From: xu@hydra.maths.unsw.oz.au ()
Subject: CND-Global, December 29, 1992
Organization: school of Mathematics UNSW
Distribution: aus
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 01:13:42 GMT


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

                                (News Global)

                          Tuesday, December 29, 1992


Table of Contents                                                 # of Lines
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1. News Brief (5 Items) ................................................. 55
2. From Graves to Galleries: Black Market Thrives for Ancient Treasures.. 52
3. Unearthing Past Crimes: Asian Skulls Evidence of Japanese Experiments..46
4. "Santa Claus Will Give Presents If We Love the Motherland" ........... 46
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1. News Brief (5 Items) ................................................. 55
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[DJ, 12/27/1992] BEIJING -- Li Peng, who advocates go-slow economic growth,
has conceded for the second time this year that the Chinese economy is
growing faster than he had planned, state-run TV reported Sunday. Li
acknowledged at a national conference on the economy last week that the
annual growth rate for 1992 would reach 12 percent. In March, Li set an
annual rate of 6% for 1991-1995. In June, Li conceded that maintaining the
6% target was unlikely, but urged that growth be kept within 9%.

Li repeated his warnings that fast growth could lead to an overheated econ-
omy, the Xinhua said. Prices in China's 35 largest cities rose nearly 13%
in November from a year earlier, and industrial production in the first 11
months grew more than 20% from the same period in 1991. (FWD by: Liu Jian)
                                ___ ___ ___

[China Radio International, 12/28/1992] -- Legislators have stressed the
development of service industry. The Standing Committee of the Seventh NPC
discussed the issue on Saturday. A leading economist and legislator said the
development of the service industry would help solve the unemployment prob-
lem and make people's life more convenient. Other legislators criticised
traditional concepts that look down upon the service industry. They say the
country should speed up the development of the service sector by formulating
a series of laws and regulations. (FWD by: A. Waldie <awaldie@web.apc.org>)
                                ___ ___ ___

[UPI, 12/28/1992] BEIJING -- The government will cut 100,000 jobs in China's
beleaguered coal industry next year in a massive restructuring expected
to slash costs and eventually reduce the work force by 400,000, China Daily
reported Monday. In a decision apparently delayed by the threat of labor
unrest from angry workers, government leaders gave the go-ahead to trim
subsidies worth billions of dlrs to the crucial, but money-losing industry.

China National Coal Corporation, with a labor force of more than 3 million
workers, will fire 30,000 coal miners and 70,000 support staff in 1993. The
government expects to reduce the work force of the country's largest coal
producer by 400,00 by 1995, the paper said. Another unnamed major state-run
coal producer will also make "massive layoffs to increase efficiency,"
according to the report, part of a government plan to make the companies
profitable within three to five years. (FWD by: Wenfeng and Zhao Hua)
                                ___ ___ ___

[UPI, 12/26/1992] ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan began excavating the site of a new
300 megawatt nuclear power plant Saturday it is purchasing from China over
the objections of the United States and others, the government said. China
is supplying the nuclear power plant under a contract signed in Beijing Dec.
3, 1991. The contract took effect in February when Pakistan made a down pay-
ment. The government statement said basic design has been completed and a
preliminary safety analysis is expected to be ready soon. The two countries
have drafted plans for equipment manufacture and construction "will get into
full swing next year," the statement said.

The Chashma plant will be an upgraded version of China's Quinshan nuclear
power station, which began producing electricity 12 months ago. (Zhao Hua)
                                ___ ___ ___

[JAPAN ECONOMIC NEWSWIRE, 12/28/1992] TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. plans to
form a joint venture with China late next year in the first full-scale
advance in that country by a major Japanese automaker, the Sankei Shimbun
reported Monday. Toyota will acquire an equity share in a carmaker in
Shenyang, Liaoning Province, for which Toyota provides a technical tie-up.
The number of shares to be taken over by Toyota has yet to be decided, the
paper said. Toyota plans to produce 50,000 Hiace commercial vans in 1995
compared with the Chinese company's production of 4,000 in 1992, the paper
said. Another newspaper also reported Monday that Toyota plans to join a
project by Daihatsu Motor Co. to produce passenger cars with a Chinese com-
pany in Tianjin. (FWD by: Liu Jian)

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2. From Graves to Galleries: Black Market Thrives for Ancient Treasures.. 52
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Forwarded by: Charles Mok
Source: Baltimore Sun, via The San Jose Mercury News, 12/25/1992.

XI'AN -- In a long, narrow lane of curio stalls leading to a famed Muslim
temple here, visitors who show a passing interest in the unusual are certain
to be invited to step back into the back rooms of the tiny shops for private
showing of alleged historical artifacts.

Welcome to the underground world of Chinese relics. Caveat emptor.

"Han Dynasty," claims one of the vendors, throwing open several drawers of a
decaying cupboard crammed with old pieces of jade, coins and jewelry, each
wrapped in wads of yellowed newspaper pages.

"Hold this up to the light," he says, handing over a small brownish stone he
claims is jade. "Very old jade is that dark color - not green. See how clear
it is in the light."

It might be jade. It might even be from the period of Western Han Dynasty.
And it just might be worth a lot more than the $30 or so that, in the end,
might be negotiated as its price. It would take an expert to tell for sure.

What is certain, however, is that China's rich historical heritage - pil-
laged by foreigners over the centuries and ravaged by mindless vandalism
during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s - remains up
for grabs.

A 1982 relics protection law theoretically put under strict state control
all Chinese artifacts older than 200 years or still in the ground or under
water. Relics thieves can be executed.

But with insufficient funding, even Chinese officials admit that this regu-
lation has proved toothless. A recent national survey showed that of the
350,000 identified historical sites, only 258 have been put under national
protection.

To feed the booming, lucrative world trade in Chinese antiquities, black-
market, bribe-oiled networks stretch from graves in isolated villages to
plush galleries in Hong Kong, London and New York City.

"Our heritage is falling prey to smugglers, tomb-robbers and thieves," Peng
Qingyun, vice director of the State Bureau of Cultural Relics, told the
china Daily in October. "The situation is extremely grave."

China says that more than 40,000 ancient tombs in 11 of its 30 regions were
robbed in just two years, 1989 and 1990. The grave robbers often use
highspeed drills to quickly carry out their thefts. They're even frequently
breaking into China's thousands of small, county-level museums, where secu-
rity is minimal.

Xian is a major source of the loot. The Far Eastern Economic Review this
year noted that scholars believe the Xian area holds at least 2 million
graves of officials from the 11 dynasties, all likely to contain some valu-
able objects.

Shaanxi officials earlier this month declared a renewed war on tomb-robbing,
but they will have to be everywhere at once to keep up with the increasingly
bold looters. Earlier this year, thousands of villagers were found to be
openly digging up tombs in one Shaanxi district. In October, a Shaanxi gang
used dynamite to blast open a tomb from the Tang Dynasty.

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3. Unearthing Past Crimes: Asian Skulls Evidence of Japanese Experiments..46
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Forwarded by: Yuan Liu
Source: BALTIMORE SUN, 12/27/1992

TOKYO -- On the second floor of a northwest Tokyo funeral parlor, 35 skulls
and hundreds of other human bones wait for bureaucrats to decide what to do
with them.

They have waited three years and five months, since construction workers
discovered them by accident.

No one knows whose remains they are. Yet bureaucrats shun them as if they
might rise to life and put a curse on all of Japan.

"The more we learn, the more probable it becomes that these were human body
parts shipped back to Japan around the time of World War Il, for study after
people died in Imperial Army experiments on live human beings," said history
professor Keiichi Tsuneishi of Kanagawa University.

At least 2,000 and possibly 3,000 Asians, mostly Chinese, are known to have
died in the experiments.

Most of the experiments involved injecting healthy people with typhus,
cholera and other deadly diseases. Researchers studied the progress of the
illnesses in order to develop germ warfare methods. Sometimes they took tis-
sue samples from living humans. Sometimes they surgically examined internal
organs while their victims were still alive.

New research shows that participation in the human-experimentation program
went far beyond the army.

"What is striking in my own recent research," Tsuneishi said, "is that
famous civilian physicians and professors of medicine actively sought data
from the experiments, studied human tissue shipped back from overseas, and
wrote up their conclusions for the army.

"Japan's medical community still won't admit this, but my research leaves no
question."

After the war, he added, doctors involved in the secret projects went on to
high positions and public honors, protected by continuing postwar secrecy
about the experiments.

U.S. occupation authorities, eager to get the data, helped to protect most
of the participants from exposure and granted them immunity from trial as
war criminals.

It is now clear that Unit 731 was only one of five units, said Tsuneishi,
who specializes in Japan's World War II medical experiments.

Late last year, Hajime Sakura, a world-famous anthropologist, reported that
the bones found three years ago were from non-Japanese Asians.

Including the 35 readily recognizable skulls, there were 132 parts of
skulls, 30 spines, six chest bones, 13 thighs and 17 neck bones.

Some skulls had marks of incisions, holes drilled in them, bullet holes,
blows with sharp instruments, or sections neatly cut away.

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4. "Santa Claus Will Give Presents If We Love the Motherland" ........... 46
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Forwarded by: Charles Mok
Source: Chicago Tribune, via The San Jose Mercury News, 12/25/1992

BEIJING - Santa Claus, complete with jingle bells and red-nosed reindeer,
has become a sales tool in communist China.

The boots were a trifle frayed, the bulging red coat a little short and the
sparse beard more reminiscent of Confucius than Father Christmas. But it was
definitely Santa seen recently prancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace
making "ho-ho-ho" noises.

"Here, take a present," he said, handing a bag of cookies and peanuts to a
gawking toddler and a pamphlet to his mother. The flier said the best shop-
ping was at the Eight Times Fortune Store.

Santa is everywhere this year in a country that suddenly sees Christmas as a
commercial opportunity and Christmas cards as a new way to massage egos and
generate good will among friends and bosses.

The street Santa was an enterprising elderly peasant named Wang from Miyun
County.

He said that with the harvest in and the earth frozen, playing Santa is a
way to bring in some seasonal income.

"I hand out one gift for every 20 pamphlets," he said.

The bag of goodies for the little boy drew a crowd that jostled for pam-
phlets.

They were free, after all - and in China, where the average income is $45 a
month, the glittering new consumer goods on display in glittering new stores
can only be seen, not bought, by most people.

Not many Chinese know the story of Santa, but everybody knows he is one of
those mysteries that have made the West wealthy.

And the government's liberal new economic policy has been interpreted by
private enterpreneurs as meaning that what is good for the West is good for
China.

"He gives you things," said a little boy.

"He's a nice old man," said another, "who comes down from the Yanqing
Mountains in his mule cart and gives presents if we love the motherland."

Outside a new shopping center in northern Beijing, a 20-foot-tall Santa
booms his "Have you been good?" all day from a recording so old that it gets
stuck periodically, emitting a faded "ood, ood, ood...."

Then, as children squeal, an elderly worker dressed in a Mao suit opens a
door in Santa's belly and climbs in to fix it.

Mistletoe and Christmas trees decorate many enterprises, and it's estimated
that the Chinese are sending one another more than 1 billion Christmas cards
this year.

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