chi@VLSI.WATERLOO.EDU (02/23/90)
| +---------I __L__ ___- i \ ------I +----+----+ | ___\_\_ | \./ | | -----+- | | | | | __ \/ | --+-- |--- | |---| | I----+----I | I__J/\ | __|__ | | | |---| | | | _____ \ | /| \ | | | L__-| | I I---------J / J \/ | | V | _/ * C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t * (News General + NDCanada) -- Feb. 23 (I), 1990 Table of Contents # of Lines 1. Cao Changqing Leaves for Columbia University ....................... 9 2. China Government Protest US State Department Report ................ 51 3. Hong Kong School Strives to Keep Democracy Spirit Alive ........... 126 4. CBC TV Special Report "Eight Months After June 4th" ................ 8 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Cao Changqing Leaves for Columbia University ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: simone@nyspi. (J. Yang) Source: World Journal, L.A., 2/22/90 The Chief Edidor of Press Freedom Herald Cao Changqing was resigned on Feb. 21 and the position was officially taken over by Teng Ben, who is a graduate stu- dent at UC at Santa Barbara. Mr. Cao will leave for Columbia University on Feb. 25 to joint the study on China's Human Rights. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. China Government Protest US State Department Report ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: (Yagui Wei) yawei@ucs.indiana.edu Source: (AP) News 2/22/90 Beijing Protests U.S. Report On Human-Rights Abuses BEIJING - China Thursday strongly protested a U.S. State Department report that accuses it of widespread human-rights abuses. Beijing insists the report is based on lies and hearsay. But a Foreign Ministry spokesman refused to say if his government planned to retaliate. Past responses to foreign criticism often have contained warnings that relations would be damaged. ''The government and people express their utmost indignation at this (report), which violates basic norms governing interna- tional relations,'' said the spokesman, Li Zhaoxing. The State Department report, issued Wednesday, contained the strongest public criticism ever of China under senior leader Deng Xiaoping. Its comprehensive listing of abuses, from torture and secret executions to pervasive surveillance, was expected to halt the slight warming of U.S.-Chinese relations. That warming started with the December visit of National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, predicted that official Chinese contacts with the U.S. Embassy in Beijing would drop off sharply. The embassy experienced similarly chilly relations with many Chinese government units in the first months after the army's June 3-4 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing. Asked to give examples of material in the report that is based on rumor or lies, Li told journalists to read the Chinese press for the truth. Li refused to say how many people are being held without trial in connection with the protests. Thousands were arrested in Beijing alone after the crackdown began, and many haven't yet been formally charged. ----------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Hong Kong School Strives to Keep Democracy Spirit Alive ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Fangzhen Lin <lin@Neon.Stanford.EDU> Source: (AP) News 21 Feb 90 By JOHN POMFRET Associated Press Writer HONG KONG (AP) - Down a narrow street patrolled by scrawny alley cats, beside a chicken market and up a flight of tenement stairs, a little school with a big name is striving to keep the spirit of democracy alive in Hong Kong. It's the Overseas Campus of Tiananmen Democracy University and it looks ahead to 1997, when China takes over Hong Kong from the British. ''It's a struggle to interest people in the future of Hong Kong,'' says Lau Kin Chi, one of the half-dozen lecturers from Hong Kong's colleges who banded together to form the school. ''Most have no hope. They'd rather spend the time applying to emigrate.'' The plight of the school encapsulates the peculiar situation of this bustling colony of 5.7 million people. Many realize their fate is tied to Beijing in seven years, but few believe they can do anything to change the increasingly hardline regime in China. But a month after the school's opening it is falling on hard times. Only 170 people enrolled in January for the first two months of courses on democracy, Chinese politics and the the historic changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Even fewer are expected for the next session. On a recent night, a dozen students sat in the school's sparse classroom as the sounds of vegetable hawkers echoed in the alley below. University students, computer programmers, workers and teach- ers, all of them praised the little school but bemoaned its shrinking enrollment. ''Most of my friends are too busy making money or trying to leave Hong Kong to think about China,'' said Andrew Yeung, a 27-year-old computer programmer who comes every Tuesday night to learn about Chinese political movements. ''But I don't want to leave Hong Kong. It's my home.'' ''Call us 'economic animals','' said his classmate Cheng Yeung, a 35-year-old construction foreman. ''But I have no hope of leaving so I must learn about China. Today's Beijing is tomorrow's Hong Kong.'' One high school teacher said she came to class because her students were asking questions about China and she didn't know the answers. A church worker said she needed the class because she wanted to understand why the Communist Chinese arrested Roman Catholics. ''I don't worry about the future,'' she said. ''My fate is in God's hands.'' The school takes its name from Tiananmen Democracy Univer- sity, founded by Chinese students and intellectuals in Tiananmen Square just hours before the bloody June 4 crackdown on the move- ment for freedom in Beijing. Lau and her colleagues decided to borrow the name and rented out two cramped rooms in a five-story, run-down tenement on bus- tling Stone Nullah Lane. Friends renovated and painted the rooms, built plywood desks and a printing shop donated mimeograph ser- vices. The school's purpose is to teach about modern China, demo- cracy and political change, topics that are generally ignored by the colony's government-run educational system. For 100 Hong Kong dollars ($12.80) students can enroll in a two-month course. ''We want to raise people's consciousness,'' said Ms. Lau, who teaches and translates modern Chinese literature at a local college. Indeed, modern Chinese history after the 1949 communist revo- lution is not taught in Hong Kong's secondary schools. In addi- tion, an education ordinance bans discussion of all politics in high school. Political activism in general also has a bad name in the colony where many are refugees from war and communism. ''We have a culture of apathy,'' said Yueng Sum, a Hong Kong politician and a leader in the small pro-democracy movement. chaos, not freedom.'' Changes in this perspective began last June and Lau and her colleagues hope this bodes well for the school. China's movement for freedom sparked millions to flood Hong Kong's streets in an unprecedented show of solidarity with the student democracy movement on the mainland. But Beijing's crack- down also convinced many that China could not be trusted to main- tain Hong Kong's free-wheeling economic and social system after it assumes control of the territory. China has promised to allow Hong Kong to maintain it's current economic and social systems for 50 years beyond 1997. Since June 4, the rush to emigrate, which already hovers at around 1,000 people a week, appears to have accelerated. But the crackdown in Beijing also sparked increased awareness of Chinese affairs. Several informal surveys of young people in Hong Kong after June found them increasingly interested in politics and ready to participate in movements, said Stephen L.W. Tang, a sociologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. ''For the first time words like democracy and freedom were more common than salary and benefits,'' Tang said. Back on Stone Nullah Lane, there's little to do but wait and see. ''It's frustrating,'' said Cheng Yuk-shing, another lecturer at the school. ''But our neighbors only talk to us when we don't shut the gate.'' ----------------------------------------------------------------- 4. CBC TV Special Report "Eight Months After June 4th" ----------------------------------------------------------------- CBC TV reporter Tom Kennedy has been collecting stories in China. A special report titled "Eight months after June 4th" which was sent out by Kennedy will be aired on CBC TV "The Journal" in a few days. Please stay tuned. --- A Student at UBC, Feb. 22, 90 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a Nice Weekend! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest Subscription: (Xinmeng Liao) xliao@ccm.umanitoba.ca | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest Executive Editor: (Bo Chi) chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.edu | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Fri Feb 23 11:49:35 EST 1990