chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (12/30/89)
| +---------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) -- Dec. 30, 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines 1. More Than 1500 PLA Officers and Soldiers Refused to Kill People .. 29 2. Police Ordered to Be Alert Against Subversion .................... 37 3. Gorbachev Attacked over Changes in East Europe ................... 38 4. Peking Univ. Students Held Meeting With State Spokesman Yuan Mu .. 27 5. Beijing Puts Technocrat in Charge of Central Planning ............ 38 6. HK Group Denies Links to Five Held in China ...................... 24 7. Developments in EE and SU ........................................ 42 ============================================================================ HAPPY NEW YEAR OF 1990 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. More Than 1500 PLA Officers and Soldiers Refused to Kill People ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/28/89 By Willy Wo-lap Lam In an unpublished speech by the Chief Political Commissar, Mr Yang Bai- bing, at a conference to boost Army political work, underlined the need to beef up ideological work to prevent a recurrence of the disciplinary prob- lems in May and June. A transcript of the speech, made in Beijing earlier this month, has been circulating among senior Army and party officials. According to Mr Yang, 21 officers and cadres with ranks of divisional commander or above, 36 officers with ranks of regimental or battalion com- mander, and 54 officers with the rank of company chief "breached discipline in a serious manner during the struggle to crush the counter-revolutionary rebellion" in June. In addition, 1,400 soldiers "shed their weapons and ran away," he said. Mr Yang cited Mr Xu Qinxian, head of the Beijing based 38th Group Army, as one of the 21 senior officers who had disobeyed orders from the CMC. Mr Xu was reportedly court-martialled in the autumn and given a stiff sentence. Mr Yang pointed out that during the rebellion, "if a group of (Army) political commissars had not insisted on their political stand and stuck to their positions in times of difficulty, the outcome would have been unthink- able." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Police Ordered to Be Alert Against Subversion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lin@Neon.Stanford.EDU Source: Associated Press, 12/28/89 By Kathy Wilhelm, Associated Press Writer Beijing -- Premier Li Peng on Thursday ordered the People's Armed Police to keep alert against subversion, and the Foreign Ministry vowed that political changes in East Europe won't affect China. Chinese authorities are raising defenses -- with both surveillance and by ideological work -- against any renewal of pro-democracy protests in- spired by Romania's example. More plain-clothes police were seen on Beijing's college campuses, where several anonymous, illegal posters have gone up in the past week mocking Ceausescu and urging China to learn from Romania. [Washington Post said the police have been instructed to monitor any gatherings of students and to use plain-clothes police to follow any stu- dents who leave their campuses in groups, no matter how small the group.] The official Xinhua News Agency said Li, party General Secretary Jiang Zemin and top military and police officials met with the party committee of the People's Armed Police. Li paid tribute to the force for helping crush the spring democracy movement but added, "China faces a long-term struggle and we cannot afford to slacken our vigilance," Xinhua said. After initially maintaining silence on events in Romania, the official Chinese media has reported Ceausescu's ouster and execution, although terse- ly. It has not mentioned the reasons for the uprising or the mass arrests and killings of civilians by secret police, but many Chinese have heard such reports on foreign radio broadcasts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Gorbachev Attacked over Changes in East Europe ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/28/89 China has criticised the Soviet President, Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, for undermining socialism in Eastern Europe, according to Beijing officials who have received an internal document which tells them what to think and say about the popular uprising in Rumania. The officials working in various professions said yesterday they were hastily called to meetings at work on Tuesday to be instructed on the docu- ment blasting Mr Gorbachev for triggering the "subversion of socialism" in the Eastern Bloc. The official, who said he had studied the document, said it was divided into three parts. The first described China's "correct" version of successive anti- communist movements in Eastern Europe. "It says the changes in Eastern Eu- rope were a subversion of socialism and it says Gorbachev is responsible for them," he added. The rest of the paper gives instructions on how officials should reaf- firm their support for China's party line and how they should react when asked their views on Rumania by foreigners. "We are not allowed to take a stand either for or against Ceausescu or the people of Rumania," one official said. "To foreigners we are supposed to say something neutral but to Chinese of course we should say the demise of communism was a blunder." China's cabinet met yesterday to assess the rapidly developing interna- tional situation, especially the situation in Rumania and Eastern Europe. The Prime Minister, Mr Li Peng, who chaired the meeting of the State Council in the party headquarters yesterday morning, "analysed the international si- tuation" for his colleagues, according to a China News Service dispatch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Peking Univ. Students Held Meeting With State Spokesman Yuan Mu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CHENH%AMBER.DECNET@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Source: Associated Press, 12/27/89 Beijing -- The Beijing University students held a 2-hour meeting with State Council spokesman Yuan Mu. The students hissed when Yuan stressed that Chi- na won't veer from its socialist road. Yuan's meeting with the students appeared timed to the overthrow of Romania's dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, which has rekindled sparks of student activism smothered by the June crackdown on the student-led pro-democracy movement. A student who attended the meeting said about 300 students with tickets issued by official student associations were allowed to attend the meeting, and only university-approved student leaders could read questions submitted in advance. But one student shouted out a question asking why former party chief Zhao Ziyang was purged following the June turmoil and blamed for China's economic and political problems when it was his mentor, senior leader Deng Xiaoping, who has decided policy in the past decade. Yuan didn't answer the questions. The student said Yuan spoke with vehemence, standing up and banging his hand on the table. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Beijing Puts Technocrat in Charge of Central Planning ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/27/89 By Willy Wo-lap Lam The 11th session of the Seventh National People's Congress Standing Com- mittee, which ended yesterday, announced that Mr Zou Jiahua, head of the Ministry of Machinery and Electronics Industry, would replace Vice-Premier Mr Yao Yilin as minister of the State Planning Commission (SPC), the most important ministry in the State Council. Owing to close personal links with Mr Li, the General Secretary, Mr Jiang Zemin, and the military, Mr Zou is one of the politicians who could tip the balance in the struggle for power that could break out when senior leader, Mr Deng Xiaoping leaves the scene. A Moscow-trained mechanical engineer, Mr Zou, 63, joined the party in 1945 and fought in the "liberation war" against the Nationalists. Mr Zou owes his meteoric rise partly to unusual personal connections. He is the son of Zou Taofen, a famous communist journalist, and son-in-law of the late Marshall Ye Jianying, a founder of the Red Army. Western businessmen describe Mr Zou, who speaks Russian and English, as a technocrat who is eager to absorb investment and advanced technology from the West. A native of Shanghai, Mr Zou is also a good friend of Mr Jiang Zemin, his predecessor as the Minister of Electronics Industry. Analysts say that Mr Yao Yilin's loss of the SPC post does not in any way mean that his clout as the nation's economic czar will be curtailed. "Mr Li Peng, whose influence is growing, is spending more time is such maters as foreign policy," a diplomatic analysts said. "That's why he needs a full time vice-premier to look after the economy for him." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. HK Group Denies Links to Five Held in China ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/27/89 By Daniel Kwan The Hongkong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China last night denied any ties between itself and the five Hongkong and Macau residents arrested by mainland police for helping pro-democracy ac- tivists to escape from the mainland. However, the Alliance condemned the arrests and urged the leadership in Beijing to release the five men. At the same time, the Alliance plans to hold a mass rally on New Year's Eve to salute the pro-democracy activists who have been arrested since the military crackdown in Beijing in June. The four Hongkong residents are Lai Pui-sing, Tse Chun-wing, Li Lung- hing and Luo Hai-sing. The Macau student is Chan Tsak-wai. The Chinese Ministry of Public Security also named John Shum, a popular film-maker who is also a committee member of the Alliance, as a key member involved in the organisation of the escape route for dissidents. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Developments in EE and SU ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu and MST0B@vm.uni-c.dk (Wu Zhineng) Source: Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union, Soc.Culture.China, 12/23-28/89 Romania now has a new government, the interim President Mr Iliescu is a former Communist Party Central Committee secretary who had been demoted to vice-director of the state technical publishing house after criticising the Ceausescu regime. Mr Petre Roman is named as caretaker prime minister until elections are held in April. Also appointed yesterday were vice-president Mr Dumitru Mazilu and minister of defence, General Colonel Nicolae Militaru. Soon after the government was announced, angry crowds poured into Bucharest's central square. "No more communists!" they shouted, raising clenched fists and waving national flags. "No more Ceausescus!" The new government promises that Romania will no longer a communist country but a democratic one. Mikhail Gorbachev, was named Man of the Decade by Time magazine Saturday [12/23/89]. The Soviet president, previously named Time's Man of the Year in 1987, was chosen because he is "the force behind the most momentous events of the '80s and because what he has already done will almost certain- ly shape the future," Time said. "Somehow confining our choice to 1989 seemed inadequate, and thus we named Gorbachev Man of the Decade." But Gor- bachev has no time to appreciate this honor, he is busy threatening his now independent Lithuanian communist comrades. Czechoslovakian parliament, the Federal Assembly, elected Vaclav Havel as new president. Alexander Dubcek, who intended to bring a human face to socialism in 1968, was elected as the chairman of the parliament. Apparently fearful of the effects of reforms in East Europe, Vietnam's national assembly passed a press law ensuring state control of the media by 354 to 33. This law bans private newspaper and requires central government approval for the hiring and firing of chief editors. It also requires jour- nalists to reveal their sources at the request of senior provincial court. Soc.Culture.China -- I just heard on radio that folks in The People's Repub- lic of Mongolia demonstrated twice in their capital for democracy. This com- munist regime was the first one in the world which called itself People' Republic. The communist rule in Mongolia is the second longest in the world since the system was established in 20's, with Soviet help, of course. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Executive Editor: Sanyee Tang, tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) ----------------------- --------------------- NDCadada Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sat Dec 30 18:22:35 EST 1989