jshen@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Jun Shen) (01/27/91)
* * * C H I N A N E W S D I G E S T * * *
January 25, 1991
Table of Contents # of Lines
0. Briefs.............................................................17
1. Beijing slashes subsidies, hints at price hikes....................39
2. Mongolian leader builds economy, democracy.........................83
3. China Faces Population Control Problems as New Baby Boom Peaks.....31
4. China to Double Number of Telephones to 23.8 Million in Five Years.34
5. China Negotiating Purchase of Soviet SU-27 Fighters................19
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0. Briefs...............................................................17
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Iraq has denied Soviet reports that Saddam Hussein has had his top Air
Force and air defense generals executed. The Iraqi Ambassador to the
Soviet Union called the reports "psychological warfare".
Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait opened the spigots on the Kuwaiti oil
pumping facilities, pouring millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf.
Environmentalists call this a disaster of unprecedented proportion, while
the Pentagon has stated that it will be of no effect on possible
amphibious or other naval operations in the Gulf. It is estimated that
the spill is over seven times as large as the Exxon Valdez spill in
Alaska, and there is little prospect of cleanup operations while the war
continues.
Japan has elected to send C-130 cargo planes from its Self Defense Forces
to the Gulf to evacuate war refugees. China denounced this move as a
possible prelude to a rise in Japanese militarism.
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1. Beijing slashes subsidies, hints at price hikes......................39
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From: Zuofeng Li (zuofeng@pollux.wustl.edu)
Source: UPI, January 25, 1991
City authorities announced the capital's hefty subsidies have been cut and
hinted prices of some basic commodities may rise in order to ease "heavy
pressures" on the budget, an official report said Friday.
Beijing has slashed subsidies by $76.9 million for the coming year and may
cut government funding for staple foods such as eggs and meat, according
to the state-run Beijing Daily.
Subsidies are nevertheless expected to reach $855 million in 1991,
amounting to almost 60 percent of city revenues, the report said.
The 1991 budget cut shows only a slight decrease in government subsidies
compared to previous years. Subsidies totalled $860 million in 1989. No
figures were provided for 1990.
"Sharply increasing subsidies have brought about heavy pressures on city
finances," the report said. "Therefore, the municipal government has
decided to curb the continuous rising of subsidies step by step."
The Beijing Daily cited an anonymous finance official as saying subsidies
could be reduced by "adjusting" the current subsidization of grain, oil,
eggs and meat, all of which are rationed by the government.
The report did not indicate how Beijing would cut subsidies on meat and
eggs, for which annual rationing coupons already have been issued. The
coupons allow five pounds of eggs per household and an average of two
pounds of meat per person each month.
One Beijing resident speculated the government might raise prices on
those goods by simply declaring rationing coupons invalid.
Following months of debate over economic reform, the Chinese government
has been moving recently to reduce subsidies in an effort to bring
artifically low prices closer to their market value.
Central government subsidies to some sectors such as foreign trade
agencies already have been cut, while prices on basic goods such as sugar
and cotton clothing have been allowed to rise.
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2. Mongolian leader builds economy, democracy...........................83
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From: Zuofeng Li <zuofeng@castor.wustl.edu>
Source: UPI, Jan 24 1991
Mongolia, a communist satellite for more than six decades, expects an
untapped reservoir of oil and natural resources to support its emergence
into a free-market democracy, the new president said Thursday.
But President Punsalmaagiyn Orchirbat, the first freely elected leader of
the Mongolian People's Republic, admits the country is troubled by a lack
of managers and expertise to develop its economy, and a shortage of goods.
The newly elected government, which took office last March, has been
seeking lessons from other nations with developing free-market economies,
but with little success.
"So far, we have not found one recipe we could use," Orchirbat told
reporters. "We have to develop our own model, or own variant" of a free-
market economy.
The 48-year-old leader -- old in a government where most ministers are
under 45 -- was all business while meeting reporters at Blair House, the
official U.S. residence for visiting heads of state. He made it clear
quickly that he did not have a nickname, he was called "Orchirbat."
Speaking through an intrepreter, the president said his country is making
progress in emerging from the shadow of the Soviet Union, which has
dominated life and the economy since 1921.
Mongolia has already signed a bilateral trade agreement and a scientific
and technical accord with the United States, key steps in the emerging
process of building an economy.
Both agreements are important steps as the still-isolated country weans
itself from the Soviet Union, which Orchibat said accounts for 80 percent
of the county's imports.
"We need the U.S. administration's support and assistance in developing
business technology, equipment and expertise," Orchirbat said. The
country also needs U.S. investment, he said.
The Mongolian empire, founded by Genghis Khan in the 13th century, is
home to 2.2 million wedged between China and the Soviet Union. The
population is equal to about Arkansas or the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.
The country's oil could be a major source for foreign and U.S. cash.
Orchirbat believes the country has sufficent reserves to supply its own
needs, and might produce enough for possible export.
Most current oil deposits are in southern Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert
near the Chinese border, and experts believe unproven reserves exist in
the eastern region.
Officials of the Mongolian Oil Co. met this week with oil experts in Texas
and in New York to discuss possible joint ventures to pull the known
reserves from the ground, the president disclosed.
Orchirbat said developments in the Soviet Union, where revolts in the
Baltic states have raised questions about the leardership of President
Mikhail Gorbachev, are being watched closely by his advisers.
If the current political situation continues, he said, "it will have an
adverse effect on our economy." Dependence on a single nation "taught us
a bitter lesson."
To reduce its dependance, Orchirbat has stepped up trade, selling copper
to Japan and China in exchange for commodities and expanding trade with
South Korea.
The Mongolian oil could represent a major factor in the country's future.
Mongolia tried, but abandoned efforts to produce oil in the 1960s when
unsophisticated drilling equipment and a high parafin content made the
crude unusable.
As steps in joining the world community, Mongolia is also seeking
membership in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, a process
Orchirbat said he expects to be completed by mid-February.
Then, he said, Mongolia would ask for "as much as we need," without
specifying an amount.
Mongolia is also seeking increased tourism, especially from the United
States, which each year sends about 1,000 tourists and about 300 hunters
of mountain sheep, goat, bears and boars.
A major obstacle, he admitted, is an inability to get in and out of the
country. "We're working on that," he said.
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3. China Faces Population Control Problems as New Baby Boom Peaks.......31
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From: Yi Li <li%vanity.ncat.edu@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Source: Xinhua, Posted January 25, 1991
China faces serious problems in population control, the top family
planning official has warned as the country enters the peak of its third
post-1949 baby boom.
Peng Peiyun, head of the State Family Planning Commission, was quoted by
the Xinhua news agency as saying that 17 million people will be added to
China's 1.13 billion population in each of the "first few years of the
1990s."
Annual population growth has been gradually mounting since the mid-1980s,
when communist China's third baby boom began. The boom is now at its peak
and is expected to last until the middle of the decade.
China also experienced population spurts in the early 1950s and from 1963
to 1970.
"The population situation facing China remains serious even though China
has made notable progress in its family planning program," Mrs. Peng was
quoted as saying.
She said the main problem was implementing policy at the grassroots level,
where the one-child-per-family law was ignored so much that in 1988 the
state allowed families to have two children if the first was a girl.
Early and multiple births within China's floating population was the most
serious issue to be redressed, Mrs. Peng said.
She called for the drafting of a national family planning law even though
China's 28 regions, provinces and municipalities directly under the
government have their own regulations.
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4. China to Double Number of Telephones to 23.8 Million in Five Years...34
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From: Yi Li <li%vanity.ncat.edu@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Source: Xinhua, Posted January 25, 1991
China is expected to double the number of telephones in the country to
over 23.8 million during the next five years in an effort to ease the
acute shortage in its telecommunications capacity, it was announced here
today.
Yang Taifang, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, told
participants in an ongoing conference that the country had doubled the
number of telephones during the previous five years.
As part of an ongoing effort the country invested over 20 billion yuan
during the period to ease the problem of a lack of the telecommunications
capacity, a recurring bottleneck in China's overall economic picture.
Yang said that the investment exceeded the total investment for the
previous 36 years following the founding of new China in 1949.
By 1995, he said, China will have a ratio of fifty people to one
telephone.
Slightly less than one million users have installed telephones during the
past five years, while the list of applicants extends to well over one
million, Yang said.
Yang said that in order to fulfill the national target of quadrupling the
1980 gross national product by the end of the century, the ministry will
strive tO achieve an eight-fold increase in the posts and
telecommunications capacity.
"Progress in the previous five years has shown us that our goals can be
accomplished," Yang said.
The minister disclosed that on the average 2.8 percent of all Chinese will
have a telephone by the year 2000.
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5. China Negotiating Purchase of Soviet SU-27 Fighters..................19
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From: Yi Li <li%vanity.ncat.edu@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Source: Kyodo, Posted January 25, 1991
Soviet Ambassador to China Nikolai Solovyev said Friday that China is
negotiating with the Soviet Union to purchase Soviet SU-27 fighter planes.
In an interview with KYODO news service, the Soviet ambassador said China
wants to buy a small number of what he described as "defensive" warplanes,
the latest model in the Soviet arsenal.
Solovyev said it appears that China is more interested in gaining high
technology than in deploying the fighters for combat.
Most Chinese Air Force fighters are outdated, remodeled Soviet war planes
introduced in the 1950s.
China tried to introduce Western technology, but mlitary exchanges with
western countries have been suspended since beijing's military crackdown
on pro-democracy demonstrators in June 1989. The Chinese government has
invited Soviet Defense Minister Dmitri Yazov and Soviet Chief of Staff
Gen. Mikhail Moiseyev to visit China, Solovyev said.
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