From: gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Subject: CND-EP, Sun, August 30, 1992
Summary: CND
Keywords: CND
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 31 Aug 92 12:12:48 GMT

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===================  Europe / Pacific Section (CND-EP)  ===================
                               August 30, 1992

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

1. News Brief (1 Item) ................................................. 12

2. Protest in Sydney Over Deportation of A Chinese Student ............. 22

3. More Chinese Boat People Arrive in Australia ........................ 40

4. Hong Kong - Traditional Chinese Doctors Likely to Face Regulation .. 117
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1. News Brief (1 Item) ................................................. 12
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[AP-DJ, 8/26/92] SINGAPORE -- Harbor tug operator Sembawang Maritime Ltd.
(SML) said Wednesday it has signed a 13-million-SGPR-dlr contract to buy
three new tugs from China as part of its fleet upgrading program. The 3,200
brake-horsepower tugs are being built at the Xinhe Shipyard in Tianjin,
northern China, and are expected to be completed by end-1993. SML signed the
contract with China's state-owned industrial-trading group, Beijing
Enterprises Development Corp., in Beijing Aug. 12. When completed, the
2-drive tugs will be used for berthing and towing vehicles in shipyards,
port gateways, oil terminals and supply base. SML, a member of the Sembawang
Group, said the new tugs will help in providing better services to its
clients in the Asia-Pacific region 'by offering newer and more efficient
tugs.' (From: Huijie)

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2. Protest in Sydney Over Deportation of A Chinese Student ............. 22
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>From: XU Ming Yang
Source: The Australian Chinese Daily  8/24/92

A mass protest was staged in Belmore Park in Sydney yesterday by a number of
local Chinese organisations over a forcible deportation of a Chinese
student, Xing Jiandong.

Xing was detained in the Villawood Detention Centre where illegal migrants
were sent after arrest.  According to a witness, Xing was given a deportation
notice on 14th August. The same evening he wrote two statements, one of
which declared "deportation equals death".

The witness said that Xing told the police he would commit suicide if he was
to be deported.

The same night, police entered into his cell and bashed him with a torch.
Xing tried to slash his own wrist with a blade and later tried to chew and
swallow the blade. The police took him away from the cell, with Xing's mouth
foaming with blood.

The next day, Xing was taken to the airport and forced onto the plane back to
China.

At the gathering, the Chinese student conducted a 30 minute silence protest
against the brutality of the police and the Immigration Department.

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3. More Chinese Boat People Arrive in Australia ........................ 40
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>From: A CND Reader
Source: UPI 8/23/92

CANBERRA  -- Australian authorities Monday planned to airlift 68 Chinese
boat people from Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean to an immigration
detention center at Port Hedland in Western Australia, officials said.

The latest arrivals, claiming to be refugees from southern China, were
spotted Sunday by a surveillance aircraft. Authorities had been alerted to
watch for the boat people by press reports in Indonesia, where they told
officials last week in Jakarta they were heading for Australia.

An immigration department spokeswoman Monday said the 68 refugees -- 61 men
and seven women -- had been allowed ashore from their wooden vessel and were
being housed in a disused school on Christmas Island.

Two doctors, interpreters and federal police had been sent to question them
and their intentions.

``We plan to bring them back to Port Hedland by aircraft for processing if
they intend on applying for refugee status,'' she said.

A spokesman for the island's administration, Geoff Bowley, said the school
was separate from the settlements on the island and all efforts would be
made to prevent the boat people from coming into contact with the island
community.

He discounted suggestions that if they were allowed ashore some could merge
in with the Chinese community there. About 70 percent of the island's
population of around 1,300 are of Chinese origin. The rest are Europeans,
Malays and Indians.

Christmas Island is an Australian territory, 300 miles south of Jakarta and
1,625 miles northwest of Fremantle. It is the closest Australian possession
to the Indonesian capital.

Analysts said the new arrivals reflected a breakdown in arrangements reached
between Australia and Indonesia over boat people last May. Australia had
made it clear it did not want Indonesia to continue to help boat people and
that Indonesia was to keep Australia informed about their movements.

But they said it seemed clear that assistance was given by Indonesia as the
boat was reported to be running out of food and fuel when it arrived in
Jakarta, where it was allowed to stay for a week.

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4. Hong Kong - Traditional Chinese Doctors Likely to Face Regulation .. 117
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>From: A CND Reader
Source: UPI 8/24/92
By: Yau Kit Yu

New prescription for Hong Kong medicine -

HONG KONG -- Business is good at K.K. Lee's Chinese medicine dispensary,
where patients often are lined up in front of the corner shop before it
opens in the morning.
        
The tiny shop, covering only about 200 square feet, is stacked to the
ceiling with glass jars and wooden chests holding 400 kinds of herbs and
exotic ingredients such as dried donkey skin, preserved silkworms and even
bear gall bladder.

Lee often has to use a ladder to find a little-used item but is unlikely to
completely lose track of ingredients.

"If I forget where they are, I can still find them by their smell," he said.

Lee, 50, has practiced in Hong Kong since he came to the British colony 15
years ago from China, where he studied traditional Chinese medicine for six
years before working in a hospital.

In Hong Kong, any resident of Chinese descent may practice traditional
Chinese medicine. A business license is the only requirement. But
Western-style doctors must have a recognized medical degree.

"It may sound scary to the patient," said traditional doctor Li Ning Hon.
"But if a practitioner can keep his business for more than five years, he
couldn't be bad. Think about the rent and living standard in Hong Kong. It
is hard to survive without a real talent."

But traditional Chinese medicine, which has been allowed virtual free reign
in Hong Kong since the mid-19th century, is about to undergo a revolution.

Alarmed by a series of deaths following consumption of potent Chinese herbal
medicines in 1989, the government decided to take action to regulate
traditional medicine practitioners.

A working party on Chinese medicine was set up in 1989 and an interim report
was released in October 1991, drawing criticism from all sides in the
controversy. The group's final report, due at the end of 1992, is expected
to set up a framework for regulation of traditional Chinese medicine and its
practitioners.

"I hope the final report will throw more light on the future of this
career," Lee said. "Otherwise, in the future, nobody would want to learn
traditional Chinese medicine."

Government oversight of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong also could formalize
the status of practitioners and allow patients to claim health insurance
benefits after seeing a traditional doctor.

"Our professional qualifications have not been acknowledged yet," said Chang
Se-kwum, spokeman for the Joint Concern Groups on Chinese Medicine. "We do
not have the right to transfer patients to X-ray laboratories and to sign
letters granting sick leave."

Lee sees 10 to 20 patients a day at his dispensary, located only a few doors
from his home. His consultation fee is about $7.50 and the cost of
prescriptions range from $2 to $15 or 20, depending on the types of herbs
and other ingredients required.

Most prescriptions are boiled with water at home by patients to make an
often foul-tasting brew that must be consumed daily over a long period,
providing good revenue for practitioners.

Despite his success, Lee discouraged his son from following in his
footsteps.

"My father does not want me to learn traditional Chinese medicine from him
as he learned it from his father because he thinks there is no future in
this career in Hong Kong," said Lee Ah Shing, 24. Instead, Ah Shing went to
college and studied a more practical subject -- engineering.

Practitioners who, like Lee, own small medicine shops feel vulnerable.

"I cannot call myself a doctor or work in a hospital here unless I want to
spend another six years in the university to study Western medicine," said
Lee, flipping through his Chinese medicine reference book, "Yellow Emperor's
Classic of Internal Medicine," written some time between 475 B.C. and 221
B.C.

"The traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are forgotten by the
government," he said. "No regulation has been put on us, but there is no
protection or promotion for us either."

However, the descendants of Eu Yan Sang, who 66 years ago opened a
still-flourishing Chinese medicine shop and wholesale herb business would
dispute Lee's view.

The Eu family in August listed $4.5 million worth of Eu Yang Sang (Hong
Kong) Ltd. shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Eu's heirs rely on modern
management techniques to improve business while leaving the buying and
mixing of exotic herbs and animal parts to expert employees.

"I don't know what makes this stuff work," Robert Eu said in a recent
interview while examining samples of stag penis, ginseng root and deer
antler. "I wouldn't even know good deer antler from bad deer antler."

In contrast with Hong Kong's hands-off approach, traditional healing in
China is an academic discipline and enjoys the same status as Western
medicine.

Courses on traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine are taught in
Chinese universities and would-be doctors complete four to six years of
study before being assigned to state hospitals. Other health care workers
such as nurses and pharmacists also study and take standardized exams.

Rigorous research has been doing for decades and the Chinese government
promotes and integrates traditional Chinese medicine into the national
health care system.

"Hong Kong government has not spent any money on the research and on the
education of traditional Chinese medicine. It is a valuable treasure that
our ancestors left for us. It will be a shame if we just let it wither,"
said Dr. Y.C. Kong, a professor of biochemisty at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong. "If the government wants to show its sincerity, please grant more
money to related research and education."

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