It's refreshing to have smart bad guys around.

The past century featured a gaggle of not-too-bright bad guys. The Nazis and other fascists bit off more than they could chew militarily, and the Soviets were too cagey and conflicted, not to mentioned burdened by that unworkable economic system of theirs. Thus, much to our relief, the 20th century saw the backs of these nefarious ne'er-do-wells, despite a West that was unable even to assassinate Fidel Castro with an exploding seashell.

However, we have entered a new century, and more baddies have popped up. While the chief bogeymen, al-Qaeda, look less canny than we at first feared (it doesn't exactly stir up support for global jihad to spend most of your time and effort killing other Muslims), there is always the ever-plotting Chinese government. They're not as bad as the other bad guys, but they be a wee bit smarter.

In this chilling article, Newsweek chronicles how China's government has expanded its online propaganda from Internet censorship to planting opinions among the populace. Basically, the government sends police online, where they pretend to be ordinary chatters and board posters and then spread the ideas the government wants people to think.

This displays a glimmer of intelligence. Where simply crushing conversation with an iron fist will simply anger the public more, "opinion-injection" (as I hereby name this tactic) can make people think the government's thoughts while believing that they came up with them on their own. Of course, injecting opinions onto the web doesn't mean people have to believe them. And when news of the government stoogery gets out to the online public, it could backfire, causing Netizens to dismiss any pro-government post as being a plant.

So we'll see just how clever the Chinese government is over the next 20 years. Anyway, it should be fun to finally have some enemies of world freedom who sort of know what they're doing...