Excise All References to Censorship

True to their word, Chinese officials allowed Vice President Dick Cheney's Thursday morning speech at Fudan University in Shanghai to be broadcast live in its entirety. But they didn't promise anything about the official transcript. Prepared by People's Daily for distribution to newspapers and Web sites, the text was described as complete yet left out references to delicate topics such as freedom, Taiwan, and North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The New York Times reports that an editor at the People's Daily "said missing sentences or sections were attributable solely to the speed with which the transcript had been prepared."