From: gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Newsgroups: aus.culture.china
Subject: China News Digest (Global), Wed, 11/11/1992
Date: 11 Nov 92 12:35:27 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.22.8
Summary: CND
Keywords: CND

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

                                (News Global)

                         Wednesday, November 11, 1992


Table of Contents                                                 # of Lines
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1. News Brief (5 Items) ................................................. 60
2. Trade Minister Li Lanqing Says China's Ready to Join GATT ............ 37
3. China Invites Nobel Laureate Lawrence Klein to Give Economic Advice .. 18
4. Chinese Monk Discovered America, Says Scholar ........................ 26
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1. News Brief (5 Items) ................................................. 60
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[JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 11/10/1992] HONG KONG, Nov. 10 -- Hong Kong 
Governor Christopher Patten on Tuesday met Zhou Nan, head of the Hong Kong 
branch of China's official Xinhua news agency, the local TVB News reported.
The English-language television news broadcast said the two met for 45
minutes Tuesday afternoon in the Government House, the Hong Kong governor's
office. It was the first official meeting Patten has held with a high-level
Chinese official since his October 20-23 visit to Beijing, which ended 
without Patten securing Chinese agreement for political reform proposals 
outlined in the October 7 administrative report to the Legislative Council.
(Forwarded by: Liu Jian)
                             ___  ___  ___ 

[UPI, 11/10/1992] BEIJING -- China has stepped up its criticism of Patten's 
proposals for democratic change in the territory Tuesday, accusing him of 
"a politician's trickiness." In a signed commentary, the official Worker's 
Daily blasted Patten for "breaking his promise," warning that the action 
had provoked "a necessarily strong reaction from the Chinese side." " Ahead
of the British and Hong Kong government lie two roads, one is the road of 
cooperation, the other the road of confrontation," the article said. "The 
path of confrontation or cooperation will be determined by the British and 
Hong Kong sides," it said.  (Forwarded by: a CND reader)
                             ___  ___  ___ 

[AP-DJ, 11/10/1992] BEIJING -- China's foreign trade grew by nearly 20% in
the first 10 months of 1992, the official Xinhua News Agency reported
Tuesday. By October, foreign trade totalled 124.8 billion dollars, an
increase of 19.7% over the same period in 1991. Imports reached 59.6 billion
dollars, while exports totalled 65.1 billion dollars. In October alone,
trade increased by 28.7% over the previous year, reaching 14.8 billion
dollars, the report said, citing statistics released by the General
Administration of Customs. Fueling the growth was a two-fold increase in
border trade, which reached 200 million dollars in the first 10 months.
China has seen rapid expansion of trade with former socialist neighbors that
have begun taking steps toward market economies. They include Russia and
other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States as well as Vietnam.
(Forwarded by: Liu Jian)
                             ___  ___  ___ 

[AP-DJ, 11/10/1992] HONG KONG -- Chinese officials in the southern boomtown
of Shenzhen plan to distribute millions of new stock shares by televising a
live lottery Wednesday night to select the shareholders, an official report
said Tuesday. The televised draw for 214 million shares caps a four-month
stock distribution process marked by riots, scandals and rampant speculation. 
The China News Service provided few details of the computerized lottery,
which will be broadcast at 1200 GMT Wednesday on Shenzhen state-run
television. According to previous reports, potential investors holding stock
application forms have a 10% chance of being selected as stockholders
entitled to buy 1,000 shares apiece in 14 companies. The companies will be
listed on the tiny, two-year-old Shenzhen stock exchange, one of two bourses
in China designed to attract foreign capital and spur investment. (Forwarded
by: Liu Jian)
                             ___  ___  ___ 

[JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 11/10/1992] BEIJING -- A two-volume book devoted
entirely to the thought of China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is to be
published, an official newspaper reported Tuesday. Titled, "Deng Xiaoping
Thought Treasure House," the 4.5 million-Chinese character edition is filled
with Deng's political, economic and philosophical treatises, the Beijing
Evening News said. "It is the newest, most complete and most authoritative
textbook on Deng around," the newspaper said. Compiled by the Red Flag
Publishing House, the collection "reflects the spirit of the 14th Communist
Party congress," it said. Political analysts said the book's title indicates
the maxim of "Deng Xiaoping Thought" is being elevated to the same lofty
ideological heights as that of Mao Zedong, the founder of the people's
republic. The collection is the latest in a spate of books dedicated to the
88-year-old architect of China's socialist market economy. In June, the
Shanxi Economic Publishing House produced a 1,600-page, 2.6 million-
character dictionary of Deng's speeches and writings. (Forwarded by: Liu
Jian)

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2. Trade Minister Li Lanqing Says China's Ready to Join GATT ............ 37
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Forwarded by: Liu Jian
Source: JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE & AP-DJ, 11/10/1992

BEIJING -- Trade Minister Li Lanqing told visiting officials of the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Tuesday that China can fulfill its
obligations if it is accepted in the world trade body. Li, minister of
foreign economic relations and trade, told an international seminar on GATT
here that "China is capable of fulfilling every obligation stipulated in
GATT," the official Xinhua News Agency reported. 

China applied in 1987 to join GATT, but its admission has been stalled by
doubts about whether it meets GATT requirements for an open, market-oriented
economy. 

Other delays included Beijing's bloody crackdown on the 1989 democracy
movement and its refusal to allow a separate membership application by
Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province. 

But a compromise in September that allows Taiwan's admission as a separate
customs territory has re-opened talks on China's application. China has said
it expects to be accepted by early next year, but observers say that is
unlikely. 

Meanwhile, Beijing has invited more than 100 senior Chinese officials to
attend a one-week crash course on GATT in anticipation of the country's
readmission to the world trade body, the official Xinhua news agency
reported Tuesday.

The GATT class opened Tuesday at the Great Hall of the People, attracting
officials and business leaders alike, Xinhua said. Its aim is to help key
government personnel understand both the opportunities and challenges which
will arise when China is readmitted into GATT, the news agency said. Many
people, "including some government policymakers and enterprise managers, are
failing to master enough knowledge on GATT and more efforts are needed to
spread knowledge on GATT and to prepare for policy readjustment after the
restoration," it said.

GATT Deputy Director General Charles R. Carlisle is one of several experts
who will be giving lectures during the week, Xinhua quoted Tong Zhiguang, a
vice minister of foreign economic relations and trade, as saying Tuesday.

Formal talks on admitting China to the 105-nation trade body began in Geneva
late last month. An 11th-hour agreement between China and the United States
on market access earlier in October enhanced Beijing's chances of regaining
GATT membership at the earliest possible date. China's recent approval of
Taiwan's bid to join GATT, albeit as a customs territory and not a country,
has also helped Beijing's cause.

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3. China Invites Nobel Laureate Lawrence Klein to Give Economic Advice .. 18
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Forwarded by: Liu Jian & Zhao Hua
Source:  JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE & AP, 11/6/92

BEIJING -- China has hired an American Nobel Prize winner in economics to
advise the State Planning Commission, the official People's Daily
newspaper reported Tuesday.

Lawrence R. Klein, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania
who won the Nobel Prize in 1980, accepted the appointment Monday, the paper
said.

Klein is the first Western economist to serve as an adviser to China's
principal state-run economic information center, it said.

The State Planning Commission, which is led by Vice Premier Zou Jiahua,
oversees the country's economic planning.

Zou attended Monday's announcement ceremony and delivered a speech welcoming
the appointment, the People's Daily said.

China's communist rulers have promised to embrace market economics and
introduce sweeping management and fiscal reforms. Hailing Klein as an "old
friend of China," the paper said he has visited China eight times to deliver
lectures and arrange for Chinese economists to tour and study overseas.

Klein's particular field is econometrics, the science of applying
statistical methods to the study of economic data and problems.

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4. Chinese Monk Discovered America, Says Scholar ........................ 26
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Forwarded by: Liu Jian
Source: JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 11/10/1992

BEIJING -- Step aside Christopher Columbus, a Chinese monk discovered
America more than 1,000 years before the intrepid Italian explorer was even
born, a research professor said Tuesday.

Faxian (336-422), a Chinese Buddhist monk, landed in a kingdom called Yepoti
in the winter of 412, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Lian Yunshan as
saying. "Yepoti was somewhere near today's Los Angeles on the western coast
of the United States," said Lian, a professor and visiting research fellow
from the China-Pacific Historical Society.

Lian made his claim at an international symposium on the origin of Pacific
civilizations.

Faxian, whose name is a homophone for the word discovery, arrived with a
fleet of three Chinese ships after drifting for 105 days in the Pacific
Ocean, Xinhua said.

And 1,000-year-old handwritten copies of his biography, confirming the feat,
can still be found in China, Japan and Korean Peninsula, it said.

Although their original destination was Guangzhou in southern China,
"monsoons in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific blew the ships off course,"
Lian said. On December 17, they landed in Yepoti, staying there for nearly
four months before sailing back to China, he said.

Western scholars claim Yepoti is the original name of Java Island but after
three decades of painstaking research, Lian has concluded that it was indeed
America, Xinhua said.

Pressed for evidence, Lian says paintings by the ancient Maya people show
Faxian's ships landing. All of which is bad news for the many people on both
sides of the Atlantic who are busy feting Columbus this year, the 500th
anniversary of his "discovery" of America.

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