The People's Republic of Shin Shina is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, notable for its frequent executions, suspicion of poets, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 839 million Shin Shinans are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Hokkyō. The average income tax rate is 60.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but stagnant Shin Shinan economy, worth 10.7 trillion Ens a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, quite specialized black market in Arms Manufacturing, Trout Farming, Furniture Restoration, and Tourism. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 12,722 Ens, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The government spends millions of Ens every year prosecuting spammers, the Holy Office of the Inquisition is the highest court in the land, the needs of the living outweigh the needs of the dead, and Shin Shina has designated Hokkyō as its capital city. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Shin Shina's national animal is the Syū Kinhei, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Shin Shina is ranked 234,745^th in the world and 7,792^nd in the South Pacific for Most Politically Free, scoring 2 on the Diebold Election Inking Scale.