While today is a holiday, it is by no means one to rest and forget. Under the radar in recent news is the parallel policies of the Chinese and Vietnamese governments, particularly when they concern dissidents. As Google’s threat to pull the plug on its Chinese operations continues to stir conversations in Beijing and Washington, many do not know about similarities between Beijing and Hanoi.

Two days from today, Nguyen Tien Trung will face trial on charge of treason by the Vietnamese government. Trung, a French-educated pro-democracy blogger and software engineer, had first been drafted by the Vietnamese army following his return from France and arrested the day after his dishonorable discharge. He is founder of the Young Vietnamese for Democracy Association and, according to government media, a member of the banned Democratic Party of Vietnam.

Trung’s was part of a series of high-profile summer arrests that included Le Cong Dinh, Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, Nguyen Si Binh. The first is one of Vietnam’s top human rights lawyers and a former Fulbright scholar at Tulane, the second is chairman of a top Vietnamese Internet company, the third is a Vietnamese-American democracy activist. The American government, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have all called for their immediate release.

Government media has also been particularly preoccupied with these cases. VTV, the government’s central news channel, devoted a significant amount of prime-time to air the four’s public confessions. Similarly, many major national newspapers carried the full text of their confessions. While the Vietnamese government is no stranger to human rights-related arrests, the extent of official attention it has showered on these four is still surprising.

The spotlight is shifting away from Le Cong Dinh, the American-educated lawyer with an international reputation, towards Nguyen Tien Trung, as the latter’s trial date nears. Trung is merely 26 years old, far younger than the other three middle-aged men. Trung graduated from Le Hong Phong High School, southern Vietnam’s academic powerhouse. He then went on to graduate school in computer science in southern France, where he was an outstanding student. His profile eerily matches that of many young Vietnamese who have the opportunity to study abroad. Many will surely be watching the outcome of his trial, where he may face the death sentence.

In a recent article, the New York Times highlights the simmering tension between Google’s 80 million Chinese users and their government. At the same time, Vietnamese Facebook users have had trouble accessing the site for months and blame the government for this partial block. With a former Fulbright scholar in jail and a young blogger on trial, Hanoi’s suspicious eye on Beijing, bauxite and imperial past notwithstanding, may just relax.

Coal: The Most Inconvenient Truth

Today’s New York Times discusses a coal mining accident which has killed 35 miners and trapped 44 in Pingdingshan, in China’s Henan province. The accident came only three days after Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Zhang Dejiang announced that coal miners’ safety was a priority. But coal endangers more than just those who excavate it. In the latest edition of Boston Review, Victor and Morse examine the perils of the status quo and the improbability of dramatic change.

In their article, V&M note that “every stage of the coal business is hard on the environment.” They contend that to check the progress of global warming, scientists estimate that emissions need to be halved by 2050. “For countries that care the most about global warming,” they argue, “a global halving of emissions means making much deeper cuts of their own so that developing countries that put a lower priority on the problem have room to grow.”

As the Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, nears expiration in 2012, global leaders can only confront or postpone grim choices. The Bush administration did not send delegates to Kyoto, and Obama supported clean coal technology as part of his campaign. In December, international climate talks in Copenhagen, hosted by The United Nations Framework Read the rest of this entry »