chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) (12/21/89)
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* C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t *
(ND Canada Service)
-- Dec. 21 (I), 1989
Table of Contents
# of Lines
Headline News ....................................................... 70
1. Consulate Official Visited Buffalo .............................. 23
2. Public Security Newspaper Questioned
the Useage of Military Suppression ...................... 17
3. Exiles Work To Keep Democracy Movement Alive .................... 124
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Headline News
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(1) President George Bush has approved the sale of three communications
satellites to the People's Republic of China and has partially lifted
the restrictions on American companies doing business in China that
had been imposed following the Chinese Government's June suppression
of the pro-democracy movement.
From: ONLINE-L@IRISHMVS.BITNET (JBH Online)
Source: BBC, 12/20/89
(2) When asked about last week's bloody crackdown in Romania, a spokeman
of Foreign Affair Department of China said on December 20 that we only
learnt some reports from foreign newspapers...we always think that
what happening in some East Europe countries are their internal
affairs, and we do not interrupt others' internal affairs.
From: simone@nyspi.bitnet. (J. Yang)
Source: France News Agency, Beijing, 12/20/89
(3) East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow and West German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl agreed Tuesday in Dresden to the reopening of the
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and lifting of all travel restrictions for
all Germans in time for Christmas. The agreement was announced at a
joint news conference following their meeting.
From: ONLINE-L@IRISHMVS.BITNET (JBH Online)
Source: Radio Netherlands International,12/20/89
(4) Bucking a strong trend in Africa and Eastern Europe, President Robert
Mugabe Tuesday urged the establishment in Zimbabwe of a one-party
state based on Marxist-Leninist principles. He did so in his opening
speech to the first national convention of the Zimbabwe African
National Union, or ZANU, since it united with a long time political
foe, the Zimbabwe African People's Union, or ZAPU.
From: Tang@alisuvax.bitnet (Deming Tang)
Source: Des Moines Register, 12/20/89
(5)
The US Government has sent troops into the Republic of Panama to
protect Americans there and to bring indicted leader General Manuel Antonio
Noriega to the US to stand trial on drug trafficking charges. The military
operation began at approximately 1am Wednesday local time (07:00 UTC/GMT, I
believe). As part of the operation, the Panama Canal has been closed for
the first time in its 75-year history.
Guillermo Endara, the opposition candidate who is widely believed to
have won last May's national election by a wide margin before the election
was invalidated by the Noriega regime, has been sworn in as President. In
a televised address, President Bush announced the US Government's
recognition of Endara's government.
The Government of the USSR has termed the action a violation of the
United Nations Charter and has called on the US to stop the "invasion"
immediately. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the action
"courageous."
From: ONLINE-L@IRISHMVS.BITNET (JBH Online)
Source: BBC, 12/20/89
(6)
Tokyo, Japan - In the first of what is expected to be a series of
transfers, the Japanese government said Tuesday that it would repatriate
301 Chinese who sailed here over the summer falsely asserting to be
Vietnamese refugees and seeking to resettle in Japan.
Source: Des Moines Register, 12/20/89
From: Tang@alisuvax.bitnet (Deming Tang)
(7)
A just concluded conference on political work in the People's
Liberation Army (PLA) has called for promoting ideological discipline and
improving relations between the Army and the populace.
Source : South China Morning Post, 12/19/89
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
From: hkucs!kwchan@uunet.UU.net
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1. Consulate Official Visited Buffalo
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>From: V999NWHZ@UBVMSC.CC.BUFFALO.EDU
source: soc.culture.china
Mr. Zhao, Zhenkang, from General Consulate of PRC in NewYork
City, visited Buffalo last Sunday. During his staying in Buf-
falo, he had a meeting with Lian Yi Hui (CSC) council members.
The following is a memo about the meeting. Mr. Zhao made some
"interesting" points about the J-1 issue.
=======================================================================
Memo of the meeting with Consulate official
The 5 CSC Council members met with Zhao, Zhengkang, the Con-
sulate official, last Sunday. The biggest and most sensitive
topic was, as you may expect, the J-1 issue.
He asked if we could say that the US government 1) interfered
China's internal affairs; 2) teared up the agreement; 3) Lue3
Duo2 Zhong1 Gou2 Ren2 Cai2.
Our answer: 1) No. The government action is upon most J-1
holders request. 2) Yes. It's a fact due to what happened in
China. 3) No. Neither the presidential directive nor the bill
mentioned anything leading to this conclusion.
Finally he let us tell everybody the official attitude of the
Consulate towards the Government action: The purpose of the
administration order is to protect Chinese students, but there is
"no persecution on the students and scholars returning from
abroad". If anybody applies for what the US government offers,
there must have had some "political considerations".
------------------------
No further interpretation of the above was given by Mr. Zhao.
But everyone can figure out what he means. More details will come
at our next gathering.
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2. Public Security Newspaper Questioned the Useage of Military Suppression
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From: simone.nyspi.bitnet. (J. Yang)
Source: France News Agency, Beijing, 12/20/89
Six months after the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Beijing's
'The People's Public Security Daily' questioned the wisedom of using gun
and tear gas to suppress rebellions.
The paper pointed that when facing hostile rebellions, a qualified
police officer should not immediately count on arm. In stead, he should try
to make dialogue and find out solutions.
France News Agency obtained this news paper of Nov 17th through
diplomat in Beijing.
The article said that a police officer should not use arm when the
officer was nervous, angry, or out of control of his temper, especially
when there were onlookers around.
The article added that there was no clear law in China as how to deal
with re-bellion although there were some internal regulatons in the public
security system.
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3. Exiles Work To Keep Democracy Movement Alive
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From: Fangzhen Lin <lin@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Source: Associated Press, 12/17/89
By KATHY WILHELM
SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) - Six months ago, Chinese students around the
world rallied by the thousands and hastily formed aid committees after the
bloody government attack on demonstrating classmates in Beijing's Tiananmen
Square.
Today, foreign interest in their cause has waned, donations have fallen
off and internal bickering over personalities and policy has hurt their
credibility.
The exiled students watch wistfully as movements of the people sweep
Eastern Europe's Communist parties from power - and China's continuing
crackdown from newspaper front pages.
Nonetheless, a core of activists, led by students who survived the June
3-4 army attack and fled overseas, are putting college and careers on hold
and exposing themselves and their families to political retribution to
organize a long-term fight for democracy from exile.
"It is our duty to speak before the whole world: Chinese people are
suffering," said Li Lu, 23, one of only two students who escaped in June
while on the Chinese government's most-wanted list of 21 students. He now
studies economics at Columbia University in New York City but says his
career will be fighting for human rights in China.
"I feel deeply guilty," said Li, pressing his hand to his heart. His
wife, whom he married amid the bright student banners in Tiananmen Square,
remains in China.
In world history, exile groups have a poor record of achieving change
at home. Prospects are especially bleak for the exiles from China, where
many of the 1.1 billion people are semi-literate peasants with little
awareness of events abroad.
"What we do here is limited," acknowledged An Wei, who came from
Beijing to study and now works part-time at the China Information Center in
the Boston suburb of Newton. The center was set up in May to get news about
Chinese political developments into and out of China, including randomly
faxing Western news reports to Chinese offices.
"Any change (in China) will have to happen from within. But external
pressure can have an impact," he said. "If we send in 100 faxes and only 10
get into the hands of concerned people, that will help."
Results may be slow in coming, said 21-year-old Wu'er Kaixi, the other
key student leader to escape. He is now studying at Harvard.
"We must wait for a good opportunity. It could be Deng Xiaoping's death
or another student movement or changes in the military," he said. ''When it
comes, we have to be ready ... to return in a minute to China and play a
role.''
Wu'er is one of the leaders of the Front for a Democratic China,
founded in Paris in September and the most prominent of the overseas
Chinese activist groups.
In an underheated apartment in an aging frame house in Somerville, just
outside Boston, Wu'er and fellow Chinese students run the Front's main U.S.
office. They write speeches for his frequent public appearances, lobby for
foreign sanctions against China and plot to spirit other dissidents out.
From dozens of makeshift offices and homes across the United States and
abroad, other exile groups also churn out news releases and manifestos
demanding democracy and smuggle anti-government materials into China.
A week ago, their goal of persuading foreign governments to pressure
China on human rights was dealt a blow by the trip to Beijing of National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger and a White House aide, the first high-level American officials
to visit since the killings in June. The Bush administration said the visit
was meant to mend strained ties between the two governments.
But even before Scowcroft's visit, many activists said they were
disappointed by the official American stance. The U.S. Consulate in Hong
Kong refused visas to many fleeing Chinese dissidents. President Bush has
vetoed bills that tried to widen sanctions against China and allow students
to remain in the United States indefinitely.
Bush ordered administrative protection for Chinese students, but
activists remain dissatisfied, noting he is free to cancel the order at any
time.
Next to their visa status, financing is the main worry of the Chinese
groups, which share a scruffy, penny-pinched look.
The China Information Center is one of the better housed, in a two-
story frame house provided by an ecumenical religious group. It pays rent
when it can.
The Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars, based in
Washington, was formed by Chinese student groups on a number of campuses
around the country. In Chicago, six Chinese students tape daily half-hour
programs of news and commentary that are broadcast into China on shifting
frequencies as "The Voice of June 4."
The movement's only newspaper to date is the Press Freedom Herald in
Los Angeles. Yan Zhongmei, a Chinese visiting scholar in Tokyo, has started
a magazine, Democratic China.
Spiritual grandfather to all the groups is the Chinese Alliance for
Democracy, formed seven years ago by a Chinese student defector. From a
small apartment in the New York City borough of Queens, the Alliance
publishes the anti-Communist magazine China Spring.
The Alliance offers a sobering example to newcomers: although it has
found steady if sparse financial support and survived bitter internal
splits, it can claim to have influenced only small groups of urban Chinese,
despite efforts by underground members in China.
The newcomers realize that to do merely as well, they must become
better organized and work together, overcoming the historical tendency of
Chinese groups abroad toward factionalism. Already, fellow exiles have
criticized Wu'er in public for alleged immaturity, and divisions have
developed over whether the Communist Party can be reformed from within.
They also must figure out how to introduce democracy in a country with
no tradition of popular participation in government.
"The sad thing is everybody wants democracy and freedom, but if you ask
them what kind of democracy, they can't answer," An said.
Yang Lixin, president of the Chinese Student Association of Columbia
University, said new groups such as the Front have yet to democratize
themselves. "Very frequently, it is because (the exiles) learned about
democracy from books," he said. "They don't know how it works."
They are trying to learn, in part through lobbying activities.
But many fear Americans will forget them, as they believe the U.S.
government is doing.
In June, the China Solidarity Committee set up in Washington by Feng
Shengping had seven full-time volunteers answering telephone calls. "Now
one person can handle everything," he said.
Some say they have received vague warnings from Chinese officials of
eventual retribution, or their families in China have been questioned.
Feng predicts some activists will lose interest or be forced to find
paying jobs.
"But some will stay, definitely, just like after a big tide is over,
you still have rocks left behind," he said.
"People like me have burned our bridges. If we want to go back to China
to see our parents and friends, we have to promote the cause, or else we
must stay here forever."
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| Executive Editor: Deming Tang E_mail: tang@alisuvax.bitnet |
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News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or)
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Local Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu
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Thu Dec 21 11:06:36 EST 1989