From: xc17@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu ()
Subject: CND-EP, September 7, 1992
Organization: U of Chicago, SSPPCC
Summary: CND-EP
Reply-To: cnd-ep@sdsc.edu
Keywords: CND-EP
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 04:26:02 GMT
X-Posted-From: cicero.spc.uchicago.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

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===================  Europe / Pacific Section (CND-EP)  ===================
                              September 7, 1992

---------------------------- Table of Contents ----------------------------
No. Subject                                                      # of Lines

1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................ 30

2. The Torturers of Lingyuan Prison, Shenyang .......................... 73

3. Philippines Seize 12 Chinese Fishermen in Spratly Islands ........... 29

4. Japan: Summer Break ?  Just One Week for Most Japanese .............. 99
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1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................ 30
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[CND, 31/8/92] Canberra -- Around 200 PRC nationals drove over 350 km from
Sydney to Canberra, Capital of Australia, and held a demonstration in front
of the Federal Parliament today. This was in protest against the forced
repatriation by the Australian Government of XING Jiandong, a fellow Chinese
whose application for refugee status had been rejected. Xing was reported to
have attempted to cut his wrist to show his fear of being sent back to
China, and to have been beaten up in custody by Australian immigration
officers. Xing was detained by the Chinese authorities for nine days upon
arrival in Guangzhou and was then sent back to his home in Shanghai. A
message from Xing says he is now under police surveillance and has
tremendous fear. In the meantime, two Chinese students died, one badly
wounded, in a car accident on their way to Canberra. (From: Gao Jie)
___ ___ ___ ___ ___

[AP-DJ, 8/28/92] TOKYO -- The Bank of Tokyo in Japan will upgrade its
representative office in Dalian, China, to a branch as of Sept. 9, the bank
said Friday.  The bank already has branches in Shanghai and Shenzhen and
representative offices in Beijing and Guangzhou. open economic regions as
Dalian and Shanghai along China's coast have especially attracted a flood of
Japanese investment. (From: Jian Liu)
___ ___ ___ ___ ___

[AP-DJ, 08/27/92] BEIJING -- A Chinese state company has contracted to buy
eight British-made BAe 146-300 passenger planes, the China Daily report said
Thursday.  The contract, worth more than 200 million dlrs, was signed
Wednesday between British Aerospace and the China Aviation Supplies Corp.
The planes are medium-range to short-range jets. They will be used by
Xian-based China Northwest Airlines on tourist routes linking Shanghai,
Dunhuang, Lanzhou and Beijing, the paper said. Delivery is scheduled between
November and June. (From: Huijie)

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2. The Torturers of Lingyuan Prison, Shenyang .......................... 73
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From: S. Wu
Source: The New York Times, 9/2/92
By: Bai Yong

(Bai Yong is the pseudonym of the person responsible for smuggling this
document, which has been verified by Asia Watch, out of Lingyuan prison.)

In the early evening of April 22, 1991, a prison van left the Great North
Prison in Shenyang, carrying 11 political prisoners who were convicted for
their part in the pro-democracy movement. Among them were  Liu Gang,  a
physicist, and Zhang Ming, an engineer -- Beijing student leaders on the
most-wanted list -- and Tang Yuanjuan, also an engineer. They were sent to
the Lingyuan No. 2 Labor Reform Detachment in Liaoning Province, known to
the outside world as the Lingyuan Motor Vehicle General Assembly Plant. It
makes Linghe tractors and trucks under the brand name Huanghe (Yellow
River).

>From April 22 to May 29, the authorities gave them an "orientation course,"
requiring the prisoners to recite from memory the "standards of conduct for
criminals undergoing reform" -- in essence, a way to instill "criminal
consciousness" into them.  Liu Gang  and 10 other new political prisoners
refused to take the memory test.  Liu Gang  and five others were shackled
with leg irons and thrown either into solitary confinement or a strict
regime unit. The other five were allowed to stay in the brigade to be
"corrected." For days, the authorities tried to break their spirits. The
inmates went on a hunger strike to protest the brutality, only making
conditions worse.

The electric baton used to torture Tang Yuanjuan ran out of power. A guard
wearing leather boots kicked him and broke two of his ribs. Leng Wanbao
remained silent as he was tortured. A guard pried his mouth open and stuck
in the baton.  An Fuxing became sick and was hospitalized in a state of
shock. But as soon as he was released, he was tortured with electric batons
by Yang Guoping (at the time, he was the brigade commander, later promoted
to be a section chief of the prison administration) and others.

On June 4, 1991, Li Jie, a political prisoner from Jilin Province, staged a
one-day hunger strike. Yang Guoping assembled the prisoners of the training
brigade for a meeting. They dragged Li Jie to the stage, stripped him naked
while several common criminals held him down on the floor. Yang Guoping then
applied a huge 50,000-volt baton repeatedly to the inside part of Li's leg.
Two guards used four 5,000 to 10,000-volt electric batons on his head, neck,
armpits, chest, belly and fingers. Li Jie sweated profusely, went into
spasms and then became motionless.

While torturing Li Jie, Yang Guoping blustered, "So you want to pay homage
to those who died on June 4? They died as they deserved. If you are tired of
living, just say so. Why ravage yourself? We can help you. . . . We keep
giving you the electric baton treatment so you will be impressed. Let's see
if you will make trouble again. As long as you keep up your
counterrevolutionary actions, we will never relent!"

Since June, prisoners of the training brigade have been forced to make match
boxes. Their quotas were set higher than those for any other squad, and
these were constantly raised, from 800 a day to 1,700 a day, even as high as
2,000.  They labored from 8 A.M. till 8 P.M. If the quotas were not
fulfilled they were forced to work until 9:30. Prisoners were not allowed to
drink water or smoke.  Having read the white paper on human rights in China,
Liu Gang  and the others found their treatment nowhere close to that
described in official propaganda.  They decided to go on hunger strike.

That evening, the authorities declared the hunger strike "an act of
resisting reform and even a prison uprising. All 13 participants must be
punished," they said.

On New Year's Day 1992, eight political prisoners in tiny solitary
confinement cells again went on a hunger strike and demanded to see their
loved ones. This was rejected.  That afternoon, Zhang Ming wrote a poem on
the wall.  Li Yang, the commander, with a group of common criminals in tow,
on the pretext of searching for knives, forced Zhang Ming to take off all
his clothing, beat and kicked him. Li declared fiercely, "So you want to
stage a hunger strike? Go right ahead. Labor reform detachments aren't
afraid of deaths! When one dies, we'll bury one. When two die, we'll bury a
pair!"

Political prisoners are getting the most inhuman treatment at the No. 2
Labor Reform Detachment in Lingyuan. Even in these terrible circumstances,
they continue to cherish an ardent love for freedom and refuse to be
intimidated.  They are trying to preserve their personal dignity. They are
convinced that they are not alone. The hearts of hundreds of millions are
with them. Please pay close attention to their fate.

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3. Philippines Seize 12 Chinese Fishermen in Spratly Islands ........... 29
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From: A CND Reader
Source: UPI 8/31/92

MANILA -- Philippine authorities said Saturday they arrested 12 Chinese
fishermen caught poaching inside waters claimed by the Philippines in the
disputed Spratly islands.

Philippine air force commander Brig. Gen. Leopoldo Acot said the fishermen,
who were arrested Friday, were being detained in Puerto Princesa, capital of
Palawan province, 370 miles southwest of Manila.

Acot said the fishermen, whose ages range from 17 to 20 years, would be
charged with illegal entry and illegal fishing after they were caught using
sodium cyanide, which is banned under Philippine laws.

He said the fishermen indicated they had sailed from the southern Chinese
province of Hainan aboard several fishing boats.

Last March, seven Chinese fishermen were arrested fishing off an island in
the Spratly chain occupied by Philippine troops but were later released
without charges following negotiations between Beijing and Manila.

The Spratlys, a string of 1,000 odd chips of land in the South China Sea, is
being claimed wholly or in part by the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Taiwan,
Malaysia and Brunei.

All claimants but Brunei have military garrisons on the islands, which are
believed to sit atop vast deposits of natural gas.

In 1988, Vietnam and China engaged in a brief naval battle that left 77
Vietnamese sailors dead or missing.

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4. Japan: Summer Break ?  Just One Week for Most Japanese .............. 99
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Reuter 8/6/92
By: Mark O'Neill

TOKYO -- Shunichi Inazuka is one of the lucky Japanese workers -- this month
he is taking a 16-day summer holiday, more than twice the national average.

Inazuka, 42, works for the camera maker Canon, one of Japan's most generous
companies when it comes to holidays.

Canon gives its staff 16 days off -- but the average summer holiday for
Japanese workers this year will be only 7.4 days, with even less for those
who work for smaller firms.

By contrast, the average Frenchman is enjoying four weeks of paid leave this
summer and the average Italian gets a month.

"Summer holiday? That's a new idea to people of my generation," said
65-year- old Hiroshi Suzuki, who retired after 30 years at a printing firm
and now works as a building superintendent.

"For us, July and August were just working months like any other, with a
three- day break for Obon," he said.

Obon, in mid-August, is when Japanese traditionally return to their home
town to pay respect to their ancestors.

Short summer holidays are the legacy of Japan's colossal effort to rebuild
the nation following its devastation at the end of World War Two, and the
work culture it created.

Suzuki started work in the desperate post-war years.

"For us, work was survival," he said. "The country had no resources and was
ringed by three big powers -- CHINA, the Soviet Union and the United States.
If we did not work, Japan would die."

Japanese culture extols work and has no mercy for the idle or unemployed. It
has produced an employment system in which most people work their whole life
in the same firm, making it difficult to behave differently to one's
colleagues.

"If you go on holiday, your work must be done by your colleagues," said
Takeshi Mimura, who works in a trading company.

"If you are away for two weeks or longer, that puts a big burden on them. It
is not a popular thing to do. The safest thing to do is go on holiday when
everyone else does."

The result is that about 70 per cent of manufacturing firms this year have
arranged company holidays at the same time, during the period from August 8
to 20.

This creates the second reason for not taking holidays -- overcrowded roads
and railways, inadequate holiday facilities and high prices.

The first weekend of the summer holiday season was marred by traffic jams up
to 40 km (25 miles) long on major highways out of Tokyo.

A study by the government's Economic and Planning Agency compared the costs
of similar domestic and overseas holidays for a Frenchman, an American and a
Japanese.

It found that, while the American spent 115,000 yen ($900) for a week in the
Bahamas and a Frenchman 122,000 yen ($950) to go to the Canaries, a Japanese
had to spend 203,000 yen ($1,590) for a week in Hawaii.

The costs for a four-day domestic holiday are also higher, with the
American's holiday the cheapest and the Japanese paying around 40 per cent
more.

Another factor working against long holidays is the fact that many older men
are unused to having spare time.

"As I have only been three years in my department, I am only entitled to
short holidays," explained Hideo Yamamoto, 25, who works in a government
ministry.

"My seniors, in their 40s and 50s, could take two weeks off in the summer
and they are not so busy, but they take only a week or at most nine days.
Going away is expensive and exhausting and they get bored at home," he said.

In many Japanese families, husband and wife live in separate worlds, one
dominated by the company and the other by children, school, friends and
hobbies, with little overlap.

"My father feels out of place in my mother's world," Yamamoto said. "He has
few subjects in common with my mother. He feels more comfortable in the
office."

While big business has misgivings about granting longer paid holidays,
fearing it might reduce people's company loyalty, the government is pressing
for shorter working hours and more time off, saying Japanese workers deserve
a more enjoyable life.

Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, setting an example, planned to take a total
of 20 days off by late August.

The government department pushing hardest for shorter working hours is the
Ministry of International Trade and Industry. But if you walk past their
building in central Tokyo late in the evening, you will find most of the
lights still on and the staff diligently drawing up plans for longer
holidays. This has earned it a nickname -- the Ministry of Constant
Overtime.

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