Commentary

YOU can learn a lot about a country's political culture by the way it celebrates. In the present mood of mingled discretion and convenience that governs our interactions with China, the Western media chose to avert its eyes from the lifeless spectacle of China's official 60th birthday celebrations.

Showing off China’s new wealth and national might on the anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic, the country’s leaders attributed its rise as a rejuvenated world power to the 60 years of communist rule.

THE OBAMA administration achieved a rare moment of bipartisanship in deciding not receive the Dalai Lama at the White House this week. Both Democrats and Republicans found common ground criticizing the administration for kow-towing to China.

One of many disturbing long-term effects of the recent violence in Urumqi is an increased ethnicization of anger on all sides. Ethnic tensions are of course nothing new in Xinjiang, and ethnically targeted state policies have long made it difficult to distinguish between anti-government and ethnic discontent, but until now Uyghur resistance has been aimed at the state.