China breeds eight giant pandas in captivity in 1998, most through artificial insemination. Dec. 14 Police charge Wang Ce, the head of a U.S.-based Chinese dissident group, with endangering national security. China will enforce stiff penalties for tax evasion including the death penalty in a drive to close massive loopholes in its tax system, says Vice Prime Minister Li Lanqing. Intimidation tactics by Chinese authorities leave top pro-democracy activists without lawyers to defend them two days before they go on trial for subversion. A second night of concentrated U.S. and British bombing raids on Baghdad provoke a furious response from China and Russia.
China confirms that two leading dissidents have been sentenced to long prison terms for subversion.
Xu Wenli is sentenced to 13 years in jail and Wang Youcai is given 11 years for attempting to form an opposition party. A banned pro-democracy opposition party which has seen three of its leading members sentenced to heavy jail terms is mentioned in the official Chinese press for the first time. U.N. rights chief Mary Robinson, responding to the conviction of three Chinese dissidents this week, says she will continue to press for personal freedoms and the right to a fair trial in China. Dec. 28 Xu Wenli, jailed for 13 years on charges of subversion, issues a defiant statement scrawled from prison in his own shackled hand saying the ruling party's iron grip on power is doomed. China puts its stamp of approval on a securities law to rein in chaotic share trading eight years after reopening its stock markets.