From: jxg601@huxley.anu.edu.au (J. Gao)
Newsgroups: aus.culture.china
Subject: China News Digest (Global), Tue, 10/13/1992
Date: 13 Oct 92 06:41:23 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.2.12
Summary: CND
Keywords: CND

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

                              (News Global)

                        Tuesday, October 13, 1992

Table of Contents                                                # of Lines
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1. News Brief (3 Items) .................................................34
2. Communist Party Seeks Economic, Not Political, Reform ................24
3. China Detains Activists Demanding Japan's War Compensation ...........47
4. Japanese Public Support for Emperor's China Visit Still Unclear ......85
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1. News Brief (3 Items) .................................................34
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[Japan Economic Newswire, 10/12/92] HONG KONG -- Deng Xiaoping was
hospitalized September 26 for treatment of palsy, a Hong Kong newspaper
reported Monday. The Wah Kiu Yat Po, quoting reliable sources, did not say
whether or not he is still in hospital, however. The newspaper also quoted
the sources as saying that Deng met with Chen Yun, in Shanghai in early
September and discussed a reshuffle of the party leadership. At that time,
Deng and Yun agreed to reinforce the leadership of Communist Party chief
Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng and make all party elders retire from the
leadership, the daily said. Deng failed to attend Monday's opening session
of the 14th national party congress although he was expected to appear
after being named as a member of the presidium standing committee of the
congress Sunday. (From: Liu Jian)
                               ___  ___  ___

[UPI, 10/12/92] MANILA -- Police shot dead one suspected kidnaper and
arrested nine others, including a police officer and a soldier, Monday in
a heightening crackdown against kidnap gangs terrorizing the powerful
Chinese-Filipino community. In the meantime the country's communist
insurgency slammed the government's anti-crime drive and said its
13,500-strong armed wing, the New People's Army, would do the job. In a
statement sent to news agencies, the communist National Democratic Front
said the police and military had "neither the determination nor the
capability" to stop kidnapping and other crime. (From: A CND Reader)
                               ___  ___  ___

[Japan Economic Newswire, 10/12/92] BEIJING -- The Chinese State Council
and the Central Military Commission formally agreed to upgrade the domestic
Liuting airport in Qingdao, Shandong Province, into an international
airport, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported Monday. According to
Xinhua, construction work for the enlargement of the airport is well under
way and expected to be finished next year. The airport's first
international links -- with Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul -- will be then opened,
Xinhua said. (From: Liu Jian)

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2. Communist Party Seeks Economic, Not Political, Reform ................24
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From: Liu Jian
Source: Dow Jones News Service, 10/12/92

BEIJING -- The Chinese Communist Party today embraced supreme leader Deng
Xiaoping's capitalist-style reforms as the lone road to survival, but
failed to address corruption and other potentially fatal problems. 

The Communists, convening the 14th party congress in their 71-year history,
strictly adhered to Deng's refusal to couple economic reforms with
democratization, ignoring past experience that people demand greater
freedoms as they become richer. 

"We must not tolerate liberalism or any defiance of organization and
discipline," General Secretary Jiang Zemin said in his keynote address,
intended to be a policy road map for the next five years. 

Jiang's address, delivered before about 2,000 delegates in the cavernous
Great Hall of the People, set the tone for the week-long congress by
repeatedly praising Deng and his 14-year modernization drive. 

Deng, who retired from his last party post three years ago, remains China's
most powerful leader because of his personal connections with party and
military leaders built over a lifetime at the forefront of the communist
movement. 

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3. China Detains Activists Demanding Japan's War Compensation ...........47
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From: Liu Jian
Source: Japan Economic Newswire, 10/10/92

BEIJING, Oct. 10 -- Chinese security authorities, apparently anticipating a
visit this month by Japan's imperial couple, have detained at least six
activists involved in private groups demanding Japanese war compensation,
Chinese sources said Saturday.

The authorities also have banned visits to Beijing by local members of the
nongovernmental organizations making demands that Tokyo compensate private
citizens for damages inflicted by the Japanese Imperial Army before and
during World War II, the sources said.

Security authorities in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, have since September
30 been detaining He Yingmin, 41, a novelist who organized a local
reparation demands committee last May, the sources said. The local
committee has so far attracted some 200,000 members.

Local security authorities in Shijiazhuang also detained two or three other
leaders and ordered all members of the group to stay away from Beijing, the
sources added.

A number of civilian groups in China have demanded a formal apology and
massive war reparations from Japan.

Other unconfirmed reports say the security authorities have also detained
an unspecified number of activists involved in the reparation demand
movement in Heilongjiang and Shanxi provinces.

Last month, the Chinese Communist Party issued an official notice ordering
all nongovernmental activities seeking Japanese war compensation to be
halted until the conclusion of the imperial visit to China later this
month, the sources said.

In the 1972 Shanghai communique establishing diplomatic ties between China
and Japan, China dropped its war reparations claim for damages inflicted
during the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese War.

The Chinese government has long banned any civic moves to demand Japanese
payment of war reparations for damages suffered by private citizens.

Western diplomatic sources in Beijing said China's government has allowed
such nongovernmental compensation movements to exist as a trump card
against the Japanese government.

Prior to the planned visit by the emperor, however, the communist
government began suppressing such activities, the sources said.

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4. Japanese Public Support for Emperor's China Visit Still Unclear ......85
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From: Liu Jian
Source: Japan Economic Newswire, 10/10/92
By: Takehiko Kajita

TOKYO -- When Emperor Akihito visits China in late October he will go there
without the full blessing of the Japanese people. Foreign Minister Michio
Watanabe says it is impossible for the government to win 100% public
support for the imperial visit.

The unease among some sections of the public is symbolized by two incidents
involving extremists from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

A member of a right-wing group called Nihon Minzoku Seinen Domei (Japan
National Youth League) expressed his anger at the government's announcement
of its decision to accept the Chinese invitation by setting a truck ablaze
in front of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's official residence in late
August.

On October 4, a man believed to be an ultraleftist opposed to the imperial
system hurled a smoke canister toward the emperor and empress at the
opening ceremony of the national athletic meet in Tendo, Yamagata
Prefecture, northeastern Japan.

The man, yelling at the emperor to cancel the trip, was overpowered after
throwing the device, which landed near the royal box.

The government, before giving the final go-ahead, had held lengthy debates
on the sensitive political overtones of the trip with conservative members
of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), nationalist groups, and
intellectuals who oppose such a visit.

The chairman of the rightist group, Kyosuke Oishi, said in an interview he
staunchly opposes the royal trip to China because he fears that the emperor
will be pressed to apologize for Japan's wartime actions.

"The government and the LDP say they will not make the emperor apologize,
so we sit back and remain silent for the moment.  But if the emperor is
used (for making an apology), we will take action to demand the mass
resignation of the cabinet," he said.

Oishi said Japan had waged war against the nationalist Chinese government
of Chiang Kai-Shek, and argued that the present Chinese government was not
directly involved in the war with Japan, reasoning that the Japanese
monarch therefore has no reason to apologize to Beijing.

Such a view undoubtedly strikes a chord with numerous conservative
politicians who ardently support the imperial family.

Take Seiichi Eto, for instance.  The LDP legislator spearheaded a signature
drive centered on Diet members this summer in protest at what he views as
using the emperor for political purposes.

"Traditionally, the emperor must not be used for political purposes on
normal occasions," Eto said in a speech last month.

"It will appear that the emperor is being involved in diplomatic activities
as long as Prime Minister Miyazawa says the trip is intended to build new
Japan-China ties," he said.

Citing the constitutional constraints on the monarch as the symbol of the
unity of the people, the Japanese Communist Party has voiced opposition to
the emperor's China visit. It is the only major political party that has
expressed clear-cut dissatisfaction with the visit.

Opponents also feel enraged by Beijing's reassertion in February of its
claim to the still-contested Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea and
introduction of a legislative measure in March to demand compensation from
Japan for Chinese citizens.

Other Japanese express apprehension that the international community may
see the royal trip as an about-face by Japan over China's poor human rights
record.

Mineo Nakajima, professor of international relations and China studies at
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, said hardcore opposition at home
obviously delayed the Japanese government's decision-making process.

"I suspect Prime Minister Miyazawa must have been tremendously irresolute
until the bitter end. This indecisiveness delayed the final decision on
the emperor's trip to China," Nakajima said in a recent lecture at the
Foreign Press Center.

He said Beijing really seeks to derive political implications from the
imperial visit, adding that the delayed decision by the Japanese government
dealt a blow to Japan's diplomatic activities.

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