From: gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Newsgroups: aus.culture.china
Subject: China News Digest (Global), Mon, 11/9/1992
Date: 9 Nov 92 11:25:01 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)

                          Monday, November 9, 1992


Table of Contents                                                 # of Lines
============================================================================
1. News Brief (1 Item) .................................................. 31
2. Taiwan Lifts Martial Law on Quemoy and Matsu Islands ................. 17
3. China Denies Report It Sold Arms Parts to Iraq ....................... 20
4. Alexander Dubcek, Father of "Prague Spring," Dead at 70 .............. 73
5. China's Ancient Ceramics Industry Looks Abroad for New Technology .... 28
6. Thousands Mark 75th Anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow .... 84 
============================================================================

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. News Brief (1 Item) .................................................. 31
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 11/8/1992] BEIJING -- A Russian-built helicopter
crashed in Central China on Thursday killing 33 people and injuring 46
others, the Xinhua news agency reported Sunday. The accident occurred in
Yuanyang, a few kilometers northeast of Zhengzhou, Henan, when the Mi-17
helicopter crashed into the "Yellow River Department Store" building and
burst into flames, Xinhua said. The helicopter had been hired by the
department store and the Friendship Cosmetics Company from Harbin, northeast
China, to take part in an advertising promotion by dropping publicity
materials, Xinhua said. After the helicopter plunged to the ground, it
exploded in flames among a crowd of onlookers. The cause of the crash is
still under investigation, Xinhua added. (Forwarded by: Liu Jian)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Taiwan Lifts Martial Law on Quemoy and Matsu Islands ................. 17
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Liu Jian
Source: JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 11/7/1992

HONG KONG -- Taiwan on Saturday has lifted martial law imposed 43 years ago
on Quemoy and Matsu islands, its frontline bases against mainland China, 
according to reports reaching from Taipei Saturday. The change took effect
Friday midnight, the reports said.

Taiwan authorities will establish a self-governing system on the two
islands, under military control since 1949 when the Nationalists fled to
Taiwan to escape the communists, the reports said. Both islands were heavily
bombarded from the mainland in 1958, an incident that caused the
redeployment of the U.S. 7th Fleet and provoked an international diplomatic
crisis. 

The lifting of martial law allows islanders the same rights and social
welfare guaranteed to those living on Taiwan, the reports said. But since
Taiwan's relations with China remain cool, there will be no immediate,
drastic reduction of military personnel stationed on the islands, they said.
Authorities repealed martial law on Taiwan in July 1987.

The islands reportedly will gradually become accessible to civilians, but
they will need to make prior applications to local authorities for visits.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. China Denies Report It Sold Arms Parts to Iraq ....................... 20
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: Liu Jian
Source: AP-DJ, 11/8/1992

BEIJING -- China denied Saturday a report that it sold spare parts for tanks
and long-range artillery to Saddam Hussein in violation of an international
ban on arms sales to Iraq. 

"This report is a pure fabrication made with ulterior motives," a Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman said. She did not identify herself in keeping with
policy. The response is China's standard answer to queries regarding its
arms trading. 

As reported Saturday, Western intelligence officials in Jordan believe at
least two shipments of spares for T-72 tanks and long-range artillery, as
well as other material, reached Iraq earlier this year from China, which
uses similar weaponry. 

They said the spares could have been smuggled in Chinese diplomatic
consignments, which are immune from searches by Jordanian authorities under
international conventions. The Chinese have embassies in Amman and Baghdad
and ship their diplomatic material through Jordan, Iraq's main link to the
outside world. 

The Western officials said they believe another Chinese shipment is in the
pipeline. They claimed smaller shipments of tank spares were smuggled to
Iraq in August and September in consignments of food and medicine shipped 
by a Dutch company through Jordan's only seaport, Aqaba. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Alexander Dubcek, Father of "Prague Spring," Dead at 70 .............. 73
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: A CND reader
Source: UPI, 11/8/1992

PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia -- Alexander Dubcek, the leader of 1968's
Soviet-crushed "Prague Spring" who returned to fame after the collapse of
communism, died Saturday evening of complications from an auto accident, the
news agency CSTK reported. He was 70.

Dubcek broke his spine, pelvis and ribs in an accident Sept. 1 when his car
ran off a highway into a ravine, and was hospitalized since the crash.
His condition had deteriorated and he was on an artificial kidney machine
and a mechanical respirator at the time of his death. CSTK reported the
death shortly after 11 p.m.

Dubcek, who would have been 71 Nov. 27, had sought to inaugurate a
reform-minded "socialism with a human face" as leader of the Czechoslovak
Communist Part in 1968, opening state borders and restoring a free press.
But he saw his reforms trampled under the tanks of the 1968 Soviet-led
Warsaw Pact invasion.

He was stripped of his party membership as the reforms were dismantled,
and lived in obscurity in Slovakia for the next 21 years. During
Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution of 1989, Dubcek was brought to the
balcony overlooking Prague's Wenceslas Square, where thousands called on
him to rescue them from communism.

He returned to politics as chairman of the federal parliament, the National
Assembly, overseeing the painful march to democracy. He stepped down after
the June 1992 parliamentary election, in which the nationalistic Movement
for a Democratic Slovakia won in the Slovak Republic.

Dubcek became leader of the Slovak Social Democratic Party and fought to
save the federation from collapse this summer as the country headed for
division.

He was widely expected to become president of Slovakia when Czechoslovakia
split into two independent states, although Slovak Premier Vladimir Meciar
was known to oppose his candidacy because of his own opposition to the
split-up.

Dubcek's car ran off the Prague-Bratislava highway Sept. 1, 60 miles
southeast of the capital near the town of Humpolec. Both Dubcek and his
driver were thrown from the vehicle after it broke through crash barriers
and plummeted about 60 feet into the ravine.

He was taken to a nearby hospital, and later moved by helicopter to Prague
after his condition stabilized. He subsequently suffered serious circulation
and respiratory problems. He underwent pulmonary ventilation after 
developing circulation disorders in his cerebral blood vessels, doctors at
the Na Homolce Hospital in Prague said.

In Little Rock, Ark., U.S. President-elect Bill Clinton released a statement
late Saturday saying he was saddened by the death.

Dubcek rose to world prominence as the compromise candidate of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party reformists who were determined to break the
Stalinist grip of hardliner Antonin Novotny. He succeeded Novotny as party
leader on Jan. 5, 1968, and ushered in the "Prague Spring" that saw
abolition of censorship, border openings and a move toward a multi-party
system in Czechoslovakia.

But the reforms came too fast for the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's
neighbor to the east, and brought warnings and threats that culminated in
the August 1968 invasion.

Dubcek, whose 6-foot-4 frame and pointed nose made him a favorite among
political cartoonists, was a Slovak born Nov. 27, 1921, in the tiny
Slovakian town of Uhrovec.

His father, a cabinet maker, had emigrated to Chicago, where he married. But
his union activities and refusal to be drafted led to his disillusionment
with the United States and prompted his return to Slovakia, where he helped
found the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

The family later moved to the Soviet Union, where Alexander received his
early education and worked as a machinist in a Gorki automobile plant. The
young Dubcek joined the Communist Party a year after the family returned to
Czechoslovakia in 1938. During World War II, Dubcek was involved in
anti-Nazi underground activity and was twice wounded.

He began working his way up the ranks of the party organization in 1949, and
was named to the Central Committee of the Slovak Communist Party in 1951.
After three years of study in Moscow, Dubcek received a doctorate in
political science and returned to Czechoslovakia to immerse himself in party
work. In 1963, he was named to the 10-man presidium of the national party to
become its highest-ranking Slovak.

An ardent defender of Slovaks, Dubcek was the first presidium member to
attack the grim, unpopular and secretive Novotny openly. Two months later,
with Novotny in Moscow, Dubcek spearheaded the call for his ouster. Dubcek
was elected to replace him by unanimous vote of the 144-member central
committee,largely because he had remained unaligned with any party faction.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. China's Ancient Ceramics Industry Looks Abroad for New Technology .... 28 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: A CND reader
Source: UPI, 11/8/1992

BEIJING -- Admitting that its prized ancient ceramics industry has fallen
behind the times, China is now seeking overseas help for its china, a
state-run newspaper reported Sunday.

"Chinese ceramics makers, aware that they lag behind international
levels for quality, are determined to regain the reputation China once
enjoyed," the official China Daily said. The article said Chinese ceramics
manufacturers, acknowledging their processes have not kept up with modern
techniques, are sending teams abroad to seek advanced skills and technology.
But it said the Chinese industry is only "gradually catching up" with
leading producers like Germany's Rosenthal and Britain's Royal Doulton and
hopes to reach their worldwide quality level by 1995.

The China Daily noted that after an 8,000-year history of ceramics
manufacturing, Chinese porcelain is still prized and "the word china still
stands for delicacy and quality."

"However, a dearth of technical renovation in past decades has led to a 
decline in the country's reputation," it said, adding most Chinese-made
ceramics have become low and middle-grade items "lacking competitiveness in
the world market."

The Chinese ceramics industry has already begun to introduce technology and
techniques from Germany, Britain and the United States, and has also
approached Italian ceramics groups. The Ministry of Light Industry is 
seeking to work with an international ceramics maker.

"More advanced know-how from overseas is desired," the article said, noting
the Chinese industry is preparing a manual for foreign investment.

The article said China manufactured 5.3 billion ceramics articles in 1990.
Exports that year were 1.25 billion items, earning only $350 million, an
average of about 29 cents per piece that was "far below the world average,"
it said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Thousands Mark 75th Anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow .... 84
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forwarded by: A CND reader
Source: UPI, 11/8/1992

MOSCOW -- Some 20,000 pro-communist and Russian nationalist demonstrators
waving red Soviet flags and demanding revival of the Soviet Union marched
through Moscow Saturday to mark the 75th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik
revolution.

The protests, organized by various pro-communist, monarchist and Russian
nationalist political parties that make up the banned National Salvation
Front, drew mainly elderly and middle-aged people who complain they have
borne the brunt of hardships caused by economic reform.

It was a sharp contrast with the years of Soviet rule when Nov. 7 was the
country's most exalted official holiday, marking the day Soviet state
founder Vladimir Ilych Lenin's hard-line Bolshevik party overthrew Russia's
provisional government in 1917.

In the past, downtown Moscow was sealed off for a giant military parade and
Soviet leaders gathered on the balcony of Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square.

While it is still a holiday, the day has been officially stripped of its
ideological significance and for many it was not clear what they should be
celebrating. One group, the Russian Christian Democratic Movement, called
for Nov. 7 to become the official day of remembrance for the millions of
people who were killed under communist rule. The movement led a march of
several hundred people from the old KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square to
the site of a cathedral destroyed by dictator Josef Stalin.

In another part of Moscow, local officials organized a non-political street
party with marching bands, fireworks and singers. Many Russians were simply
grateful for the long weekend off.

It is the second year that no official celebrations took place to mark the
anniversary, since last year's Nov. 7 celebrations were canceled in the
aftermath of the failed August coup. This year, the pro-communist marchers
were not allowed onto Red Square because Moscow's most famous landmark was
closed off to the general public for cobblestone repairs. There have been
accusations the city undertook the repairs to keep away demonstrators, a
charge the authorities have denied.

The pro-communist protest, which coincided with a number of much smaller
demonstrations in other ex-Soviet cities, was marked by deep nostalgia for
the old certainties of Soviet rule and angry incomprehension at the
upheavals that recent years have brought to what was once the Soviet Union.

"I'm discouraged, I don't know what to think anymore," said Larissa Nikolska,
a 48-year old editor who would not say where she worked. She said she used to
support President Boris Yeltsin and before him Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev in the hope living standards would improve. "But I'm a Soviet, that
much I know, and I am for Soviet power. Before, we had access to libraries,
to hospitals, to all kinds of services, my girl had free figure-skating
lessons. Now everything is expensive," she said.

"We know the popular masses are nostalgic for the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R.
will be reconstituted, it's inevitable," National SalvationFront leader
Viktor Alksnis, a former hard-line member of the Soviet Parliament, said on
the eve of the anniversary. "We have't seen economic reform. We've only seen
the collapse of our economy."

Yeltsin's critics charge his economic reforms have hurt the living standards
of ordinary Russians so much that a mass popular uprising is possible.

Saturday morning, the pro-communist demonstrators gathered at Kaluzhskaya
Square, the site of one of the few monuments to Lenin still standing intact
in the Russian capital, and then marched in a sea of red Soviet flags to
the central Manezhnaya Square adjacent to the Kremlin.

The communist anthem, the "Internationale," blared from truck-mounted
loudspeakers and people sang Soviet marching songs. There were banners
proclaiming pro-communist slogans such as "Long Live Soviet Socialist
Russia!" and "All power to the Soviets, and no to land privatization" and
vague nationalist slogans such as "Russia is perishing, and the muzhik
(Russian peasant) too!" and "To arms, citizens!"

One man held up a black skull-and-bones pirate flag, but instead of a skull
in the center of the crossed bones there was the face of Acting Prime
Minister Yegor Gaidar, the architect of Russia's economic reform program.

There were few demonstrators younger than 40 in evidence, a fact which
architect Alexander Fyodorov attributed to "the mass media which pollutes
their consciousness."

One exception was Mikhail Bormistrov, 28, who works in Russia's fledgling
private sector and who said that reviving the Soviet Union would not 
necessarily mean outlawing private enterprise again. "It would be a Soviet
government in which they'd talk less about ideology and more about the
economy," he said. "The U.S.S.R. had great power. And we'll go back to the
U.S.S.R. It's just a question of time."

Vladimir Diominov, 62, said the demonstration showed that the Soviet Union
was not dead. "This symbolizes that the Soviet movement still exists. It is
not true that it has been destroyed, and it is not true that they're going
to impose capitalism on us," he said.

"Yeltsin is an old apparachik who betrayed the party," said Valentina
Etlinchna, 58, a retired economist. "He's a great seducer and a traitor, he
tries to please the Americans first then he thinks about the people."

But despite the anti-government rhetoric at Saturday's demonstrations, the
number of protestors was relatively small. The Itar-Tass news agency said
most protests across the country in cities like St. Petersburg, Krasnoyarsk,
Vladivostok, Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk involved at most a few thousand people.
Even the figure of 20,000 protesters in Moscow paled compared to the
capital's population of 9 million.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|            Executive Editor:      Gao   Jie      (Australia)             |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|   China News Digest (CND) offers the following services:                 |
|    (1) Global News (Daily)          (2) US Regional News                 |
|    (3) Canada Regional News         (4) Europe & Pacific Regional News   |
|    (5) Hua Xia Wen Zhai (Weekly Chinese Magazine)                        |
|    (6) Several Information Packages                                      |
|   For subscription information,  mail to:   CND-INFO@LIBRARY.UTA.EDU     |
|   News contributions should be sent to:   CND-EDITOR@SDSC.EDU            |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+