You got to do what they told ya

Shanghaiist is pissed -- the Chinese government has closed down three internet sites, one of which, Yannan, was one of our favorite sites for information and intelligent analysis of major social and political issues in China. The other two sites are Inner Mongolian, and theur only crime was to protest what they probably considered a racist cartoon that featured Genghis Khan as a mouse with a pig snout. We haven't seen these sites, but they have been accused of hosting "separatist" content and were summarily shut down and China warned it would do last week.

Speaking of separatism and the sacred unity of the motherland, Taiwan's government is protesting Google Maps' reduction of Taiwan to a mere "province of China". Try it out: go to Google Maps and type in "Taiwan", and read what it says.

Photo courtesy of The Fifth Hope.