chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (12/29/89)
| +---------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. 29 (I), 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines 0. Brief News ....................................................... 35 1. PRC Arrest Five Men for Smuggling Political Activists ............ 36 2. Effect of Change in East Europe Is within Europe, Implies China .. 25 3. Beijing Announces New ID Scheme .................................. 31 4. Romanians Celebrate Christmas for 1st Time in 42 Years ........... 44 5. Developments in EE and SU: Soviet Congress Denounced Past Wrongdoings ............................................. 24 ============================================================================ The last CND of 1989 will be on 12/30, the first CND of 1990 will be on 1/2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Brief News ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu, liu@LPF.UMD.EDU and ls2r+zhiyong@andrew.cmu.edu Source: Various Newspaper and Soc.Culture.China, 12/23-26/89 San Diego Union -- In a dispatch from Beijing, Tanjug [Yugoslav News Agency] quoted unidentified diplomatic sources as saying the Communist Party Polit- buro had discussed ways of presenting the Romanian developments to the Chinese public without "rocking the boat." It said security forces in the Chinese capital were put on first-degree alert when news of the rebellion was finally announced. [A CND reader called his friend who works in a ministerial unit. This was in yesterday midnight, 14 hours after the announcement of the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu. His friend was on an emergency meeting reading an em- ergent call from the party, which said all Chinese people should stay in calm (Wen3 Zhu4 Qing2 Xu4) for this event.] Washington Post -- some students in Beijing University put up a poster say- ing that Ceausescu is a dog, and implied the same for Chinese dictators. Voice of Free China -- General Secretary of the Federation for Democratic China (Minzhen), Mr. Wan Runnan, arrived in Taipei for a 12-day visit to the Republic of China. Wan is scheduled to meet several political, academic, business and other leaders in Taiwan during his visit. He will also take part in many discussions related to the democratization of China. Wall Street Journal -- China will cut by nearly half the number of rural people allowed to move into cities next year. The Chinese Daily quoted Xi Zhongsheng of the State Commission for Reconstructing the Economy as saying 2.5 million people will be permitted to change their status to urban residents, down from the usual 4.8 million registration changes last year. Mr Xi said the tighter controls will help keep urban unemployment under 4% next year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. PRC Arrest Five Men for Smuggling Political Activists ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu and kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: San Diego Union, 12/26/89 and HK Newspaper China said yesterday that it had arrested five men from Hong Kong and Macao and smashed an underground escape network helping dissidents flee the country. State television said the five were caught trying to help smuggle "hooligans" responsible for pro-democracy unrest in June out of the country to the British colony of Hong Kong. It warned that the men, regarded by Beijing as subject to its laws, could be punished severely. Television said Hong Kong businessman Luo Haixing [Law Hoi-sing on HK newspaper], 40, was detained by police in Shenzhen in October, accused of trying to smuggle political activists Chen Ziming and Wang Juntao out of the country. Mr Law is a son of Mr Luo Chengxun, also known as Mr Luo Fu, former deputy editor-in-chief of the pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao and former editor-in- chief of the pro-Beijing New Evening Post. In 1983 a Beijing court sentenced Mr Luo to 10 years' jail on charges of "leaking state secrets" to the US. He was released three years ago but was not allowed to leave China. Mr Law, owner of a China trading company, had been missing since October 16 after going to Guangzhou to attend the city's Autumn Trade Fair. Mr Law is the second Hongkong resident to be charged by Chinese police in connection with last spring's student led democracy movement. Hongkong student Mr Yao Youngzhan, an alleged leader of the movement in Shanghai, was arrested by that city's Public Security Bureau last June. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Effect of Change in East Europe Is within Europe, Implies China ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source : South China Morning Post 12/24/89 Beijing -- China's Foreign Minister yesterday said events in East Europe were destabilising but expressed optimism that an easing of superpower con- frontation would lead to a long period of peace. Foreign Minister Qian Qichen said "drastic changes" in East Europe "have accumulated new elements of instability in the East-West relations and will produce a far-reaching impact on the European situation". He denied that the collapse of communist party rule in East European countries was an ideological defeat for the left. "Socialism has not failed and there is no ground to claim a success of capitalism either." He said military confrontation between the two superpowers had subsided in the second half of the 1980s, "and it has become possible to see a rela- tively long period of peace". Mr Qian's comments, to be carried in the next edition of the news maga- zine Liaowang (Outlook), were excerpted by the official New China News Agen- cy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Beijing Announces New ID Scheme ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source : South China Morning Post 12/24/89 Agence France Presse Beijing -- China plans to issue 16-digit identity numbers to every man, wom- an and child as it computerises data on all its 1.1 billion people, the of- ficial China Daily reported yesterday. Similar numbers will also be issued to every workplace and community in China, in a move designed to guarantee social security of Chinese citizens, the newspaper said. "Any records in connection with a person will be coded with the digit, which is unique and permanent to the user," it said, quoting an official of the State Bureau of Technical Supervision. The project coincides with efforts to computerise data in China, the newspaper said, though the official acknowledged that it would take a long time to complete. China has already issued identity cards -- each bearing 15-digit numbers -- to more than 600 million adults. Their use became mandatory this year, just as the state launched a nationwide crackdown on dissent, corruption and vice. The authorities already keep tabs on all Chinese through lifetime indi- vidual files maintained by each citizen's workplace. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Romanians Celebrate Christmas for 1st Time in 42 Years ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: cs519905@CAESAR.CS.UMN.EDU (Aaron Y. T. Cheung) Source: Associated Press, 12/25/89 Bucharest -- Romania's provisional government Monday appealed for a cease- fire by pro-Ceausescu forces who killed thousands in vicious battles. And Christmas carols rang out here for the first time in 42 years. Ra- dio Bucharest played Christmas songs and carols Monday, for the first time since the Communist takeover in December 1947. Scattered fighting was reported in Bucharest and other cities, but pub- lic transit was back in operation 3 days after Ceausescu was overthrown. Heavy explosions boomed near the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Bucharest and volleys of sniper fire were answered immediately with staccato bursts of automatic weapons. There were reports up to 80,000 had died and 300,000 were wounded since the popular revolt began Dec. 15. If accurate, the Romanian uprising would be the bloodiest anti-Communist revolt, its death toll far eclipsing that of the Hungarian revolution of 1956 in which about 30,000 people are believed to have lost their lives. While Bucharest was generally quiet Monday, radio and TV reported fight- ing in the southwest suburb of Drumul Taberei and around the Ministry of De- fense building. Hungarian radio and Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency also reported fight- ing Monday in Timisoara, the western city where the uprising began, as Ceausescu loyalists barricaded themselves inside a militia building. Still, street cars and trolley buses resumed service in Romania's fourth-largest city. Tanjug also reported serious fighting in Arad, near the Hungarian bord- er, and the central city of Sibiu. In Geneva, the toppled Romanian president Nicolae Ceaucescu and his fam- ily have US $400 million of gold stashed away in Swiss banks, La Tribune de Geneve newspaper reported yesterday. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Developments in EE and SU: Soviet Congress Denounced Past Wrongdoings ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu Source: San Diego Union, 12/25/89 Soviet legislators, in an emotionally charged meeting yesterday [12/24], condemned the Stalin-Hitler pact that divided Eastern Europe into spheres before World War II. The Congress, heeding President Mikhail Gorbachev's instruction to fill in the "blank spots" in Soviet history, said the secret agreement between the two leaders violated "the sovereignty and independence" of other na- tions. The lawmakers also condemned the secret protocols to the 1939 Soviet- German Non-aggression Treaty, which included a map delineating Soviet and German areas of interests, as "legally untenable and invalid from the moment they were signed." In a flurry of activity on the session's final day, the Congress also denounced the Soviet military sweep into Afghanistan 10 years ago and the use of force against demonstrators in the April 9 crackdown that left 19 people dead in the Georgia capital of Tbilisi. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Executive Editor: Sanyee Tang, tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) ----------------------- --------------------- NDCadada Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fri Dec 29 15:59:41 EST 1989