olympic torch relay pushed through police lines on Sunday, some of them hurling rocks, bottled water and plastic and steel pipes at protesters demanding better treatment for North Korean refugees in China.Two North Korean defectors living in South Korea poured paint thinner on themselves and tried to set themselves on fire in an attempt to protest what they condemned as Beijing’s inhumane crackdown of North Korean refugees, but the police stopped them, according to witnesses and the police.

[…] In South Korea, one of the torch’s final stops before entering the safety of China, demonstrators focused on human rights for North Koreans who live in hiding in China after fleeing hunger in their homeland.

[…] When lone protesters demanded that China stop repatriating North Korean refugees, they were quickly surrounded by jeering Chinese. Near the park, Chinese students surrounded and beat a small group of protesters, news reports said.

In another scuffle, at the city center where the five-hour torch run ended, Chinese surrounded several Tibetans and South Korean supporters who unfurled pro-Tibet banners, and kicked and punched them, witnesses said.

[…..]

In recent years, thousands of North Koreans have fled across the loosely controlled Chinese border, rather than the heavily fortified border with South Korea. China sends back North Koreans it catches as illegal economic migrants, a policy condemned by rights groups. They face life-threatening punishment in labor camps once repatriated, according to rights groups.

“Even as it is preparing for the Olympics, China is arresting North Korean refugees and sending them to the valley of death. Is that an Olympic spirit?” said Han Chang Kwon, a leader of North Korean defectors.

Unfortunately for Han Chang Kwon, the ‘Olympic spirit’ is about unrestrained nationalism, juicy sponsorship deals and exhorbitant fees for the ‘rights’ to televise the whole sordid spectacle of synchronised swimming, show-jumping and rhythmic gymnastics.

Contrary to the Brendan O’Bollocks (and others) line that condemnation of the Chinese Military Industrial Complex is ‘racist’ and ‘anti-modernity’, I am as opposed to racist immigration controls and detention and forced removal of refugees in Britain, Australia or New Zealand, as I am to racist immigration controls and detention and forced removal of refugees in China. Why do soi-disant ’socialist’ states, held up by some as models of ‘workers’ paradises’ restrict the movement of citizens? How can some (few) misguided people call themselves ’socialist’ in good conscience and at the same time defend holding entire populations captive?