From: xc17@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu ()
Subject: CND-Global, December 14, 1992
Keywords: CND-Global, December 14, 1992
Organization: U of Chicago, SSPPCC
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 05:49:14 GMT
Summary: CND-Global, December 14, 1992
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NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

               * * *  C h i n a   N e w s   D i g e s t  * * *

                                (News Global)

                          Monday, December 14, 1992


Table of Contents                                                 # of Lines
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1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................. 30
2. Chinese Official Defects, Seeks Asylum in Australia .................. 30
3. Prominent Dissident Scholar Li Honglin Denied Passport ............... 44
4. Chinese Officials Barred from Contact with H.K. Administration ....... 30
5. Taiwan Gears up for Watershed Election ............................... 51
============================================================================

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1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................. 30
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[JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 12/12/1992] BEIJING -- China's economic boom
continued unabated in November with industrial growth soaring 26% over the
same month in 1991, the People's Daily (Overseas Edition) reported Saturday.
November's State Statistics Bureau figures represent the highest year-on-
year increase recorded this year. The paper attributed China's economic boom
to increased investment, enhanced capital flow, a dynamic market for
consumer goods and a decision not to curb light industrial production as in
the last three months of 1991. But rapid growth has sapped China's
infrastructure by increasing rail and road traffic bottlenecks and causing
shortages of oil, steel, timber, cement and other raw materials, the paper
said. (Forwarded by: Liu Jian)
                                ___ ___ ___

[UPI, 12/11/1992] TOKYO -- A new shortcut route for sea cargo, connecting
Europe and the Pacific Ocean via the Arctic, is being developed by a
coalition of governments formed last year by Canada, China, Finland, Japan,
Mongolia, Norway, South Korea, Russia an the state of Alaska, the Kyodo News
Service reported Saturday. Researchers are planning an economic and
scientific test next summer using Russia's renowned ice-breaking vessels and
satellite technology to identify ice ridges, said Paul Fuhs, acting
commisioner of Alaska's Department of Commerce and Economic Development.
Compared with current southern routes via the Panama or Suez Canals, the new
north route is expected to cut the shipping time to Europe by about 10 days
from the West Coast of North America and 15 days from Japan, according to
Fuhs. (Forwarded by: A CND Reader)
                                ___ ___ ___

[AP, 12/11/1992] BEIJING -- Li Shuxian, the widow of China's last emperor
Pu Yi, lost a lawsuit Friday charging copyright violation of two books she
wrote about her late husband, the Beijing Evening News reported. She charged
in her suit that a 1989 book, "The Last Emperor's Last Years," copied
heavily from her works, "Pu Yi's Last Years" and "Pu Yi and I." However, a
Beijing court ruled that the 1989 book contained substantial new research
and ideas.  Li's lawyer said she would appeal. (Forwarded by: Zhao Hua)

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2. Chinese Official Defects, Seeks Asylum in Australia .................. 30
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Forwarded by: A CND Reader
Source: UPI, 12/13/1992

SYDNEY -- A Chinese official who claims he took part in the Tiananmen Square
uprising came out of hiding in Sydney Sunday to explain his decision to
defect and seek asylum in Australia.

Liu Wei, 26, said he feared persecution because of his membership of the
Chinese Alliance for Democracy (CAFD), according to media interviews
published Monday.

Liu was part of a five-member delegation from the Chinese Ministry of Labor
who stopped in Sydney for three days after a visit to New Zealand. He
contacted the CAFD on Dec. 3 and was taken into hiding in Sydney's western
suburbs.

He said he was involved in the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in China
but was forced to issue public statements after the massacre denouncing
the movement. Liu said he later secretly joined the CAFD.

"After the massacre I came to realize the corruption of that government and
decided to abandon the Communist Party of China," Liu said through an
interpreter.

"The reason I left was due to fear of being persecuted by that authority. I
was afraid because of my involvement in the democratic movement. Any member
of the alliance will be arrested as soon as their membership is disclosed.

"There is no respect for human rights, freedom or democracy," he said.

Liu said he left his parents and sister in China, but did not fear for their
safety because they were not involved in the democracy movement.

He said he would remain in hiding until he received a reply from the
Australian government on his application to stay.

If allowed to remain in Australia Liu would continue to work toward
democracy and human rights in China, he said.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Canberra said Monday he only knew of
Liu's defection through press reports.

A spokeswoman for the Immigration Department confirmed Liu had applied for
refugee status.

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3. Prominent Dissident Scholar Li Honglin Denied Passport ............... 44
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Forwarded by: Stephen Kam-Cheung Ng <skn1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Source: South China Morning Post, 12/11/1992

BEIJING -- Prominent social science researcher Mr Li Honglin is being denied
permission to leave China for the United States in apparent violation of
Chinese laws and the leadership's pledges to guarantee freedom of movement
for ordinary citizens.

The Ministry of Public Security has said Mr Li's application in principle
raises no problems. But Mr Li said his former work unit, the Fujian Academy
of Social Sciences, had refused to write a "letter of introduction" on his
behalf. Without such a letter, he cannot get a passport.

The case demonstrates that although China has allowed some prominent
dissidents to leave the country in recent months, the Government is not
carrying out its stated policies uniformly.

The 67-year-old scholar was released without charges in May 1990 after
spending 10 months in jail. He was detained just after the 1989 Beijing
massacre for allegedly committing a crime in trying to negotiate a dialogue
between the Government and student leaders of the democracy movement.

Since being released from detention, he has not been allowed to continue his
research.

With no charges currently against him, Mr Li is in principle entitled to
leave China under both the law and a Chinese commitment one year ago to then
US secretary of state Mr James Baker that exit permission would be granted
to citizens provided they were not facing any legal charges.

As a researcher at the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences, Mr Li wrote
numerous articles advocating economic and political reform in China. His
1988 book Four Isms In China argued that the country's present social system
resulted from the existence of feudalism, capitalism, socialism and
communism all at the same time.

In 1986 Mr Li spent a year at Princeton University lecturing on China's
political economy.

Mr Li wants to go to the United States to visit his son and new
granddaughter, and to take up invitations from Columbia and Princeton
universities.

Mr Li took up the issue with the Public Security Ministry in Beijing in
July.

In August the ministry told him "please rest assured, the matter can be
resolved", he said. Since then, he has been going to the ministry every week
or two, but the answer has always been that he must wait.

Mr Li's wife was given a passport and was allowed to leave China to join her
son last September.

His daughter, who also works at the Fujian Social Sciences Academy, was
refused permission to leave China when she applied last year.

Ms Zhang Fengying, the wife of jailed dissident Mr Ren Wanding, said in
Beijing yesterday that police held her and her 15-year-old daughter
incommunicado for eight days after they staged a short sit-in protest at
police offices.

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4. Chinese Officials Barred from Contact with H.K. Administration ....... 30
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Forwarded by: A CND Reader
Source: UPI, 12/11/1992

HONG KONG -- Angered over democratic reforms proposed by Hong Kong Gov.
Chris Patten, China has barred its officials here from contact with
administrators of the British crown colony, a conservative politician
claimed Saturday.

"The relationship between the two places has deteriorated to the extent that
they can't even talk to each other," said Allen Lee Peng-fei, a former
member of Hong Kong's Executive Council and a leader of a fledgling
political group, the Cooperative Resource Center.

"The officials from China have instructions from Beijing not to be
in the same forum or even dinner party with Hong Kong officials. This
situation is getting worse now."

Lee, who has criticized the governor, said Beijing issued the order as part
of the growing rift between China and Britain over Patten's scheme to widen
public participation in territorial legislative elections scheduled for
1995.

Neither the Hong Kong government or Chinese officials based in Hong Kong
have commented on Allen's claim.

Allen spoke after the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's most widely
circulated English-language daily, reported Saturday that China had
cancelled a visit to Beijing by the colony's attorney general, Jeremy
Mathews.

The attorney general was to lead a delegation from his legal department this
month as part of an exchange of visits designed to prepare the way for the
eventual transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty to China in June 1997.

The newspaper said China claimed officials of its justice ministry were too
busy to receive the delegation.

A three-day meeting in Hong Kong of a Sino-British joint liaison group ended
Thursday for the first time in 25 sessions since 1985 without a communique
and a date announced for another meeting. The group has worked on preparing
the sovereignty handover.

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5. Taiwan Gears up for Watershed Election ............................... 51
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Forwarded by: A CND Reader
Source: UPI, 12/13/1992

TAIPEI -- Building-sized banners flap in the breeze, sound trucks blare
ear-splitting slogans, pop idols croon for wide-eyed farmers in temples and
dusty rural schoolyards.

It's election time, Taiwan-style, but with a special twist this time around.

Balloting Friday by Taiwan's 14 million voters will choose members of the
island's first elected legislature in the island's boldest experiment in
democracy in four decades.

The new body will contain 161 members -- 125 selected in 27 multi-seat
districts and the rest appointed by political parties based on their
island-wide popularity.

The contest heralds an end to Taiwan's rubber-stamp legislature and the
emergence of a strong parliament less easily influenced by the dictates of
the Nationalist Party, or KMT, which has ruled the island since 1949.

The most significant challenge to KMT rule comes from the Democratic
Progressive Party, Taiwan's largest opposition group.

Fielding just 77 candidates -- many of them prominent intellectuals or
former political prisoners -- the DPP will not control parliament even if
all its hopefuls win.

But in campaigning for a strong multi-party system, the DPP is portraying
itself as a watchdog against KMT excesses and the guardian of Taiwan's
future.

"Recent surveys reflect an increase in power for the DPP," said Gallup
pollster Ting Ting-yu. "These statistics show that the KMT is in trouble."

For a party in power since 1949, however, trouble is relative.

The Nationalists, with hardcore support from the civil service, military,
state-run enterprises and farmers' associations, are virtually assured of
winning the election.

Further, the party is rich and highly organized and its innocuous "Reform,
Stability, Prosperity" platform appeals to small and medium-sized
businessmen who have become rich after decades of rapid economic growth.

But the Nationalists are divided.

Most Taiwanese within the KMT support native-born President Lee Teng-hui,
the party's current chairman. Veterans of the Nationalists' 1949 retreat
from China, known as mainlanders, back China-born Premier Hau Pei-tsun, a
general and one-time aide to President Chiang Kai-shek.

Analysts say this split in the ruling party as well as the power Taiwan's
new parliament is expected to wield has drawn vast sums of money into the
election, increasing the influence of money politics.

Analysts say most of the island's eligible voters -- 85 percent of whom are
native Taiwanese -- will back native-born KMT candidates, strengthening
Lee's grip on the party.

"I doubt Premier Hau will be able to keep his position," said political
scientist Kao Ying-mao. He predicted Taiwanese within the KMT would win half
the seats in parliament.

Others say opposition candidates also will gain support. Ting expects the
DPP could net 35 percent of the popular vote and 40 seats.

One barrier to fair elections is vote-buying, analysts said.

Yang Wen-shan, sociologist and author of the first academic study of
vote-buying in Taiwan, says the practice remains popular, noting "35 to 40
percent of the people in Taiwan sold their votes last year."

Yang predicted the growth of "money politics" in this year's race will
foster more gift-giving and simple cash-for-votes deals.

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