China as a Potemkin Village

The constant battle between dissenters and the government of China produces a strange reality that resembles a Potemkin village for the official visitor to China.  What the visitor sees is not what is really going on there, but a sanitized version created specifically for the visitor’s benefit.  This story in the Chicago Times describes the process by which the sanitizing takes place.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0511270302nov27,1,7229619.story?page=2&coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed