From: xu@hydra.maths.unsw.oz.au ()
Subject: CND-Global, December 28, 1992
Organization: school of Mathematics UNSW
Distribution: aus
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 01:12:31 GMT


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

                                (News Global)

                          Monday, December 28, 1992


Table of Contents                                                 # of Lines
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1. News Brief (8 Items) ................................................. 72
2. Troops Shot Their Way into Pingyuan of Yunnan ........................ 31
3. News Media Interviewed Two Female Boatpeople from China .............. 82
4. "Why Russia is not China?" ........................................... 52
============================================================================

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1. News Brief (8 Items) ................................................. 72
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[AP, 12/25/1992] -- Li Peng urged Israeli President Chaim Herzog to resolve
the standoff over 415 deported Palestinians "in the spirit of humanitarian-
ism," during the 45 minutes meeting on Friday, the Xinhua reported. Lebanon
and Israel have been stalemated over who is responsible for the Palestin-
ians. Herzog is to meet with Jiang Zemin on Saturday before leaving Beijing
for Shanghai, where he is to hang plaques at two buildings that once served
as Jewish synagogues. (Forwarded by: Huijie and Zhao Hua)
                                ___ ___ ___

[AP-DJ, 12/25/1992] BEIJING -- Taiwanese are estimated to have invested 2.5
billion dlrs in mainland China this year, the People's Daily reported Satur-
day. Exact figures for Taiwanese investment are unavailable because much is
funneled through Hong Kong or other countries. But the 1992 investment is
believed to be double last year's figure, the report said.

Taiwan was the mainland's second-largest source of investment funds in 1992,
after Hong Kong. This year, Taiwan authorities lifted formal barriers to
direct investment on the mainland, recognizing that many companies were
ignoring the rule. The ban on direct trade still stands, keeping two-way
trade in 1992 to 8 billion dlrs, the paper said. More than 1 million
Taiwanese, out of a population of 20.5 million, visited the mainland in 1992
and nearly 10,000 mainlanders traveled in the opposite direction, the paper
said. (Forwarded by: Huijie)
                                ___ ___ ___

[AP-DJ, 12/24/1992] TAIPEI -- Taiwan's indirect trade with China via Hong
Kong gained 31% to 5.97 billion U.S. dlrs in the first ten months of 1992
from a year ago, the Board of Foreign Trade (BOFT) reported Thursday. In
the same period, Taiwan's exports to China leaped 37% to 5.05 billion U.S.
dlrs; while Taiwan's imports from China advanced 5.8% to 920 million U.S.
dlrs.

In the January-October period, Taiwan-China trade accounted for 4.7% of
Taiwan's total foreign trade of 127 billion U.S. dlrs. Indirect exports to
the mainland China made up 7.5% of Taiwan's total exports. Imports from
China represented 1.6% of Taiwan's total imports. In October, Taiwan's
indirect trade with China was 685 million U.S. dlrs, up 31% from a year ear-
lier. (Forwarded by: Liu Jian)
                                ___ ___ ___

[AP-DJ, 12/25/1992] BEIJING -- China has accused the Hong Kong Bar Associa-
tion of deliberately trying to mislead the public by saying Beijing is
legally bound to honor contracts after it takes over in 1997, an official
newspaper reported Friday. "We are shocked by the misinterpretation of the
Basic Law and the misleading of the public by some members of the legal pro-
fession," said a representative of Xinhua's Hong Kong office. The Xinhua
official said that according to the Basic Law, the only party that has the
right to interpret the Basic Law is the Standing Committee of the NPC. The
official said unilateral decisions by the British Hong Kong government that
straddle 1997 violate the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration. (Huijie)
                                ___ ___ ___

[DPA, 12/23/1992] -- The World Bank announced Wednesday a 150 million dollar
loan for improving facilities in Shanghai Port. The port is already the
world's 10th largest, handling 100 million tons of port traffic, a figure
which is expected to increase by one-third by the year 2005.

This is in addition to earlier World Bank loans of about 600 million dollars.
The loan is for 20 years at the standard variable interest rate, currently
7.60 percent. (Forwarded by: Wenfeng)
                                ___ ___ ___

[J.E.N., 12/26/1992] BEIJING -- The Chinese Olympic Committee has reported
that Harbin will bid to host the 3rd Asian Games in 1996, Xinhua reported.

The committee said Friday Harbin expects to stage skating events in Harbin
and skiing competition either in Heilongjiang or Jilin following inspection
by Olympic Council of Asia officials. South Korea is also bidding to host
the Asian Games in 1996. (Forwarded by: Liu Jian)
                                ___ ___ ___

[AP, 12/22/1992] BEIJING -- An explosion in a Chinese gun factory killed 22
people, mostly schoolchildren working at the plant, the Public Security News
(Renmin Gongan Bao) reported Tuesday. Eight people were seriously injured
and six slightly hurt in the explosion Dec. 6 in the factory in Yunnan.

The children, aged 9 to 14, had been working Sundays at the factory, it
said. Cause of the explosion was not known. (Forwarded by: Zhao Hua)
                                ___ ___ ___

[UPI, 12/26/1992] TOKYO -- Four more South Korean women have filed suit
against the Japanese government seeking an official apology and $2.3 million
for suffering they endured while forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers
during World War II. (Forwarded by: Wenfeng and A CND Reader)

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2. Troops Shot Their Way into Pingyuan of Yunnan ........................ 31
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Forwarded by: Wenfeng
Source: UPI, 12/23/1992

China's paramilitary police shot their way into a small town in Yunnan to
break up a drug gang run by the local government, Legal Daily said on Wed.
The action is believed to be the biggest reported use of force since 1989.

More than 2,000 troops from the People's Armed Police invaded the remote
town of Pingyuan on Aug. 31, after battling for almost three months with
guerrillas loyal to the local mayor, the official newspaper said.

"After an 80-day siege by armed police and police units, the criminal forces
at Pingyuan have disintegrated, social order has been restored, and the
severe struggle against the gun and drug trading has achieved a decisive
victory." Police confiscated more than a ton of drugs and hundreds of milit-
ary weapons when they finally managed to capture the town and its rogue
mayor, Lin Hongen.

Government forces arrested more than 800 people in the battle, which left
three police dead and 16 injured. Provincial courts have sentenced seven
people to death, including ring leader Lin.

"Lin Hongen, already sentenced to death, and a handful of criminals took
over the leadership of some organizations and collaborated with foreigners
and locals to trade guns and smuggle drugs," the newspaper said.

This marks the third reported instance in three years that Beijing has had
to use force to put down anti-government forces. Besides the 1989 crackdown
in Tiananmen Square, paramilitary troops in 1990 put down a small uprising
by ethnic Uygurs in the far west province of Xinjiang.

Strongmen like Lin are becoming more common in China, especially in remote
or mountainous areas such as Pingyuan, and worried central authorities have
urged police to step up the fight against the growing power of local war-
lords.

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3. News Media Interviewed Two Female Boatpeople from China .............. 82
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Forwarded by: Charles Mok
Source: The San Francisco Chronicle, 12/24/1992

To 20-year-old Wen Zhengming of Fujian, sailing to America to work in a sew-
ing factory seemed like the chance of a lifetime.

She knew the work would be strenuous: 10-hour days, seven days a week, in
dim, poorly ventilated rooms. But there was no work in China, and no chance
that she would ever get ahead. And so last month she said good-bye to her
parents, her brothers and her boyfriend and boarded a ship to America, con-
fident that she would be able to send for them once she had saved some
money.

But last night, after a nightmarish seven-week passage across the Pacific,
Wen and most of the other passengers on the Manyoshi Maru were in custody,
awaiting a decision from immigration officials on whether they can stay in
the United States.

"I never thought I'd be in jail," said Wen, in visiting room at the Santa
Rita Jail in Dublin.

In interviews with reporters and immigration officials since their rescue, a
picture has emerged of the people who endured the long voyage in crowded
quarters with little food or water. In many ways, Wen appears typical.

-Most in 20s and 30s

Most of the passengers are in their 20s and 30s. Most have little education,
and they had been left out of the economic action by the reforms instituted
since the mid-1980s. But because they come from Fujian province, just across
the strait from Taiwan and its thriving economy, they were aware that they
might find a better life if they left home.

Passengers told immigration officials they saved and borrowed to pay
thousands of dollars for the trip in order to seek work here.

When officials boarded the vessel, many of them were changing into fresh
clothes. To immigration service supervisory special agent James Christien-
sen, that suggested they were anxious to make a good impression on their
prospective employers.

"The floor looked like it was covered with grease taken out of a restaurant
slime pit, and yet these people were all wearing shiny shoes," he observed.
"They saved their best clothes to make their appearance in the United
States."

When they disembarked from the boat, many looked surprisingly well-groomed.
Some of the men sported leather jackets and the permed hairdos that are now
the fashion in southern China.

Although some immigration attorneys have talked of filing an asylum applica-
tions, political problems may have provided little motivation, said Joyce
Kallgren, associate director of the Institute for East Asian Studies at the
University of California at Berkeley.

"I don't think this has anything to do with politics," she said. "It has to
do with economics."

-Passengers Optimistic

Wen and fellow passenger Li Li Fang, 21, are optimistic about their chances
of staying in the United States and working in a factory. They said they
paid $1,000 - more than a year's wages for most Chinese - to board the ship,
and that they would have to repay that sum and 50 percent interest to a loan
shark in China.

Like other passengers, they said they did not know where in the United
States the ship was heading. "New York, San Francisco, it didn't matter, as
long as I could get to America," said Wen.

And Americans, she supposes, are all kind and generous like the Coast Guard
officials who fed the nauseated and starving passengers who docked in San
Francisco Bay on Monday night.

Perhaps even more important to her than America's virtues, Wen felt she had
nothing to lose by leaving China. She has not had a regular job since she
stopped attending school in the fifth grade. Li was only a bit better off:
She said she occasionally worked as a street vendor selling clothing.

It was only the thought of arriving in the promised land that sustained Wen
through 46 unbearable days spent mostly lying on a bunk seasick, hungry and
dirty.

After that ordeal, even jail seems like a minor obstacle. Despite the fact
that she is 6,000 miles from home and speaks no English, despite the
unlikelihood that she will be allowed to stay, Wen could hardly contain a
smile as she and Li were interviewed in the Santa Rita jail.

"In my heart, I have a feeling, America is a good country," she said, tug-
ging affectionately at Li's arm. "Now that we're already in America, I don't
want to go back to China. I have no way to subsist there."

Li agreed: "After coming out like this, if they send us back, how will we
ever repay the interest on the money we borrow?"

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4. "Why Russia is not China?" ........................................... 52
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Forwarded by: Zhao Hua
Source: UPI, 12/15/1992

MOSCOW -- Boris Yeltsin's visit to China this week offers the Russian
president a chance to see the kind of reforms many Kremlin critics have been
calling for. Russian and Chinese leaders intend to open up more avenues of
trade as a result of their talks, which will include military issues but no
new arms deals, said Mikhail Bely, chief of Asian affairs in the Russian
foreign ministry.

Recent Russian arms deals with China are worth $1 billion, while cross-
border trade will total $5 billion this year, more than all trade between
the Soviet Union and China in its peak year.

Although Yeltsin caved in Monday to the conservative majority in the Russian
Congress of People's Deputies and accepted conservative Energy Minister Vik-
tor Chernomyrdin as the new prime minister, replacing liberal market
reformer Yegor Gaidar, there was no indication that Yeltsin's China trip
would explore a new course of economic reform.

But the economic views of Chernomyrdin and the industrialists, centrists and
conservatives and even some communists he represents are much more akin to
certain economic reforms in China that have opened the door to foreign
investment and capitalist ideas while retaining state ownership.

By contrast, Gaidar recently delivered a speech "Why Russia is not China" in
the Russian Parliament, directed at industrialists like Chernomyrdin in the
Civic Union bloc as well as other Kremlin critics who believe Russia should
follow China's model mixing elements of communism and capitalism.

Gaidar had complained that in China the state retained complete control,
while he was seeking to divest Russia of control of the Soviet economy and
transfer it into private hands as the head of Yeltsin administration
reforms.

"Certain democratic circles cannot accept China because of its communist
regime," Bely said. "On the other hand, there are circles which consider
that we should learn from the Chinese example and develop reforms along the
model suggested by China."

Bely made no mention of Chernomyrdin and skirted a question about what
impact his appointment would have.

Bely said Chinese reforms have some useful points, but that China was stick-
ing to the path of state command and administration. "We have entered
another road," he said, "and it would be absurd to go back and follow the
Chinese way."

Nevertheless, Bely said Russia was interested in China's implementation of
economic reform, notably the special economic zone in Shenzhen and attract-
ing foreign investors. Trade is not the only thing active along the border.
Troops have long been stationed there. And there are disputes over the
border. The eighth round of border talks held recently in Beijing included
for the first time a delegation also representing other former Soviet border
states, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tadzhikistan.

Bely predicted an agreement next year on reducing troops on the Russian-
Chinese border.

Despite interest in establishing closer ties, Bely said, "As to differences,
we have different approaches to the question of human rights. There are
also differences in our approaches to some disarmament issues."

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