From: gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Subject: CND 22-7-92 WED
Summary: CND
Keywords: CND
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 22 Jul 92 05:02:03 GMT

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

                             (News Global)

                        Wednesday, July 22, 1992

Table of Contents                                               # of Lines
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1. News Brief (2 Items).................................................28
2. Bao Tong: Aide to Ousted China Leader Gets 7 Years in Jail...........80
3. U.S. Reporters' Prediction: China's Sweeping Olympic Wins in Diving..21
4. Chinese Seek Asylum in Russia........................................47
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1. News Brief (2 Items).................................................28
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[AP-DJ, 7/21] BEIJING -- China attacked Taiwan on Tuesday for passing a law
expanding political and economic ties with the mainland, saying the island
does not have the legal authority to make such a law.  Li Qingzhou,
spokesman for the government's Taiwan Affairs Office, also said the new law
showed that Taiwan was again trying to act as a separate government.  His
remarks were read on the nationally televised evening news.  Li said China
welcomed the measures, but said they didn't go far enough in bringing the
two sides closer and fell short of reflecting the exchanges and contacts
that already exist between people on the mainland and Taiwan.

Taiwan's parliament last Friday gave preliminary approval to legislation
that would permit direct transportation and trade links with China and allow
Chinese laborers to work in Taiwan. It also would end a 43-year-old ban on the
entry of Communist Party members. (From: Jian Liu)
                      ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP-DJ, 7/21] WASHINGTON -- The House passed a bill that permits Most
Favored Nation status to continue in 1992 but requires that the Chinese
regime meet specific human rights conditions before MFN status could be
granted in 1993 for goods from state-owned enterprises. Earlier, the House
approved a bill to revoke immediately China's MFN due to human rights
concerns, but that vote was viewed as largely symbolic with little chance
of the bill being enacted into law.

The bill conditioning continuation of MFN past 1993 bars the president from
granting MFN status for China unless he certifies that the Chinese regime
has accounted for and released protesters jailed after the Tienanmen Square
massacre in 1989 and has made "overall significant progress" in the areas
of human rights, trade and weapons nonproliferation.

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2. Bao Tong: Aide to Ousted China Leader Gets 7 Years in Jail...........80
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From:    Chonggyu Hua <cyuhua@ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Source:  UPI, 7/21/92
By:      David R. Schweisberg

[Editor's note: Bao Tong's son Bao Pu, a graduate student in computer
                engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology, U.S.A.,
                published a letter "My Father Is No Enemy of China" in
                July 21's New York Times, please see July 21's CND-US,
                CND-Canada and next issue of CND-Europe/Pacific for details]

BEIJING -- The former chief aide to ousted Communist Party leader Zhao
Ziyang was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison for offenses during
the 1989 pro-democracy movement in the last major trial expected from the
Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The Beijing Intermediate People's Court convicted and sentenced Bao Tong,
59, after a half-day trial. Bao was the highest-ranking Chinese official
arrested in the 1989 crackdown and the most senior known to have been tried
in more than a decade.

His trial was believed to be the last major criminal case stemming from the
1989 protests and will allow Chinese leaders to resolve the divisive party
charges still pending against Zhao before a crucial national party congress
this fall.

Bao, who as Zhao's key adviser formulated many of China's bold economic and
political reforms during the 1980s, was apparently sacrificed to placate
hard-line leaders instead of prosecuting the party chief, who was a protege
of senior leader Deng Xiaoping until his ouster June 1989.

Dozens of police surrounded the court building on the city's west side
Tuesday morning during the closed-door trial. Bao's relatives were barred
from the trial and allowed only to witness the sentencing.

Court spokeswoman Fan Shumin said Bao was sentenced to four years for
revealing state secrets and to five years for counter-revolutionary
incitement. The 1989 protests are officially labeled a
"counter-revolutionary rebellion."

Officials said the court fixed the sentence at seven years under
discretionary laws allowing parts of the terms to run concurrently. Bao has
been held without trial since May 1989, and officials said he could be
freed in 1996 with credit for time served.

The sentence was shorter than those given to some other 1989 figures, but
Bao's wife, Jiang Zhongcao, dressed in black for the trial, expressed
outrage after the verdict.

"He's not guilty in the first place," Jiang said. "So even one month would
be heavy."

"It's not a question of guilt," said another family member outside the
court. "There's no guilt -- all the charges were trumped up."

The most serious charge against Bao was reportedly that his office gave to
the Tiananmen Square protest leaders the routes the Chinese army was to use
on May 19, 1989, as troops moved into Beijing before martial law was
declared.

Family members said Bao appeared at ease and confident during the
sentencing. They said he would likely appeal, but such appeals in China are
generally rejected.

The need to close the books on Tiananmen has come as Deng has this year
revived many of the reforms previously associated with Zhao, and hopes to
enshrine pro-reform policies and officials at the fall party congress.

But Chinese leaders want to first clean up the political mess involving
Zhao, who has remained in limbo and under virtual house arrest for three
years.

Bao served as Zhao's chief of staff when Zhao was premier from 1980-1987,
and then as his key adviser when he was party chief. Bao also headed a
political reform office, disbanded after the 1989 crackdown, that was
linked to intellectuals who joined the protests.

But Zhao, a gregarious moderate who became the front-man for Deng's reforms
in the 1980s, was shunted aside in a bitter power struggle as martial law
was imposed in Beijing in May 1989.

He was formally ousted in June 1989 for "supporting the turmoil and
splitting the party" and has since refused to admit wrongdoing despite
pressure from hard-liners.

A party investigation failed to make a criminal case against Zhao, and he
now is expected to be disciplined for internal party violations.

Bao is the highest-ranking government official known to have been tried in
China since the 1980-1981 public trial of the so-called Gang of Four, the
radical leaders of the Cultural Revolution.

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3. U.S. Reporters' Prediction: China's Sweeping Olympic Wins in Diving..21
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From:    Zhen Gu <june@bu-pub.bu.edu>
Source:  Time, 7/21/92

In a special report on the coming Barcelona Olympic Games, Time magazine
predicts China's overwhelming victory in diving events: Chinese elite
diving schools are producing Olympic winner like factories. The likeliest
medalist among Chinese divers is the youngest, Fu Mingxia.  She was taken
from home at age of 8 to be trained, she took gold in the platform at
Goodwill Games in 1990 and again at 1991's world championships, when she
was just 12. She will be shy of 14 when she attempts the toughest optional
dives by any woman at Barcelona. Her small size is her great advantage. A
former gymnastics student and still well proportioned for that sport (5 ft.
tall and 93 lbs), she is light and quick enough for the multiple midair
spins of a platform champion.

Other potential big winner are: Gao Min, 21, who won gold at Seoul and the
world championships; Xiong Ni, 18, who almost beat Louganis (US) in Seoul
when 14; Sun Shuwei, 16, who closely followed Xiong in 1990 Asian Games;
Tan Liangde, 27, who won silver at both the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympic
Games.

In a separate report, it is predicted that China's Li Jing will be a
promising star in man gymnastics at Barcelona. Li is reputed to have "legs
moving about the parallel bars and pommel horse like impossibly fast
knitting needles." Li won all-around title at the Asian Games in 1990.

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4. Chinese Seek Asylum in Russia........................................47
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From:    A CND Reader
Source:  UPI, 7/19/92

MOSCOW -- Two Chinese tourists have asked for political asylum in Russia,
the Foreign Ministry said Friday, noting that their request was under
consideration.

In an unrelated matter, the Foreign Ministry also announced Friday that
Russian President Boris Yeltsin was making plans to visit the People's
Republic of China.

Relations between Russia and China have changed from warm to cool to mild
as the political winds have shifted in the two countries over the years.

But Russian consideration of political asylum for Chinese dissidents and,
separately, a Russian president visiting Beijing would both break new
political ground.

Russia recently granted its first political asylum request, allowing a
young North Korean man, who claimed that he faced political persecution at
home, to stay in Russia over the objections of North Korea.

Few details were available about the Chinese, but Russian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said, "It is true that two Chinese citizens
who were on the territory of the Russian Federation as tourists have fallen
behind their group and have asked the Russian authorities to grant them
political asylum."

The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets said the Chinese claimed they faced
persecution for taking part in Tiananmen Square pro-democracy rallies, but
that seemed questionable given their status as international tourists.

Yastrzhembsky said the Chinese wanted temporary political asylum in Russia
but intended to later go to Europe.

As for Yeltsin's trip to China, it was still in the planning stage, but
Yastrzhembsky said, "There is an invitation to go to China."

The foreign ministry spokesman said, "An official state visit of President
Yeltsin to China would occur before the end of this year."

Yeltsin plans to visit Japan and Korea in September, but Yastrzhembsky said
the Chinese trip would be separate.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visited China three years ago, holding
the first Sino-Soviet summit in three decades.

Despite China's cool reaction to the profound political changes in Russia,
the two countries have made overtures to each other and opened border
crossings in the Far East for tourists and traders.

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