chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (12/24/89)
| +---------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. 24 (I), 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines Brief News .......................................................... 25 1. Beijing to Review Its Ties with East Bloc ........................ 41 2. Politburo Standing Committee Attend Meeting of Returned Overseas Chinese ................................. 35 3. Christmas Gift from the PRC Government: A Church ................. 22 4. Bush Defends Secret Missions to Beijing .......................... 23 5. Developments in EE and SU ........................................ 38 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brief News ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: IZZYQ00@OAC.UCLA.EDU (J.D.) and kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: AP, SCMP, 12/23/89 China on Saturday denied giving sanctuary to ousted Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu. "The notion that Ceausescu has fled to China is utterly groundless," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The Foreign Ministry declined comment on Ceausescu's demise, and there were no reports of events in Romania in either the official Xinhua News Agency or the Communist Party's People's Daily. The fall of the Ceausescu Government in Rumania and other recent developments in Eastern Europe are expected to top the agenda when a Soviet Communist Party delegation makes a week-long visit to China starting today. Mr Valentin Falin, head of the international department of the Soviet Com- munist Party's Central Committee, is expected to hold talks with senior Chinese leaders, including the General Secretary, Mr Jiang Zemin, and possi- bly Mr Deng Xiaoping. More than 640 British citizens in Hongkong have written to their Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, and Member of Parliament, appealing for more passports for local people. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Beijing to Review Its Ties with East Bloc ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/23/89 By Willy Wo-Lap Lam Analysts say as a result of stunning developments in Rumania, the CCP is review its relationship with the entire East bloc. "Chinese leaders have in private lambasted Soviet leader Mikhail Gor- bachev and liberal cadres in Eastern Europe for deviating from the path of socialism," said a Western diplomat. "With Rumania -- the last stronghold of Stalinism in East Europe -- about to go `revisionist', Beijing must learn to live with the fact that re- form is the dominant trend in the East bloc." Analysts say that with China becoming the odd one out in the East bloc, Beijing will seek to play down ideological differences with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and focus on practical matters, such as trade. Internally, Mr Nicolae Ceausescu's fall is expected to harden Beijing's resolve to use force to prevent future outbreaks of disorders. Chinese sources say that Mr Qiao Shi and General Yang Baibing have spe- cial responsibility for "drawing relevant lessons from Eastern Europe" and ensuring that China's state control mechanisms are tough enough to deal with potential challenges. Mr Qiao, head of China's security establishment, visited Rumania and Bulgaria in November. In Bucharest, he apparently advised Mr Ceausescu on how to clamp down on dissent. In his meeting with a delegation of Hongkong journalists on Thursday, Mr Jiang hinted that China would rely on its military might to quell disorders. A major difference between China and Eastern Europe, Mr Jiang said, was that "the Chinese army has been proven to have substantial fighting power" and that "it is under the absolute leadership of the party". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Politburo Standing Committee Attend Meeting of Returned Overseas Chinese ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kwchan@hkucs.UUCP (Chan Ki Wa) Source: South China Morning Post, 12/21/89 Speaking at the fourth national conference of the All China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese which opened in Beijing on Monday, party gen- eral secretary, Mr Jiang Zemin, said that under new historical cir- cumstances, overseas Chinese work would become more and more important. Mr Jiang praised the role overseas Chinese have played in enabling China to understand the world and the world to understand China. The party boss repeated that China would go on implementing policies which have proven to be effective in the past 10 years. These include the reform and open door policy, the "one country, two systems" formula towards national reunification, and promoting friendly re- lations with other countries. It is the first time in the history of the federation that a party boss has addressed its national conference. The meeting, which ends on Friday, is attended by 800 returned overseas Chinese and 40 representatives from Hongkong and Macau. Other dignitaries who have spoken to the delegates include the Prime Minister, Mr Li Peng, and four other members of the Politburo Standing Com- mittee. Analysts say Beijing is enlisting the help of overseas Chinese in its bid to end political and economic sanctions imposed on China by the West. The most important topic on the conference agenda is the search for ways to attract foreign investment from overseas Chinese businessmen. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Christmas Gift from the PRC Government: A Church ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu Source: Associated Press, 12/23/89 Beijing -- The Chinese government gave Beijing Catholics a Christmas gift Saturday. It returned St. Michael's church more than 3 decades after it was confiscated for secular use. Pale winter sunlight gleamed through the few remaining stained glass windows as more than 200 Catholics re-consecrated the 87-year-old Gothic building with song and prayer. The church, its gray brick spires towering over a tree-lined street in central Beijing, was built in 1902 to serve the foreign diplomatic communi- ty. The Communist government seized it in 1958 and made it a school. Other churches were closed in the 1960s, during the far-leftist Cultural Revolution that treated religion as a threat to Communism. St. Michael's is the fifth Catholic church to reopen in urban Beijing, where nearly 40,000 Catholics live. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Bush Defends Secret Missions to Beijing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: lin@cs.stanford.edu Source: Associated Press, 12/22/89 Washington -- President Bush vigorously defended sending unannounced high- level missions to Beijing, saying Thursday that if Americans didn't approve, "I expect they'd get somebody else to take my job." Bush compared his sending envoys to China in July and in August, despite the government's bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown against protesters in June, to then-President Nixon's decision to dispatch aide Henry Kissinger to China in 1972. "The whole opening to China would never have happened if Kissinger hadn't undertaken that mission. It would have fallen apart. So you have to use your own judgment," Bush told a news conference. He denied that sending his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and a senior State Department official to Beijing on the two trips represented a violation of sanctions he imposed on China [because it is not an "exchange" of high-ranking officials]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Developments in EE and SU: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: yawei@aqua.bacs.indiana.edu and IZZYQ00@OAC.UCLA.EDU (J.D.) Source: AP, 12/23/89 Romanian embassies worldwide shift their allegiances to the new govern- ment. But sporadic fighting continues in the capital between army units sid- ing with pro-reform protesters and security forces loyal to the deposed Ceausescu. Much of the fighting appears to be guerrilla warfare by loyalist forces desperate to avoid capture. Anti-Ceausescu forces catch and kill loyalists on the spot. An AP reporter witnesses summary executions near the Bucharest post office. Western Europe rejoiced Friday at the downfall of Nicolae Ceauses- cu, pledging immediate aid. "To win this victory, the people of Romania have paid a heavy price: the yoke of tyranny throughout long years, the massacre of innocent people in the course of recent weeks," the 12-nation European Economic Community said from its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The United States said a "terrible burden" had been lifted from Romania. The International Committee of the Red Cross and two humanitarian organizations in France said they were flying doctors and medical supplies to Bucharest. In Czechoslovakia, opposition leader Vaclav Havel asked with Romanians, "in the name of our velvet revolution," not to take violent revenge. "In our country, there was a slogan shouted, 'We are not like them,'" Havel said in a message to Romanians. "You should ask for a just punishment for Ceausescu, but not the death penalty. Stop the wave of violence. Oth- erwise it will flow over all of Europe." [Czechoslovakia will hold no witch hunts and no secret trials of former members of its secret police, the new security chief said yesterday in an interview. But, "if anyone (in the secu- rity force) broke the law, he will be prosecuted under the law," he said.] North Korea launched a campaign Friday to promote socialism, warning that it could be destroyed by political reform and a multiparty system. North Korean media have remained silent on the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe, and the reports Friday did not mention them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Executive Editor: Sanyee Tang, tang@ssurf.ucsd.edu | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) ----------------------- --------------------- NDCadada Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sun Dec 24 12:55:48 EST 1989