From: xc17@cicero.spc.uchicago.edu ()
Subject: CND-Global, September 3, 1992
Organization: U of Chicago, SSPPCC
Summary: CND-Global
Reply-To: cnd-editor@sdsc.edu
Keywords: CND-Global
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 15:58:39 GMT
X-Posted-From: cicero.spc.uchicago.edu
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu

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

                              (News Global)

                       Thursday, September 3, 1992

Table of Contents                                                # of Lines
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1. News Brief (4 Items) .................................................40
2. China's Economy Roars in First Half Year,
   Prompting Fears of Overheating .......................................36
3. British Foreign Office Minister to Visit Hong Kong at End of Week ....24
4. US Parliamentary Group's China Visit "Exceptionally Productive" ......36
5. A Rare Shot at Screen Stardom for Asians .............................40
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1. News Brief (4 Items) .................................................40
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[UPI and PR Newswire 09/02/92] BEIJING -- As of noon, EDT, Sept. 2, 1992,
Shen Tong, the student leader from Tiananmen Square and chairman of the
Newton, Mass.-based Democracy for China Fund, was still being held at an
unknown location by the Chinese government.  Shen Tong's American advisor,
Ross Terrill, an Australian who holds U.S.  citizenship and lives in
Cambridge, Mass., was forced to check out of his hotel and put on a flight
for Hong Kong.  The expulsion occurred a day after Terrill was detained in
his hotel room for several hours while trying to brief foreign reporters on
the detention by police of Shen Tong, 24, the first prominent student leader
of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests to return to China. (From: A CND
Reader and Liu Jian)
                        ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP-DJ 09-02-92] FORT WORTH, TEXAS -- President George Bush announced to
General Dynamics employees he was authorizing the sale of 150 F-16 fighter
jets to Taiwan. The planes are made in the company's plant here.  Bush said
he decided the deal would help maintain stability in Asia.  Taiwan has
sought the planes for the past 11 years. Administration officials claimed
the sale could preserve 4,000 or more jobs here and in Connecticut and
California, where parts for the F16 are made.  He said that the sale does
not mean the U.S. is backing off from its recognition or support for the
People's Republic of China, Taiwan's longtime antagonist. (From: Jian Liu)
                        ____  ____  ____  ____

[AP 09-02-92] China says President Bush's decision to lift a decade-old ban
on the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan could have "serious consequences."
China has long opposed the sale of F-16s to Taiwan.  Beijing has insisted
that Washington honor a 1982 US-China communique limiting arms sales to
Taiwan and eventually phasing them out. As vice president, Bush helped
negotiate that agreement. He's also a former US envoy to China.  The
administration will now argue that the military balance between China and
Taiwan has been fundamentally changed by Beijing's recent purchases of
advanced Su-27 fighters from Russia, US officials say. (From: A CND Reader)
                        ____  ____  ____  ____

[UPI 9/02/92] KATMANDU -- A Tibetan was killed and two others injured
Wednesday when a police patrol fired on a group of Tibetans trying to flee
across the border into Nepal, police said. The two injured Tibetans were
admitted for treatment to Bir hospital in Katmandu after being bussed into
the city from the Okhandunga border region, a doctor at the emergency ward
said. Some 21 Tibetans from the group were bussed into Katmandu either for
treatment or questioning, police said.  (From: A CND Reader)

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2. China's Economy Roars in First Half Year,
   Prompting Fears of Overheating .......................................36
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From: <jhua@aol.com>
Source: UPI, 9/02/92

BEIJING (UPI) -- China's reform-driven economy grew a booming 12 percent in
the first half of the year, prompting fears it could overheat despite a low
inflation rate, official media said Wednesday.

The reports quoted officials expressing concern about credit expansion,
industrial inefficiency, and a high level of capital investment without
enough attention to productivity.

State-run media quoted a report delivered Tuesday by Vice Premier Zou Jiahua
to the national parliament, in which the official said the gross national
product grew at twice the original government-target rate for the first six
months of 1992.

However, the government had recently revised the target to 10 percent or
more, based on a boom ignited by senior leader Deng Xiaoping's revival of
market-oriented economic reforms. The reform drive moved the economy into
high gear this spring.

"China's economy is growing at a rate much higher than planned," the
state-run China Daily noted. "Some fear it may again overheat."  But the
paper quoted Zou as downplaying concerns about inflation, noting that the
retail-price index rose a modest 4.9 percent in the first half of the year.

However, China Daily said Zou expressed concern over "current woes
overshadowing development," such as inflated credit expansion, a sharp jump
in fixed-asset investment and "persistently poor economic efficiency."

Investment in fixed assets soared 28.5 percent in the first seven months of
the year, when compared to the same period of 1991.  Half of the increase
involved agriculture, transportation, telecommunications, energy and raw
materials.

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3. British Foreign Office Minister to Visit Hong Kong at End of Week ....24
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Agence France Presse, 9/02/1992

London -- British Foreign office Minister Alastair Goodlad will visit Hong
Kong at the end of the week for talks with governor Chris Patten and members
of the executive and legistlative councils, the Foreign Office said Tuesday.

During the four-day visit, Goodlad, who last visited Hong Kong in May, will
also meet with members of the business community in the British colony,
which returns to Chinese rule in 1997.

The next top-level contact between Britain and China will be a meeting
between Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Chinese Foreign Minister Qian
Qichen on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly meeting at the end of
September.

Talks between Britain, Hong Kong and China on the financing of the new Hong
Kong airport will resume later this month after a recess in August, although
no firm date has yet been fixed.

Hong Kong and Beijing are enmeshed in a dispute over the cost of the new
airport and port facility at Chek Lap Kok, off the outlying island of
Lantau, which is currently estimated at 21 billion U.S. dollars and is
expected to be completed before the July, 1997 deadline for the Chinese
takeover.

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4. US Parliamentary Group's China Visit "Exceptionally Productive" ......36
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Xinhua via BBC, 9/01/92

Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen said here today
(Beijing, 27th August) that China attaches great importance to its relations
with the United States.  Qian made the remark during his meeting with Robert
Roe, Chairman of the Public Works and Transportation Committee of the US
House of Representatives, and his party here today.

"From a long-term point of view," the Foreign Minister said, "the
development of relations between China, the most populous developing
country, and the US, the most populous developed nation, is crucial to
global peace and stability."

"China does not want the US to regard it as a hostile country, but
cooperative partner," Qian told the visitors.  It doesn't matter that
differences exist between the two countries -- both in political and
economic terms, Qian noted, adding that problems can be solved through
discussions.

"Former Republican president Richard Nixon opened the gate for Sino-US
relations and former Democrat president Jimmy Carter forged diplomatic ties
between the two countries," Qian said.  "In this connection", he added, "we
believe that to develop relations with China should be the common policy for
the Republicans and the Democrats, rather than a problem for debate between
the Republicans and the Democrats in the US Congress."

Qian expressed the hope that the US Congress would play a positive role in
promoting the development of Sino-US relations.  He also welcomed more US
congressmen to visit China and gain more understanding of the country.

Roe said the US-China relationship is essential, and the two countries
should not let the existing differences become the "dark clouds" which
shroud such relations.  He added that it is important for the US and China,
both having great responsiblities in the world, to seek common points, for
instance, to play their part in the global economy.  He expressed the hope
that the two coutries would work together closely and that the distance
between the two coutries would become shorter and shorter.

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5. A Rare Shot at Screen Stardom for Asians .............................40
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From: Charles P. Mok
Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 1, 1992.
By: CRAIG S. SMITH

New York -- In the ballroom of the La Guardia Sheraton here, an aged Chinese
woman stares out the window and exclaims in a high, thin voice: "And that
was the last memory I had of her, forever!"  She says it again, with
different emphasis. "And that was the last memory I had of her, FOREVER!"

Deeper in the cavernous room, a grandmother with penciled eyebrows repeats
the phrase.  In fact, throughout the ballroom, women of similar age, all
Asian, are murmuring the words, mantralike, to no one in particular.
Others, much younger, are saying things like, "What if someone else had
picked that dead crab?"

A convention of grief-stricken women gone mad?  Hardly.  Someday soon, one
of these women may be appeaing on the big screen in a theater near you.

Director Wayne Wang is looking for "real" people, not just seasoned stars,
for his next movie, "The Joy Luck Club," based on Amy Tan's best-selling
book.  The director has worked with untested actors before, in "Chan Is
Missing," "Dim Sum" and "Eat a Bowl of Tea."  But the broad appeal of Ms.
Tan's novel means this movie will be Mr. Wang's highest visibility
production yet, and a role in it could translate into true stardom,
something not lost on the hundreds of women trying out for a part.

Such acting opportunities for Asians in the U.S. are rare, and an open
casting call for the film brought a flood of wannabes - mostly women - to
this hotel in the heart of Flushing, the community in the borough of Queens
that has attracted Chinese immigrants by the thousands.  The wannabes mostly
profess to be here on a lark, but glossy head shots and get-ups ranging from
virginal to vampy suggest otherwise.  For some, a role in the movie would be
a chance to fill long-frustrated dreams.  Others say they came because they
feel a strong connection to the characters in the novel, which is about a
Chinese-American woman's exploration of her mother's past.

The search for cast members goes on in front of a video monitor, where Mr.
Wang and his casting crew will spend hours looking for people who really
stand out.  Eventually, 10 to 15 will be contacted for more detailed
interviews.  The rest will watch "The Joy Luck Club" at a local theater
sometime in the fall of 1993.

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