Strange but True: Communists Censor News

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The Associated Press has confirmed what had been rumored elsewhere: mainland Chinese new stations blocked out images and sound of protestor Wenyi Wang in their broadcasts.

While U.S. media featured the protester, who had obtained temporary press credentials as a reporter for a Falun Gong newspaper and pleaded with Bush to stop Hu from persecuting the banned spiritual movement, the incident was absent from official Chinese reports.

China also blacked out CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC World, which are available in some hotels and Western housing.

Neither was there any government or state media comment on a White House announcer who referred to China as the "Republic of China," the official name of rival Taiwan, instead of the People's Republic of China.

One has to ask: How is the Chinese government sophisticated enough to censor streaming news feeds, but dumb enough not to demand the Epoch Times off the media list? As micromanaged as these state visits are, do foreign dignitaries have any say over details like that?