Baghdad via Beijing

April 9, 2003

How does the war look in China? Jianying Zha cites evidence that many Chinese old enough to remember Tiananmen Square, never mind Mao's unending horrors, have been watching wistfully. "Much like Eastern Europeans," Zha writes, these Chinese "see in Saddam Hussein the kind of despot they know too well." Jianying Zha, by the way, is the author of the great China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Best Sellers Are Transforming a Culture.