*China has declared that it will instigate a "human rights action plan" over the next two years designed in part to "expand democracy and STRENGTHEN RULE OF LAW.*

(my emphasis)

They want to strengthen the 'rule of law' beyond "we believe you may been somehow naughty, so we're going to put you into a dungeon until we want to remove your corneas and kidneys to sell"???

There are no words...!

...at it again.

1 - Eliminate all human rights, now the Olympics is gone and no-one is looking.

2 - ??????

3 - Profit

If China were genuinely concerned about human rights, it would not have protested the award of the Sakharov prize to Hu Jia, nor would it have put him on trial or in jail. This is a sad joke, and it's a great pity that dictatorial regimes like China's have their hands on military capabilities that permit their countries to remain independent. There should be only two kinds of countries in the world: liberal democracies, and their colonies - being prepared for independence as and when they become capable of sustaining democratic rule with equal rights for all. Then, there would be no wars or the other kinds of unpleasantness we keep seeing in the newspapers.

"There should be only two kinds of countries in the world: liberal democracies, and their colonies"

I don't think that colonialism and liberal democracy are very compatible; colonies tend to resent their "liberally democratic overlords" and have to be subdued by force. The more liberal you become, the less efective you are at colonialism; hence the end of the British Empire.

The idea of imposing democracy from the outside sounds good, but Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate the practical difficulties in implementing it.

However, I agree that China is not likely to achieve any kind of real democracy while it keeps the oneparty state intact; but it seems that most westerners are more interested in cheap manufactured goods than Chinese political freedoms.

Am I the only one who finds it odd that this plan is designed, in part, to "expand democracy and strengthen rule of law"? So the Chinese ruling party wants to "expand democracy" in a country where the word "democracy" is banned and saying or writing it can get you thrown in jail (or executed if you're really lucky)? That's even funnier than them saying they care about the people (funny in a sad way, not in a ha-ha way).

I thought I saw the words respect, human rights and chinese communist party in a paragraph. I'm sure I was dreaming.

I'm not confusing these friendly, smiling cuddly rulers with the same people who believe most ferevently in capital punishment am I? The same administration who imposed such draconian control and ethnic displacement of Tibet ? The same folk who have ignored vast swathes of their own people to let them slide into terrible hardship? The one party state which has profited in the shameful treatment of workers and holds a horrific track record in human rights? The same rulers who were not averse to indulging in a spot of 'management' of the Olympic Games for those of short memories. And as we all know, a country where the citizen is denied access to information as to do so would give them the two things their rulers fear the most; Knowledge and Power.

How dare I even think such things. I'd be called racist, moronic and ignorant by the clever people on here. Oh.....