jshen@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Jun Shen) (01/26/91)
* * * C H I N A N E W S D I G E S T * * *
January 24, 1991
Table of Contents # of Lines
0. Briefs.............................................................10
1. Two more China dissidents now face sedition charge.................69
2. Fang: Beijing Using Gulf War To Pursue Dissidents..................42
3. Amoco, China Sign Agreement to Develop Oil Field...................41
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0. Briefs...............................................................10
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A Soviet news agency reported today that Saddam Hussein has had his top
air force and air defense generals executed. Sources were high-ranking
officials in the Soviet Defense Ministry, which has had close ties to
the Iraqi military in the recent past.
According to the Red Cross, refugees from Iraq have been streaming across
the Jordanian border and telling stories of large numbers of civilian
casualties. Iraq claims less than 100 civilian deaths, but preliminary
reports from refugees suggest far higher numbers.
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1. Two more China dissidents now face sedition charge...................69
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From: zuofeng@castor.wustl.edu (Zuofeng Li)
Source: UPI, January 24, 1991
Two more Chinese intellectuals now face trial for sedition, having been
singled out as top behind-the-scenes agitators of the 1989 pro-democracy
movement, sources said Thursday.
Constitutional law scholar Chen Xiaoping and physicist Liu Gang have
joined editors Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming as the only dissidents known
to be charged with conspiring to overthrow the government, according to
dissident sources with family contacts.
Sedition is one of the most serious crimes in China and can carry the
death penalty.
The four little-known dissidents are likely to be tried soon as virtually
all others known to be in custody have been prosecuted since a final
round of political trials began in early December.
Most of the intellectuals and student leaders prosecuted for
"counterrevolution" in recent weeks were named on an internal list of
alleged core agitators of the Tiananmen Spring protests, which were
crushed on June 3-4, 1989, by Chinese troops.
Judicial authorities have moved into a crucial phase of the trials,
prosecuting well-known dissidents Wang Dan, Ren Wanding, Liu Xiaobo and
others despite the concerns of Western governments and human rights
organizations.
Until Thursday, it was believed that only Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming
faced trial for the additional charge of sedition.
During the 1989 crackdown, the government smeared Wang and Chen as
criminal "black hands" and "chief criminal agitators" behind the protests,
now denounced as a "counterrevolutionary rebellion."
Chen Xiaoping and Liu Gang both were arrested in the first weeks after
the Beijing massacre, but authorities have never revealed the charges
against them.
Chen, in his early 30s, earned a constitutional law doctorate from Beijing
University in 1986. He had participated in an earlier wave of student-led
pro-democracy protests at the university.
The government believes Chen was a mastermind behind the massive 1989
demonstrations, inspired by his dream of revamping China's constitutional
system.
"Chen Xiaoping was among the most active of Chinese legal scholars working
on questions of constitutionalism and trying to devise a new
constitutional order in China," said Mark Sidel, a scholar of China's
legal system who met Chen in the late 1980s.
At the time of his arrest in 1989, Chen was deputy director of the
constitutional law teaching and research section of Beijing's prestigious
University of Politics and Law.
Chen is among the least known of the Tiananmen Spring dissidents,
garnering little mention in the state-run press and not appearing on
government blacklists, yet is alleged to have been extremely active in
working with student activists," Sidel said.
"Unfortunately for Mr. Chen, his name has been prominently linked to
people like Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming," Sidel said by telephone from
the United States.
Liu Gang, 28, was trained as a physicist but was working at a political
think tank in Beijing during the 1989 protests.
Liu was arrested June 19, 1989, in a city south of Beijing where citizens
matched his face with televised mug shots. Liu was among 21 student
activists named on a "most-wanted" arrest warrant.
Like Chen, Liu did not play a prominent public role in the Tiananmen
Square protests, but is accused of serving as a key agent for two of
China's most reviled dissidents -- astrophysicist Fang Lizhi and his wife,
Li Shuxian, a politician and professor.
Fang and Li took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing during the
crackdown and were allowed safe passage out of China a year later.
Liu met Fang as a physics undergraduate in Hefei at the Chinese University
of Science and Technology, where Fang taught physics and later became a
vice-chancellor.
Liu enrolled at Beijing University in 1984 and began his career of
political activism, finally cutting his political teeth in 1987 with Li
Shuxian, who was on the physics faculty.
When Li's bid to get elected to the Beijing People's Congress was stalled
by Communist Party opposition, a petition drive organized by Liu assured
that his mentor's name appeared on the ballot. Li won the election.
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2. Fang: Beijing Using Gulf War To Pursue Dissidents....................42
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From: Wu, Fang <INT3FWU@mvs.oac.ucla.edu>
Source: AP, January 22, 1991
The Communist Chinese government is railroading democracy movement leaders
by pushing their trials through while the world's eyes are on the Persian
Gulf war, China's leading dissident said.
"The media is paying attention only to the war," Fang Lizhi said Monday
in his first public appearance since the brutal June 1989 crackdown in
Tiananmen Square. "There is a violation there of human rights and they
should pay attention to that."
Chinese police Monday expelled seven foreign human rights activists who
sought to attend the trials of the movement's leaders. At least 24 people
have been tried or sentenced in the past two weeks. Fang spoke as he
received the Robert F. Kennedy Center's Human Rights award. The center,
based at the John F. Kennedy Library, named Fang the recipient in October
1989.
"I think the authorities took advantage of the crisis in the (Persian)
Gulf to punish the students," Fang said with his wife, Li Shuxian, and
son, Fang Zhe, standing by. Also on hand were members of the Kennedy
family.
Fang, an astrophysicist, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party in
1957 for saying Marxist theory on physics was obsolete.
After the Chinese crackdown on Tiananmen Square in which hundreds of
democracy advocates were killed, Fang and his wife stayed in the U.S.
Embassy for a year.
Then he was allowed to leave for Great Britain, where he was a guest
research lecturer at the Cambridge Institute of Technology. Earlier this
year he accepted a visiting scholar post at the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton, N.J.
Fang said the students who participated in the Tiananmen Square
demonstrations still crave democracy. "Their opinions aren't changed."
"Colleagues, friends and students still in China suffer punishment," he
said.
"I still get letters from my friends who still stay in China, but (it) is
difficult because authorities search letters signed to me," Fang said.
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3. Amoco, China Sign Agreement to Develop Oil Field.....................41
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From: Huijie Chen (chenh@ucs.indiana.edu)
Source: Businesswire - Posted January 24, 1991
Amoco Orient Petroleum Company and China National Offshore Oil Corporation
today signed a supplemental agreement pertaining to the development of the
Liuhua 11-1 oil field in the Pearl River Mouth basin of the South China
Sea. Signing the supplemental agreement were Zhong Yiming, CNOOC
president, and Richard M. Morrow, chairman and chief executive officer
of Amoco Corporation.
Amoco discovered the Liuhua 11-1 field in contract area 29/04 in early
1987.
The company has drilled a total of eight wells in the contract area to
evaluate the field which is located about 150 miles southeast of Hong Kong
in 1,000 feet of water.
Engineering studies will begin shortly, and, should development proceed,
CNOOC will have a 51 percent working interest and Amoco will have a 49
percent working interest in the joint venture. Production of
approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day (2.5 million metric tons per
year) could begin in early 1995.
Morrow said today's signing of the supplemental agreement is a significant
occasion in a process which began with the signing of a petroleum
exploration agreement five years ago.
"Since discovering the field in 1987, Amoco has conducted extensive
evaluations in this south china sea area which will enable us to overcome
challenges presented by conditions such as deep water, adverse weather,
relatively heavy oil, and complex reservoir properties," Morrow said.
"The development system for the Liuhua 11-1 field will require technology
innovations which include horizontal drilling, subsea wells, and floating
production systems."
Acknowledging cooperation by various governmental bodies of China, Morrow
said: "The Ministry of Energy Resources, the Ministry of Foreign Economic
Relations and Trade, and the General Tax Administration of Offshore
Petroleum have worked with Amoco and CNOOC to develop an agreement which
can lead to successful commercial development of this oil field."
Amoco Orient is a unit of Amoco Production Company, the worldwide
petroleum exploration and production subsidiary of Amoco Corporation.
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