chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (01/03/90)
* C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t *
(ND Canada Service)
-- Jan. 2 (I), 1990
Table of Contents
# of Lines
1. In China, I'd be Dead (and Bush wouldn't care) ................ 96
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In China, I'd be Dead (and Bush wouldn't care)
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source: New York Times, 12/24/89
By Li Lu
From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu
I was the deputy commander of the student demonstrations in
Tiananmen Square. Last April, May and June, Chinese students non-
violently petitioned their Government to discuss human rights and
put an end to the corruption. Great expectations and hope filled
the air. It was our spring.
Now it is our winter.
Army tanks and guns killed and wounded thousands. Hundreds of
thousands were arrested; many were tortured. Amnesty Interna-
tional has documented secret executions, perhaps as many as
10,000 since June 4.
Yet in July, before the blood was dry on Tiananmen Square,
President Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft,
secretly went to Beijing to confer with the killers of Chinese
students. And this month, he and Deputy Secretary of State,
Lawrence Eagleburger went back and danced on the grave of the
Goddess of Democracy by publicly toasting China's regime.
Our hopes in Tiananmen Square were built on the principles that
frame the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is chilling to
realize that the promise of the American Revolution can be aban-
doned by a cynical determination to do business with China.
In Tiananmen Square, we assumed that the values we pursued were a
joint venture with democracies everywhere. The fruits of that
assumption were destroyed by this month's banquet in Beijing.
I am disheartened, but not surprised. Although I am a criminal in
China and face certain imprisonment, torture and possible execu-
tion, it was France - not the U.S. - that offered me and Wuer
Kaixi, a fellow student leader, safe haven.
My friends are in hiding, in prison, and dead. Wan Dan, the
"brains" of the democracy movement, has been brutally tortured.
Apparently, he will be publicly tried and faces execution.
Chai Ling, the "heart" of the movement, was my best friend in
Tiananmen Square. She inspired us to remain nonviolent. I fear
that she has been arrested or secretly executed.
Our winter is cruel in the knowledge that the U.S. Government has
not called for an end to martial law or the release of prisoners,
but for a new impetus in U.S.-China relations.
It would not be constructive for the U.S. to boycott China. Why,
however, is it necessary for it to so totally bow to the Chinese
Government? Twenty percent of the world's population, the Chinese
people, lives under a regime that not only refuses to respect and
promote human rights but shamefully works to destroy them.
Forty thousand Chines students are in the U.S. Many demonstrated
for democracy last spring. Now all face grave danger if they
return to China. Congress unanimously passed the Pelosi bill,
granting an automatic two-year visa extension to Chinese students
in the U.S., yet President Bush vetoed it. He said that adminis-
trative procedures would protect students applying for exten-
sions.
I understand Mr. Bush's desire to believe the Chinese Government.
I wanted to believe the promise of safe passage my Government
gave in the predawn hours of June 4. As I led 3000 students out
of Tiananmen Square, tanks opened fire and crushed students who
were too exhausted to leave their tents. I will never forget the
dark horror of that morning - and the possibility of another bro-
ken blood-stained promise.
Today, we see incredible changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union; it is their "spring". The U.S. encourages the basic hunger
for dignity and freedom expressed in Berlin, Warsaw and Prague.
Why is China an exception?
To date, the State Department China desk has refused to meet with
me officially to hear my report of the June 4 massacre. Here in
the U.S., I represent the hopes of millions of Chinese. Why has
the Bush administration left us in the cold?
It appears that Mr. Scowcroft and Mr. Eagleburger quietly dis-
cussed the release of Fang Lizhi, China's Andrei Sakharov. But
the Bush administration cannot only whisper pleas for human
rights into the deaf ears of the old men in China.
I appeal to all who treasure democracy, freedom and human rights
to demand that the administration loudly support Wan Dan, Chai
Ling and the democracy movement in their dealings with the
Chinese Government. I hope that the American people and Congress
will not tolerate a foreign policy that is dipped in the blood of
Chinese students.
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News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or)
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NDCadada Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu
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Tue Jan 2 22:25:46 EST 1990chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (01/03/90)
| +---------I __L__ ___/ \ -------I +----+----+ | ___\_\_ | \./ | | -----+- | | | | | __ \/ | --+-- |--- | |---| | I----+----I | I__J/\ | __|__ | | | |---| | | | _____ \ | /| \ | | | L__-| | I I---------J / J \/ | | V | J * C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t * (ND Canada Service) -- Jan. 2 (II), 1990 Table of Contents No. of Lines Notes from ND Editors ............................................... 22 1. Beijing Attacks Britain for Offering Citizenship to HKers ........ 28 2. PRC Will Continue to Sell Missiles to Middle East ................ 32 3. China's Troubled Student Exiles .................................. 57 4. Developments in EE and SU: An Introduction to Yugoslavia ......... 45 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not News, But More Than News ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Manger and Editors Source: China News Digest This is the 1st. general issue of the China News Digest in the '90s, already dubbed as the Post Post-war Era even before it begins. The world has changed in a breath-taking pace. Even amateur newsmen like us seem to be destined to a brisk business, with very rewarding spiritual profits. We wish to serve our readers better in the coming years. We have re- ceived numerous heart-warming mails from our readers, and we deeply appreci- ate your encouragement. However, we also need your help. If you see an interesting piece of news in a newspaper, a magazine, or hear on radio, why not let others to share it? Just take some time, make a digest, type it into computer, and mail to us, together with date and name of the original source. Bang! You send history to flash on thousands ter- minal screens! And history is anxiously waiting ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Beijing Attacks Britain for Offering Citizenship to HKers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IZZYQ00@OAC.UCLA.EDU (J.D.) Source: Associated Press, 12/30/89 By Jim Abrams China on Saturday said a British plan to give special residence rights to 50,000 Hong Kong families was a "gross violation" of Sino- British agreements on the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement it was "greatly surprised" at the British plan and threatened to take unspecified retaliatory action. Britain on Dec. 20 announced it will give residence rights to 50,000 households, about 225,000 Hong Kong Chinese, to help prevent a brain drain of the colony's most talented people before 1997. The British government has argued that guarantees of right of abode will ease concerns about Chinese rule after 1997 and will encourage people to remain in Hong Kong. The Foreign Ministry demanded that Britain reverse its position on residence rights. "Otherwise, it will have to bear a series of consequences arising therefrom. The Chinese side reserves the right to take corresponding measures thereby." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. PRC Will Continue to Sell Missiles to Middle East ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IZZYQ00@OAC.UCLA.EDU (J.D.) Source: Associated Press, 12/27/89 Kuwait -- Chinese President Yang Shangkun said his country would continue to supply Saudi Arabia with medium-range ballistic missiles, Egypt's semi- official Middle East News Agency reported Wednesday. The statement appeared to contradict earlier statements from President Bush, who said China had given his administration assurances it would not sell any more missiles to Mideast states. MENA quoted Yang as saying his country "was determined to supply Saudi Arabia with missiles, according to the contract signed between the two countries." The agency quoted Yang, who arrived in Muscat, Oman, Tuesday from Kuwait on his current tour in the Middle East, as saying Saudi Arabia had assured Beijing it would only use the missiles capable of hitting any target in the Middle East -- including Israel -- in self-defense. Yang was also quoted as saying he regarded the issue of Chinese Silkworm missile sales to Iran as "behind us," and that it would not have an impact on Sino-Kuwaiti relations. Arab government officials accused China of selling Silkworm missiles to Iran during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, and one U.S. military source said the Iranians had been preparing launching pads for the missiles along the banks of the mouth of the Persian Gulf, at the Straits of Hormuz, shortly before a U.N.-brokered cease-fire in August 1988. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. China's Troubled Student Exiles ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: wai@lpf.UMD.EDU Source: Washington Post, 12/25/89 By Jonathan Moses Cambridge, Massachusetts, US -- Far from the tanks and soldiers of Tienanmen Square, one of the exiled student leaders of the student movement cried for help. "I don't know what I should be doing," Wu'er Kaixi told guests at a re- cent memorial for his fallen colleagues. Tears welling up in his eyes, he stumbled from the podium and fainted. Wu'er Kaixi, who says he has a nervous disorder, had become overwrought after hearing an earlier speech by 64-year-old dissident journalist Liu Bi- nyan. In his rousing address to more than 500 students and faculty members at Harvard, Liu had criticized Wu'er Kaixi and other students as following an "ideology of 'severe oneself'" and had called the spring democracy move- ment a long-term failure. For the Chinese student leaders lucky enough to escape death or arrest, life in the United States allows time for troubling reflection. Aside from the inherent difficulties of adapting to a new culture away from family and friends, many of these political activists are plagued by feelings of guilt for having survived, and uncertainty over what to do next. Their exiled movement had received popular support and funds abroad, but it has yet to make a significant impact on the mainland. Many of the students have settled in the Boston area, where American and Chinese students last spring set up a group to help protesters in China, making the city the unofficial headquarters of the student arm of the exile movement. In the recent months, several of the exiles have been criticized in the Chinese-language press by fellow students and by elders such as Liu for living a high life on money donated out of sympathy for their dead col- leagues. The criticism had ranged from the trivial (takes of Wu'er Kaixi holding lobster feasts in Boston) to the more serious (Liu's charge that the students have yet to put their democratic philosophy into writing for future generations). The students in exile refuse to give up the hope of returning to China. "I will not ask for political asylum." says Shen Tong, who was a leader at Beijing University. "I don't think the Chinese could accept someone like that telling them about politics." There is a precedent for a successful Chinese-exile political movement. Sun Yat-sen, considered one of the founders of the modern Chinese state, worked for many years outside China before the imperial system was abandoned in 1911. The current exiles tour Western countries and Japan, as Sun did, to raise money. But Sun made the decision as an adult and a professional -- he was a doctor -- to become a revolutionary. The students leaders did not have that luxury. Their education and lives were violently interrupted be- fore they were prepared. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Developments in EE and SU: An Introduction to Yugoslavia ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tang@riscc1.scripps.edu Source: Wall Street Journal, 12/11/89 By Robert D. Kaplan, Regular Contributor to The Atlantic Ljubljana, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia, a multi-national state astride the borders of Rome and Byzantium and Catholicism and Orthodoxy, is on this fault line as well. In the north, Slovenia [Croatia to a lesser extent] is going the way of Hungary. Economic reform here started years ago. Slovenian communists have dropped the hammer and sickle from their banner, are considering changing the party name, and concede they may lose republic-wide elections slated for March. "Just because Serbia doesn't want a multi-party system doesn't mean we have to wait," Joze Smole, the head of the Slovenian Socialist Alliance, told me. In the central heart-land of Yugoslavia, Serbia is drifting more in the direction of Romania. A personal cult has formed around the republic's president, Slobodan Milosevic, who has pulled half-a-million people into street -- not by delivering economic reform or pluralism -- but by whipping up national sentiment based on medieval Serbian glory and perceived con- spiracies against Serbs. Serbia's rebellious ethnic-Albanian province of Kosovo in the South evokes the West Bank, with the streets patrolled by armed troops. Kosovo and other poor regions of Yugoslavia may soon be plagued not only with na- tional tensions but also with bread riots, as 50% monthly inflation tears apart the social fabric. This complex, asymmetrical situation is like the Soviet Union in minia- ture. Because much of the discontent is being released horizontally, one group against the other, rather than vertically, against the top communist authority in Belgrade, overall change is taking a slower, more tortuous path in Yugoslavia than in Poland or Hungary A Yugoslavia propelled forward by Slovenian reformist values will help the chances of successful liberalization not only in Belgrade but eventually in Romania and Albania too. The Balkans would then exist purely in a geo- graphical sense. However, were Yugoslavia to continue to fissure, as it now clearly doing, the whole of southeast Europe could become politically and economically dislodged from the rest of the Continent. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Executive Editor: Sanyee Tang, tang@riscc1.scripps.edu | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) ----------------------- --------------------- NDCadada Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tue Jan 2 22:36:15 EST 1990