Ross Terrill

Chinese police detained Harvard scholar Ross Terrill early Wednesday, then expelled him to Hong Kong for his involvement with the dissident former student leader Shen Tong. Shen, the first exiled pro-democracy leader to return to China since the crackdown on the Tian An Men Square protests in 1989, was detained in Beijing early Tuesday, a few hours before he planned to speak at a news conference.

On the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks by Al Qaeda, much of the national security elite, especially the neoconservative wing, was focused on the threat perceived from China. The People's Republic is a rising power, dissatisfied with the current international system dominated by the United States. Despite its movement toward a market economy, it continues to be ruled by a Communist Party hostile to most American values.

Along with peculiarities like the kangaroo and the platypus--a creature that lays eggs, has thick fur, a duck's bill, suckles its young and can paralyze you with the venom in its hind-legs--Australia has some odd birds. One of them is the bower bird. The bower bird builds a nest of bright litter: flowers, cellophane, feathers, cigarette packs, leaves, bottle tops, whatever amusing fragments catch its fancy.

Chinese police detained Harvard scholar Ross Terrill early Wednesday, then expelled him to Hong Kong for his involvement with the dissident former student leader Shen Tong. Shen, the first exiled pro-democracy leader to return to China since the crackdown on the Tian An Men Square protests in 1989, was detained in Beijing early Tuesday, a few hours before he planned to speak at a news conference.

On the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks by Al Qaeda, much of the national security elite, especially the neoconservative wing, was focused on the threat perceived from China. The People's Republic is a rising power, dissatisfied with the current international system dominated by the United States. Despite its movement toward a market economy, it continues to be ruled by a Communist Party hostile to most American values.

A CANNIBAL IN MANHATTAN by Tama Janowitz (Washington Square Press: $7.95). Suspected of reverting to his old ways, Mgungu Yabba Mgungu, a former cannibal and former husband of socialite Maria Fishburn, wrestles with the jungles of Manhattan. FULL MEASURE: Modern Short Stories on Aging, edited by Dorothy Sennett (Graywolf Press: $10). Authors Joyce Carol Oates, Nadine Gordimer, Saul Bellow, et al, write of the dormant strength and renewal found in the elderly.

I save Book Review for Sunday morning dessert, so I read Louis Begley's review of "Hitler's Willing Executioners" (Book Review, March 24) depicting German atrocities after I had read in Opinion the comments of Ross Terrill on a report by Zheng Yi that depicted Chinese atrocities. Both works suggest the existence of traits especially evil in the natures of Germans and Chinese, but when I look further into history, I find more and more groups of people must be included with them until I run out of exceptions.

BEIJING - She has a resume that would make U.S. political consultants drool: A renowned soprano who's performed for troops serving the motherland, opera fans at Lincoln Center and ordinary Chinese watching annual TV variety galas, she's also a World Health Organization goodwill ambassador in the fight against tuberculosis and HIV. She's volunteered to help earthquake victims and hobnobbed with Bill Gates at an anti-smoking event in Beijing....

It is a sad commentary on the state of our foreign policy that the White House and its sycophants in the media proclaim President Clinton's China foray a smashing success based on him surviving two press conferences (June 29). Our leader described the U.S. position on the Tiananmen Square massacre as the United States and China having a "difference of opinion." We have a "difference of opinion" about the morality of reducing a couple of thousand protesters to red splotches on the pavement?

The tale of George Washington's painful awakening to the evils of slavery was awarded the 2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for history Saturday night. "An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America" by historian Henry Wiencek traces Washington's transformation from slave-owning planter who bought, sold and whipped his chattel to military general who saw how effectively free black soldiers fought for the Continental Army.

Along with peculiarities like the kangaroo and the platypus--a creature that lays eggs, has thick fur, a duck's bill, suckles its young and can paralyze you with the venom in its hind-legs--Australia has some odd birds. One of them is the bower bird. The bower bird builds a nest of bright litter: flowers, cellophane, feathers, cigarette packs, leaves, bottle tops, whatever amusing fragments catch its fancy.

As a young man from Brooklyn seeking adventure, Seth Faison found himself thrilled by the challenge of China's secrets, including Emperor Qin Shihuang's concealed tomb beneath a simple hill near Xian, the twilight industry of illegally copied music CDs, a furtive gay marriage in Shanghai and especially the shuttered land of Tibet.

Shen Tong, one of China's most prominent exiled dissidents, was detained by police at his mother's home early this morning, about 10 days after his return to Beijing. Shen, who had returned from exile in the United States and spent nearly three weeks in other parts of China before arriving in the capital, had spread word Monday that he planned a press conference for this morning. That step apparently prompted authorities to move against him.