And a slew of more links that have been backing up and on my feelings on the matter at hand

Am I really posting everything I can on Ai Weiwei's disappearance, yes it seems like it. Here is Ai Weiwei and Qingming. Here are a few articles trying to take in the disappearances from a wider perspective. Both are very good. Really there is not much to say on the issue. Anyone who has seen or read enough can perceive that the powers that be in China are afraid. There are so many issues which keep them up at night.

Often I was asked pointed questions about what I thought about the CCP by young Chinese people while I was living there.

I suspected that they were trying to bait me, to get me into an argument, in which they could stand up and defend China's honor against the ignorant American who dares come to China to criticize it. I always made it my policy (for good or for ill) to sidestep the question, to deflect it, to answer truthfully and yet to avoid falling into any rhetorical or logical traps.

My answer was usually that I thought that running China was a truly difficult job and that anyone who ran it was in an unenviable position. I honestly believe that. The problems that China, as a nation face are staggering, and many or most are familiar to those of you who follow China. (I might spend weeks discussing all the problems which China face....hmm)

But this fear is coupled with an understanding that they have no mandate from the people. If you subscribe to a Lockean view of government, that the power of the ruler flows from the consent of the governed. If you do not subscribe to a Lockean view of government but a traditional Chinese or Neo-Confucian model I will suggest that the current rulers of China have lost the Mandate of Heaven. If the ruler rules poorly, natural disaster, famine, and disorder will follow.

Yes but does the Mandate of Heaven matter? These are modern times we live in, surely this is all superstition that has no effect on the way things happen in the real world. This is a discussion for a future post.

But it is also worth remembering that all these pressures and lack of modern government promote superstition and paranoia amongst the leadership. (An anecdote I heard often in Kaifeng, was that aspiring or current political leaders never visit Luoyang 洛阳 -a nearby city and former Imperial capital- because it is a homonym for "setting sun" 落阳, also pronounced luo4yang2.)

and on to those missing links:

The Rule of Law in China (or lack there of)

Sugar Daddies in China and trying to ween young girls off of them.

A cool art exhibit of Chinese photos

Ai Weiwei and art in contemporary China

Concurrent with the recent round up of Bad Elements in China there seems to be another level of parapets being built upon the Great Firewall.