From: gaojeng@durras.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Subject: CND 23-7-92 THU
Summary: CND
Keywords: CND
Organization: Computer Services Centre, Australian National University
Date: 23 Jul 92 03:58:36 GMT

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

                             (News Global)

                         Thursday, July 23, 1992

Table of Contents                                               # of Lines
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1. News Brief (2 Items).................................................22
2. China Premier Li Peng Calls for Tighter Monetary Policy..............35
3. U.S. Criticizes Beijing Government for Convicting Reformer...........21
4. Mao Song Composers Plan Action Against Pirates.......................48
5. China's Gold Production Reported Up 18.5% in First Half..............25
6. ASEAN Conference Ends With Spratlys Peace Resolution.................31
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1. News Brief (2 Items).................................................22
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[UPI,  7/22] BEIJING -- A moderate earthquake rocked an area around one of
China's largest cities Wednesday, sending  residents  fleeing  from  their
homes but apparently causing no casualties or damage, officials said.  The
quake measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale struck at 5:43 a.m. to the  north
of  Tianjin,  a  city with a population of more than 9 million, said offi-
cials of the State Seismological Bureau in Beijing.  The epicenter was lo-
cated  in the suburban county of Ninghe, northeast of Tianjin and approxi-
mately 125 miles east of Beijing. Officials said the quake was felt as far
away as parts of Beijing. (From: Chongyu Hua <cyuhua@ncsa.uiuc.edu>)
                       ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP-DJ, 7/17] HONG KONG -- China plans  to  build  another  nuclear  power
plant  in  the  southern province of Guangdong, a Beijing-backed newspaper
reported Friday. The Wen  Wei  Po  said  that  the  plant  in  Guangdong's
Yangchun  county  would  be China's largest, churning out four-million ki-
lowatts of energy, more than double that of the almost-complete  Daya  Bay
plant  in  Guangdong.   The  Qinshan power plant in coastal Zhejiang began
trial operations in December, and the Daya Bay plant is expected to  start
operating  in  mid-1993.  According to the report, the Yangchun plant will
cost up to 600 million yuan and will be funded entirely by  the  Guangdong
provincial  government.   Construction  should get underway by 1995 and be
finished by 2000, the newspaper said. (From: Jian Liu)

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2. China Premier Li Peng Calls for Tighter Monetary Policy..............35
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From:    Huijie
Source:  AP-DJ, 07/21/92

BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Peng said too much credit and cash  was  is-
sued  in  the  first half of the year and urged a tighter monetary policy,
official news reports said Wednesday.

Speaking at a meeting of the State Council, China's  cabinet,  Li  said  a
ceiling  will  be  set on growth of the money supply in the second half of
the year, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The report did not give specific figures.

Xinhua quoted Li as saying the overissue of credit had  caused  caused  an
increase in the price of steel, traffic congestion and energy shortages.

Several economists quoted by the official  China  Daily  newspaper  echoed
Li's warnings.

Liu Guoguang, an economist and vice president of the  Chinese  Academy  of
Social  Sciences,  was  quoted  as  saying that inflationary pressures are
building and that growth should be reined in during the second half of the
year.

The government's price index showed a 5% increase in the first half of the
year, the highest in three years. Liu said recent raw material price hikes
would push the index even higher.

The gross national product grew 10.6% in the first six months of the  year
over the same period of 1991. Investment in new projects in the state sec-
tor alone totaled 1 trillion yuan, according to official figures  released
Monday.

Banks issued 120 billion yuan in loans during the six-month period, double
what the government had planned.

"If not checked, such unhealthy momentum will lead to chaos," Wu Jinglian,
an economist with the State Council Research Center, was quoted as saying.

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3. U.S. Criticizes Beijing Government for Convicting Reformer...........21
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From:    Jian Liu
Source:  AP-DJ, 7/21/92

WASHINGTON -- The State Department denounced China on Tuesday for  sending
a  senior official to prison for having reformist views following the 1989
crackdown on pro-democracy students.

"We regret that the Chinese government persists  in  considering  peaceful
expression  of  political  views  to be `counter-revolutionary incitement'
deserving of imprisonment," the department said of the one-day trial Tues-
day of political reformer Bao Tong.

A Beijing court sentenced Bao, 59, a senior adviser  to  ousted  Communist
Party  chief  Zhao  Ziyang,  to  seven  years  in prison for leaking state
secrets and "counter-revolutionary incitement," a codeword for efforts  to
undermine China's hard-line government.

Bao, a former member of the Communist Party's Central  Committee  and  the
highest-level  official  prosecuted in connection with the democracy move-
ment, was accused of telling student protest leaders about plans to impose
martial law and other internal discussions on how to handle the movement.

The State Department also criticized the Beijing  government  for  holding
the  trial  behind closed doors after rejecting requests that Bao's family
and outside observers be allowed to attend.

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4. Mao Song Composers Plan Action Against Pirates.......................48
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From:    Tina Maria Tong <changb@acf3.NYU.EDU>
Source:  UPI, 7/21/92

BEIJING -- The composers of some of China's most famous  musical  tributes
to  Mao  Tse-tung  are  planning legal action against a state-owned record
company for pirating their songs, an official newspaper said Tuesday.

The China Daily said more than 20 songwriters, whose songs eulogizing  the
late  Chairman  Mao  are at the "top of the charts" in China, have accused
the Shanghai branch of the China Musical Recording  Company  of  copyright
infringement.

The government-owned company published an anthology of the songs under the
title  "Red Sun" early last year. Riding the back of a revival fad for Mao
memorabilia in China, the tape proved an immediate success.

Classics like "The sun is  the  reddest  and  Mao  Tse-tung  is  the  most
beloved"  and  "Socialism's  great", which first became popular during the
1966-76 Cultural Revolution, began reappearing in shops, bars and on  tape
players throughout the country.

The China Daily said the album has sold several million copies  since  its
release,  but that "the company, though making huge profit, paid the writ-
ers very little, only a few U.S. dollars to each."

The songwriters lodged their complaint in a letter to the China Musicians'
Association. The letter said the writers "would wage legal action to bring
the authors' copyright prerogatives to public light."

The writers also charged the company changed the lyrics and tempos of  the
songs "at will" without their consent, the China Daily said.

In a separate article on the case,  the  Shanghai-based  Liberation  Daily
said  the wife and daughters of the late composer Li Youfu, who wrote many
of the works on the album, have already gone to  court  with  a  complaint
over the pirating.

The family claims the record company has not paid them royalties and  also
changed some of Li's songs.

The "Red Sun" dispute could become a test case for largely  untried  copy-
right  laws enacted by the government recently and, in Li's case, for laws
governing the payment of royalties to the family of a copyright holder who
has died.

The China Daily noted the songwriters hoped their case would highlight the
widespread  infringement of copyrights in China and prove that "most musi-
cal and video publishing houses have ignored the law."

The "Liberation Daily" noted that, ironically, "all the tapes have clearly
shows they are not ignorant of the law."

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5. China's Gold Production Reported Up 18.5% in First Half..............25
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From:    Jian Liu
Source:  AP-DJ, 7/19/92

BEIJING -- Gold production in China was up  18.5%  during  the  first  six
months of 1992 compared with the same period last year, an official report
said Sunday.

The People's Daily (Renmin Ribao), the  Communist  Party  newspaper,  said
48.8%  of  the  government-set production quota for the year had been ful-
filled by the end of June.

The report did not give figures on the amount of gold produced,  just  the
rate of increase.

The People's Daily also said that over the past three years, China has in-
creased gold production each year by at least 15%.

During the first six months of 1992, China spent 256 million yuan (44 mil-
lion U.S. dlrs) to build gold production facilities, up 2% over last year,
the report said.

On Saturday, the official newspaper China Daily said China is  considering
opening  its secretive gold industry to foreign investment to bring in up-
dated technology.

According to Western estimates,  China  produces  more  than  2.5  million
ounces of gold a year. That is about 15% of gold production in South Afri-
ca, the world's leading producer.

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6. ASEAN Conference Ends With Spratlys Peace Resolution.................31
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From:    Jian Liu
Source:  AP-DJ, 7/22/92

MANILA -- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations passed  a  resolution
Wednesday urging China, Vietnam, Taiwan and three of its members to peace-
fully settle their claims to the Spratly Islands.

The resolution was passed at the end of the meeting of  foreign  ministers
of  ASEAN  nations-Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and
Thailand.

Some or all of the mineral-rich Spratlys, a chain of islets and shoals  in
the  South  China Sea, are claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei
and the three other nations.

The resolution also urged the claimants to abide by a commitment they made
last month in Jakarta to look into developing the Spratlys and temporarily
shelve their territorial claims.

Also Wednesday, Vietnam and Laos signed the association's Treaty of  Amity
and Cooperation, giving them observer status in the ASEAN.

Member nations stated in a communique their support of major  debt  write-
offs  to allow debt-strapped countries to rebuild their economies, but the
statement did not give details on how the write-offs can be implemented.

U.S. Secretary of State James Baker  and  his  counterparts  from  Russia,
Japan,  Britain,  New  Zealand  and  Canada will attend a post-ministerial
meeting here Friday.

Also Wednesday, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs  Andrei  Kozyrev  pro-
posed  future  talks  for the formation of an international naval force in
the Asia Pacific region. Kozyrev made the suggestion in a speech during  a
closed-door meeting with the ASEAN envoys.

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