From: xu@hydra.maths.unsw.oz.au ()
Subject: News Brief item 1, carried in today's CND-Global
Organization: school of Mathematics UNSW
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 03:09:10 GMT


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

                              (News Global)

                        Saturday, August 15, 1992

Table of Contents                                                # of Lines
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1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................ 31
2. China Successfully Launches Australian Satellite .................... 32
3. Wang Juntao Starts Hunger Strike .................................... 39
4. Abortion - Who Believes in a Woman's Right to Choose ? .............. 36
5. China - Student Attempts Mass Murder ................................ 38
6. Bikini Barrier Falls in China ....................................... 21
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1. News Brief (3 Items) ................................................ 31
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[AFP, 8/13/92] Beijing - China's Communist authorities have thrown their
full support behind once-taboo mixed marriages with foreigners, with an
article in the People's Daily introducing an officially sanctioned
matchmaking service. The "Divine Land Computer Matchmaking Service" opened a
month ago in the southern city of Guangzhou and specialises in introducing
Chinese singles to foreigners. Ten men and 196 women seeking mates abroad
have registered with the firm, which has links with dating services in
several countries. (From: a CND reader)
                      ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP-DJ 08/14] BEIJING -- Chinese airlines will buy more than 50 planes this
year, a record number, China Daily reported. Growing domestic aviation
demand is behind the purchases of Boeing 747s and 767s as well as Airbus
300s and 310s to serve busy routes between Beijing, Shanghai, Canton and
Xian. The 100th Boeing jet sold to China left Seattle on Wednesday and is to
arrive in Xiamen International Airport in coastal Fujian province on Friday.
Boeing is to deliver at least 24 planes to China this year, from the Boeing
737 twinjet to the latest 747-400 jumbo.  At the same time, China is
co-producing McDonnell-Douglas planes. China is to assemble 40 commercial
jetliners by 2000 using some Chinese parts. The planes, worth 1.2 billion
dlrs, are to fly domestic trunk and regional routes. (From: Huijie)
                      ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP-DJ, 8/14/92] HONG KONG -- Semi-Tech (Global) Co. announced plans Friday
to spend more than 100 million U.S. dlrs in China over the next several
years to open six factories and a consumer-finance venture. The re-listed
Singer Co. in New York, said it intends to sell sewing machines and other
electronic goods in the mainland through a Singer retail shops that will
offer installment financing. Some 30 stores are expected to be set up in
Shanghai before the company turns to other major mainland cities. Singer
formally signed Friday a 70-30 joint-venture agreement with Shanghai Yah
Chong Sewing Machine Co. It will invest 20 million dlrs in Singer (Shanghai)
Sewing Machine Co., which is to produce 20,000 sewing machine assembly kits
annually by October and 400,000 annually by 1995. (From: Huijie)

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2. China Successfully Launches Australian Satellite .................... 32
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From: Gao Jie and Huijie
Source: AP-DJ 8/13/92

BEIJING -- China sent an Australian telecommunications satellite into orbit
Friday in its second commercial launch of a foreign satellite.

State-run television showed the Long March 2-E rocket lifting off at 7:00
a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday) from the Xichang Launch Center in a remote part of
southwestern Sichuan province.

The satellite, built by Los Angeles-based Hughes Aircraft Co., is owned by
Optus Communications of Sydney, Australia and will be used for TV, telephone
and data transmission.

The first launch attempt on March 22 failed when a short circuit cut off the
flow of fuel to the rocket engines.

China's first commercial foreign satellite launch was in April 1990 when it
sent Asiasat, owned by a Hong Kong-based consortium and also built by
Hughes, into space.

Beijing has for several years sought to break into the satellite launch
business. But because many satellites are made in the U.S., China has had to
negotiate agreements with Washington safeguarding U.S. technology.

The U.S. has agreed that China can launch nine U.S.-made satellites over a
six-year period as long as it abides by accepted pricing and insurance
practices. Western carriers say China has set prices below cost, a charge
the Chinese deny.

Optus said it saved about 100 million dlrs by launching the satellite in
China. China reportedly charges 30 million dlrs.

The Friday launch was part of a 358-million-dlr contract between Optus and
Hughes.

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3. Wang Juntao Starts Hunger Strike .................................... 39
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From: A CND Reader
Source: South China Morning Post 8/13/92
By: John Kohut

Beijing -- Dissident Wang Juntao, serving a 13-year prison sentence on
charges of sedition, began a hunger strike yesterday, according to his wife,
Ms Hou Xiaotian.

Ms Hou, who visited her husband at the Yanqing prison hospital 70 kilometres
from Beijing on Tuesday, said Wang told her he planned to begin the hunger
strike yesterday unless officials from either the National People's
Congress, the Justice Ministry or the procuratorate came to hear his
complaints.

"I asked him to put it off for two weeks," she said.

"But he said, `I can't put it off. I said in March, then in May that I would
go on a hunger strike. I can't put it off any longer'."

Early this year Wang unsuccessfully tried to sue Beijing's Qincheng prison
for detaining him illegally after the 1989 massacre, and allowing him to
contract hepatitis B.

Among Wang's latest complaints is that he is not being given proper
treatment for his hepatitis, and that he has not been able to pass on
certain written material to his wife.

The prison had given him permission to hand the material to his wife last
March, but was overruled by the reform-through-labour bureau.

"Wang knows there is a process, but there must be a beginning," Ms Hou said.
"Already it's been more than half-a-year, and no one has begun."

Ms Hou said her husband was being kept alone in a room 10 to 12 square
metres in area. He is allowed about an hour outside in the hospital
courtyard each day.

Meanwhile, the trial of Wu Jiaxiang, a dissident political scientist, could
begin as early as today.

Relatives of Wu said he would be charged with making "counter-revolutionary
propaganda and incitement". Court proceedings were imminent and could begin
today, they said.

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4. Abortion - Who Believes in a Woman's Right to Choose ? .............. 36
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From: A CND Reader
Source: The Guardian 8/11/92
By: Carrie Grace.

In China's cities, a strict one-child policy means compulsory abortion in
the event of a second pregnancy. In the countryside, those who give birth to
a daughter first time round may try again for a son; thereafter, however,
they too are required to terminate all pregnancies. Only minority
nationalities are allowed to have more than two children.

Officially, 10 million abortions are performed in China each year. The real
figure is probably much higher because some family planning officials under-
report abortions to give the impression that they are meeting birth control
targets by other means.

National family planning officials concede that the restrictions on family
size do result in abuses. Discriminatory abortion, for example, is creating
a worrying imbalance in China's sex ratio: many couples are prepared to
terminate a pregnancy if they suspect their baby will be a girl. Recognising
that ultrasound techniques were being abused for this purpose, authorities
last year made it illegal to tell parents the sex of their child before
birth. But as Chinese doctors are notoriously underpaid and accustomed to
cash gifts, such rules are hard to enforce.

Another practice outlawed by the State Family Planning Commission is forced
or late abortion. Termination, even when a pregnancy is "outside the plan",
is not compulsory and the law gives officials no sanction other than fines
against women who ignore family planning advice. However, grassroots
officials are under intense pressure to meet birth control targets and there
are, for example, persistent reports of rural task forces who seek out
pregnant women and perform forced abortions in cases where the pregnancy
contravenes birth control rules. According to one doctor working in the
surgical department of a Beijing hospital, even in cities, abortions as late
as the seventh month are common.

To reduce such pressures, the authorities encourage all married women who
have already had their quota of children to undergo tubal ligation. Many
rural women complain that the operation is carried out compulsorily after
forced abortion. Says one north-eastern farmer, "If you break the rules,
they'll just do the abortion, then tie your tubes to make sure you don't
make the same mistake again. You'll be lucky if they don't fine you too."

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5. China - Student Attempts Mass Murder ................................ 38
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Reuter 8/13/92

BEIJING -- A 21-year-old woman student, facing expulsion for "long-term
indecent relations" with a fellow student, slipped arsenic into her
college's food and poisoned 788 people in a mass murder bid, a newspaper
reported.

Li Yuan, an introvert who "hated everything on earth", was accused of mixing
350 grams (12.3 oz) of white arsenic into a batch of fermented dough at the
college in Zhengzhou, central Henan province, on June 18, the Henan Legal
News said in a report seen on Thursday.

A total of 788 students and teachers were poisoned and all but 11 were
admitted to hospital, it said. No deaths were reported.

Li made her mass murder attempt after school authorities decided to expel
her because of the relationship with a fellow male student, the newspaper
said.

The local court was still preparing for the trial, the paper said. Court
officials reached by telephone declined to comment.

The case prompted concern at the highest levels in Beijing. Premier Li Peng
personally instructed local investigators to see justice was done, the
newspaper said.

Li Yuan, who had an "introverted personality", felt despised by her fellow
students and estranged from her family.

She was once heard declaring, "I hate everything on earth...I want to
destroy this world", according to classmates quoted by the newspaper.

Local police searched her room and found a cleaver, a dagger, a saw blade,
some sulphuric acid and pesticide, and books on Chinese and foreign crimes
using poisons.

She was also found to be carrying a folding knife, a file and eight razor
blades when interrogated.

In her confession, Li reportedly said: "I don't want to see blood. That's
why I chose poison."

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6. Bikini Barrier Falls in China ....................................... 21
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Reuter 8/13/92

BEIJING -- Pin-ups in scanty bikinis may soon grace the walls of Chinese
homes and offices as Beijing takes another giant step away from socialist
austerity.

An official announcement from the Press and Publications Administration,
published in official newspapers on Thursday, said authorities had lifted a
ban on calendars showing women dressed in bikinis.

Pictures of Hong Kong, Taiwanese or foreign singers and film stars can also
now be put on calendars for the first time.

Publishers who want to issue classic novels, martial arts action stories or
"artistic books on the human body" will now be able to do so without prior
approval from Beijing.

"Through many years of testing and trial, our publications industry has
become more mature by the day," the Beijing Daily quoted Liu Gao, director
of the Press and Publications Administration, as saying.

"In keeping with the higher cultural appreciation level of the Chinese
people, there has been unceasing change in the selection of popular
publications."

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