DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: CHINA
SUBSECTION: HUMAN RIGHTS
Revised 8/20/99
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
7/3/98 New York Times A.M. Rosenthal Clinton ".offered the chance to make Tibet disappear forever into China, without any Beijing concessions. President Jiang Zemin of China said he would talk with the Dalai Lama, maybe. The Dalai Lama praised both men. He fears that if the Chinese never allow him to return to Tibet, when he dies Beijing will choose and rear the next Dalai Lama or simply eliminate Tibetan Buddhism completely. In Tibet, dreams of national and religious freedom will not long survive any Clinton-Jiang deal, nor will Tibet's international support groups. But perhaps at least the honored memory of the half-century struggle by Tibetans and the Dalai Lama against genocide will endure despite decisions that China and the U.S. force upon them."
AP 11/10/98 ".Chinese police have arrested over 140 members of underground Protestant churches and beat their leaders in what one dissident says is a new crackdown on worship. The worshippers were arrested at meetings in underground churches on Oct. 26 and Nov. 5 in two separate places in central Henan province, according to a letter from a church member. After jailing the worshippers, police beat at least 13 who were identified as leaders, and their fate was unknown, said the letter, which was released today by the New York-based Human Rights in China group.."
Hong Kong Standard 11/12/98 ".CHINA issued its strongest warning yet against what it sees as US interference in Taiwan and Tibet yesterday and urged Washington to correct its ``erroneous stance''. ``Despite the repeated opposition of China, the US government sent US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to Taiwan where he even met (President) Lee Tung-hui,'' foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said. It also ``allowed (Tibet's exiled spiritual leader) the Dalai Lama to visit the United States and even arranged for him to meet with President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore and US Secretary for State Madeleine Albright,'' he said. A top military official yesterday expressed China's ``serious concern'' over the meetings. In a meeting with Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Joseph Prueher, General Zhang Wannian said China was upset by Mr Richardson's visit to Taipei.."
The Indian Express 4/25/99 "...Beijing - Several thousand supporters of a religious group today protested peacefully in the Chinese capital Beijing in the biggest demonstration since the squashing of the democracy movement in June 1989. A strong contingent of police stood by but did not intervene. The protesters sat silently on the pavement or stood in long lines. They belong to a cult movement called ''Falungong'' that claims to set free inner energy and heal the ill, reports DPA...."
South China Morning Post 4/29/99 Willy Wo-Lap Lam "... Discussions about ways in which to dispel the threat of the Falun Gong cult dominated a politburo meeting which was originally devoted to China's accession to the World Trade Organisation. A party source said yesterday President Jiang Zemin, who presided over the conclave earlier this week, gave personal orders to "stop all activities against the zhongyang [central authorities]". While the qi gong-cum-Buddhist sect, which staged a large demonstration on Sunday outside party headquarters, had no avowed political aims, Mr Jiang hinted that its adherents could pose the same danger as dissidents. "We must use all methods to nip anti-government actions in the bud," Mr Jiang is reported to have said..."Those who jeopardise social stability under the pretext of practising qi gong will be dealt with according to the law," the official said. ..."
Reuters 5/3/99 Freeper tallhappy "....Police broke up an underground church service in central Henan province and detained 25 Christians, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Monday. Police confiscated all Bibles in the crackdown in Sui county on April 25, and at least 15 Protestants were still being held on Sunday..."
China Times 5/5/99 "...Mainland Chinese leaders have stepped up their efforts to keep good order in Beijing and other parts of the country, an informed source told CNA Tuesday. All government organizations in Beijing have been manned 24 hours a day since April 26, the day after 10,000 followers of the Falun Gong sect surrounded the Zhongnanhai administrative compound in central Beijing in a peaceful demonstration. Police and public security forces have also been stationed at all important crossroads in the city since that day, the imformed source said. These measures were taken to prevent public protests against the government from occurring in this politically sensitive year, which includes the 10th anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen massacre, he said, adding that Beijing authorities are also worried about the possible reccurrance of Falun Gong demonstrations....."
ConservativeNews.org 5/17/99 Lawrence Morahan "...(CNS) - Communist Chinese police are seeking to restrict visits by Christians in Hong Kong to their fellow believers in mainland China, only months after the new regime promised their citizens they would not be persecuted for the practice of their faith. "They're being denied entry because of their known ties with the underground churches," said Mark Jacobs, a spokesman for International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group for Christians who are subjected to oppression around the world, in an interview with CNS. Police carried out over 200 raids on house churches all over China in recent weeks, detaining and fining worshippers, and closing down the places of worship, Jacobs said. "We've had 15 new house church leaders detained and imprisoned and some of them already sent to labor camps," Jacobs said. "So the situation is intensifying. The government appears to be doing a clean sweep of all the house church leaders in China to stop the burgeoning house church movement. This shows the fear the government has of anything that isn't under their control or power." ...."The current U.S. administration is playing right into the hands of the communist government. Their reluctance to confront the Chinese is one reason we see an increase in a wave of persecutions against Christians and human rights violations," he said...."
EWTN 5/26/99 "...Hundreds of Protestant Christians battled the police in the city of Xian on Sunday in an attempt to stop the sale of their church, one of the oldest and largest in the former imperial capital. According to the Hong Kong based Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, about 500 Christians occupied the church building hoisting banners and shouting slogans such as "The church belongs to the people." Police denied the incident ever happened; an employee of the state-controlled Protestant Patriotic Association said the church was occupied, but only by a handful of people. He also said that discussion about the sale of the church has been going on for almost a year and that the demonstration was "an excuse to engage in illegal activity and play on the feelings of believers." He added, "We are believers but we are not independent. We live in a socialist society. We all want stability." ...."
EWTN News 6/3/99 ZENIT News Agency "...Since the Tiananmen massacre, religion is perhaps the fastest growing social force in China today. Disillusionment before the tanks on June 4, 1989, increasing corruption in the Party, and spiritual hunger are the causes of this transition to religion, notes the "Fides" News Agency. The demonstration staged by the Fa Lungong sect in Tiananmen Square at the end of April, which escaped national control systems, revealed that hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people, including Communist Party members, are more interested in finding nirvana in holy books than following Marxist doctrine. Commenting on the Fa Lungong demonstration, an expert on the history of religions in China told "Fides": "This event is a rebellion of the Chinese soul against ideology; it is the victory of metaphysics over materialism." Loss of confidence in Communism and a quest for faith in religion is even involving members of the Party and the army. At the end of May, in an interview with the pro-government newspaper "Outlook," Ye Xiaowen, head of China's Religious Affairs Bureau, said that "members of the Communist Party who become followers of a religion must leave the Party." "We Communists are atheists; members of the Communist Party should not believe in religion," continued Ye. "If a man feels the need to believe in some religion, he should first of all resign from the Party and then turn to his new creed." There is a desperate attempt to re-organize and cleanse the ranks. In 1995 the Party's Central Commission for Discipline and Control noted that at least 9% of Party members had joined religious organizations, taking part regularly in their activities. The highest numbers of conversions (as many as 18%) were recorded in the cities of Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Xian, Chongqing, Wuhan, Fuzhou, Haikou, and Shenzhen...."
Reuters 6/21/99 Benjamin Kang Lim "...China's atheist Communist Party, apparently alarmed by a quasi-religious sect's peaceful siege of the country's leadership compound in April, said on Monday that ``superstition'' must be stamped out. ``Advocate science. Do away with superstition,'' screamed the headline of a front-page commentary in the Communist Party newspaper. ``We should be highly vigilant against superstition for it may confuse our thinking, undermine our fighting will, shake our beliefs and destroy our cohesiveness,'' the People's Daily said. ``In order to win in the present atmosphere of fierce international competition and overcome all difficulties and evil forces, science must be respected and the banner of Marxist materialism and anti-theism has to be upheld,'' it added. In a show of strength that shocked the leadership, more than 10,000 members of the Falun Gong sect circled the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing on April 25 and staged a peaceful sit-down protest to demand official status for their faith.....The People's Daily said ``superstition'' has gained ground in some parts of the country in recent years and has had a negative impact on the people's work...."
Agence France Press 7/6/99 "…A Chinese Roman Catholic priest arrested in Beijing for performing an underground mass was later found dead in the street, a US-based religious rights group said Tuesday. Yan Weiping, 33, from the northern province of Hebei, came to the capital on May 13 to help out with a Holy Mass for underground Catholics, but was arrested during the mass, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement. "Many underground Catholics have reached a consensus that Father Yan was pushed out of a window after he was killed," the foundation said, without elaborating on how they thought he had died. "(Father Yan) was arrested by the government's security forces while he was offering a Holy Mass. Shortly afterwards at about eight o'clock in the same evening, he was found dead on a street in Beijing," it said…The foundation also said that Wang Qing, an underground seminarian in the northern city of Baoding, was tortured and beaten by police for three days after visiting a Catholic family…."
Associated Press 7/18/99 "...About 5,000 followers of a popular exercise and meditation group protested for two days running outside government offices in eastern China to complain about a magazine's criticisms of the group, a human rights group said Sunday..... The practitioners of Falun Gong were unhappy with articles in a local scientific magazine that attacked the group as superstitious, its leader, Li Hongzhi, as a ``swindler'' and the group's followers as ``fools,'' the Information Center said....."
Insight 8/9/99 J Michael Waller "...A Chinese court has sentenced a Christian pastor to death. Lui Jia-guo, the 34-year-old pastor of the Jusen church in Hunan province, called for an end to one-party rule and for building God's country in China. He and 70 of his church members were arrested in June 1998 for subversion. The Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China says the Communists convicted Liu of stealing from fellow church members -- a charge he denies. He has been sentenced to be shot to death. According to the Catholic World News Service, 21 other members of the Jusen church have been sentenced in the past year to prison terms of two to 21 years; at least 40 more were summarily arrested and deported to forced-labor camps without trial...."
AFP 7/20/99 "…China has reportedly launched a new crackdown on members of the Falun Gong organization. Agence France Presse (AFP) cited Ye Hao, a member of the group and a former Chinese police officer now in the United States, as saying 70 leaders of Falun Gong were detained in China early July 20. In addition, Ye said 2,000 Falun Gong members in Dailan province were beaten by police when they went to the local government offices to protest the detentions. Ye said, "Some of our members have had their bones broken during the beating, while others were hurled against walls." In Hong Kong, Sophie Xiao told AFP that leaders of the organization in several Chinese cities had been warned that the Chinese government would outlaw the organization beginning July 21. Xiao added, however, that the government crackdown, rather than weakening the organization, would instead only serve to make it grow stronger…."
Associated Press 7/21/99 John Leicester "...Dragging some by their hair, police detained scores of people, many of them middle-aged women, at a protest Wednesday by a popular meditation group viewed as a threat by Chinese leaders. Demonstrations by the Falun Gong sect also were reported in more than 30 other cities. The sudden, apparently coordinated gatherings seem certain to further unnerve the Communist Party leadership, which has closely monitored the group since thousands of its devotees staged a sit-in outside the red-walled party leadership compound in April. That daylong protest prompted President Jiang Zemin to form a high-level task force to watch the group, which is thought to have tens of millions of followers in China, and to ban it from holding large gatherings.....According to a Hong Kong-based human rights group, more than 30,000 Falun Gong members protested in more than 30 cities Wednesday, from Harbin in the far north to Shenzhen in the south next to Hong Kong.....``What has been happening in the past two days has shocked a lot of people,'' said Sophie Xiao, a practitioner from Hong Kong, where about 40 Falun Gong members gathered outside the offices of China's state-run Xinhua News Agency. She claimed to have learned from a network of Falun Gong friends and relatives that 1,000 people were detained and later released in Shenzhen. Two Hong Hong television stations reported that 1,000 protesters in Shenzhen were driven to a school after their morning exercises and later released....."
BBC 7/22/99 "...Thousands of members of the quasi-religious Falun Gong sect have besieged government offices in on-going protests in at least six Chinese cities. Police rounded up more than 1,000 people - mostly elderly men and middle-aged women suspected of belonging to the sect - and took them in buses to two stadiums on the outskirts of Beijing. About 400 protesters sat outside Shanghai's city hall. Supporters of the sect, which is believed to have several million members across the country, began to march to Zhongnanhai, the government leadership compound in Beijing on Wednesday. But hundreds of uniformed and plainclothes police prevented them from staging a sit-down protest similar to one in April, in which 10,000 followers alarmed the authorities by demanding official status for the group...."
Hong Kong Standard 7/22/99 Fong Tak-ho and agencies "...POLICE yesterday rounded up tens of thousands of followers of the Falungong sect nationwide, as security around Central Government headquarters in Beijing was tightened. Police released some of about 30,000 sect members in 30 mainland cities who were detained earlier for taking to the streets to protest at the arrest of more than 100 leaders. Beijing police warned foreign journalists against covering the police roundup and told them the government would soon issue a statement on the nationwide crackdown. The Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said at least 30,000 Falungong members had been detained nationwide, with 10,000 being arrested in Beijing alone...."
AP 7/24/99 "…The once-elusive leader of a meditation group outlawed in China is emerging to defend himself from a Beijing propaganda assault, rebutting claims his teachings have driven people to suicide and threatened Chinese society. …. Falun Gong has been enormously popular, particularly among Li's own generation, which grew up in a spiritual void left by the radical politics of the Cultural Revolution and the materialistic era that has ensued. The practice emphasizes morality and improved physical health through spiritual teachings and qigong - martial arts exercises practiced by tens of millions of Chinese every day…."
Washington Post 7/25/99 John Pomfret and Michael Laris "…Chinese security services have detained more than 4,000 people in Beijing alone during a massive, nationwide crackdown against a popular spiritual sect that the government banned last week, Chinese sources said today. During the past few days, police have removed members of the Falun Gong sect from their homes and group meetings and from buses headed for Beijing. The operation, involving thousands of officers of the People's Armed Police and other security services, is the largest of its kind since People's Liberation Army soldiers flooded Beijing in 1989 to repress student-led protests. …"
New York Times 7/25/99 Ian Burma "…The scale and tenacity of Falun Gong, the faith-healing sect led by a Chinese guru now living in New York City, has taken everyone by surprise, even the Chinese Government. In April, 10,000 Falun Gong members suddenly turned up in Beijing for a silent demonstration outside the Forbidden City, where the Communist leaders live, and just as suddenly they were gone. That takes some organization. Now that the Chinese Government has banned the sect, it has taken on a formidable enemy. From a historical perspective, Falun Gong looks very familiar. Secret societies, religious movements and faith-healing sects, based on a mishmash of Buddhism, Taoism and millenarian folk beliefs, have been part of the Chinese scene for thousands of years. They tend to grow -- and grow violent in times of crisis and transition….Admonishments in the Chinese press to work harder to study Marxism, scientific socialism, atheism and dialectical materialism look even more absurd, not only because few people believe in these slogans, but also because this approach exposes what Chinese Marxists would call a contradiction in party propaganda. The Chinese Government is fighting a purely indigenous cult by resorting to outdated clichés borrowed from the West. There are no nationalist points to be scored there…."
New York Times 7/27/99 Seth Faison "...As part of an expanding political campaign that could affect China's economic reforms, Chinese authorities have detained about 1,200 government officials who are members of Falun Gong, the spiritual movement that was officially outlawed last week, a human rights group reported Monday. The officials were taken over the weekend to schools in a city in northern China, where they are being required to study Communist Party documents and to renounce any allegiance to the movement, said the Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, based in Hong Kong Since last week, Chinese authorities have rounded up more than 5,000 members of Falun Gong, ransacking homes and confiscating printed material. State television reported Monday night that customs officials had been ordered to seize all religious and promotional material related to the group...."
New York Times 7/28/99 The New York Times Editorial Board "...In a step recalling Maoist political re-education campaigns, Beijing has sent 1,200 officials belonging to the Falun Gong spiritual movement to special schools to study Communist literature and recant their allegiance to the group. That is disturbing behavior from a Chinese leadership that proclaims its commitment to economic reform and modernization and that signed the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights guaranteeing Chinese citizens free expression, assembly and religion....."
Washington Post 7/30/99 Michael Laris "...China's Ministry of Public Security today accused Li Hongzhi, the New York-based leader of the banned spiritual sect Falun Gong, of causing the deaths of at least 743 of his followers and issued an international appeal for his immediate arrest. A police spokesman said Li "spread superstitious and fallacious ideas to deceive the public, causing deaths of practitioners," according to the New China News Agency...."
BBC 7/29/99 David Willis "....China has ordered the arrest of the leader of the banned Falun Gong meditation sect as part of its continuing campaign to eradicate the movement. The Ministry of Public Security issued what it called a "Wanted circular" for the arrest of the group's founder, Li Hongzhi, for disturbing public order. The ministry appealed for international co-operation to secure the arrest of Mr. Li, who lives in the United States, and said it had sent details to Interpol. The circular accused Mr. Li of spreading "superstition and malicious fallacies to deceive people, resulting in the deaths of many practitioners"...."
Reuters 7/28/99 "...North American followers of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline launched a political and media campaign this week against China's crackdown on their fellow practitioners and urged President Clinton to support them. They appeared on television talk shows, lobbied Congress and held news conferences to try to put pressure on Beijing to release thousands of adherents detained since China outlawed the meditation and exercise practice last week. ``We are calling for the international community to urge the Chinese government to respect the will of the people,'' Falun Gong spokesman Erping Zhang told Reuters. Official Chinese estimates put Falun Gong membership at two million people in China but adherents say it has 100 million members. ``We went to every single congressional office,'' Falun Gong practitioner Gail Rachlin said Wednesday about the lobbying campaign. ``We're also trying the State Department, the Senate, everybody we can talk to so eventually we might get a statement from President Clinton.''..."
The Associated Press 7/28/99 Renee Schoof "...China's state-run TV news has expanded its evening program from 30 minutes to nearly an hour in recent days, devoting nearly all the time to a single topic: denouncing an outlawed meditation group. The newscast Wednesday showed bulldozers crunching piles of video tapes produced by the popular Falun Gong movement. Mounds of books were shoveled onto conveyor belts and dumped into swirling vats of pulp. It's all part of the intense government campaign to wipe out the words of the movement's leader, Li Hongzhi, who moved to New York last year. Falun Gong, banned last week as a threat to the Communist Party, draws on martial arts, Buddhism and Taoism...."
AP via Fox News 7/31/99 Peter Svensson "...A crackdown by Chinese authorities on the Falun Gong meditation group has apparently spread to Web sites in the United States and elsewhere, with at least one "hacking'' attempt that appeared to trace back to the Chinese national police bureau in Beijing. Managers of Web sites devoted to Falun Gong said Friday that the sites are coming under heavy electronic attack. China banned the meditation group last week, accusing it of trying to develop political power. Falun Gong leaders have denied any political ambitions. But Chinese state media have cited the group's Internet presence as proof that it is well-organized and not just made up of harmless meditation buffs. A government ban on Falun Gong publications includes electronic publications, and nearly all of Falun Gong Web sites in China have been shut down since the ban was announced...."
Agence France-Presse 7/31/99 "...Chinese authorities have extended a nun's jail term to 21 years, which would make her the longest serving female political prisoner in Tibet, a Tibetan rights group said Saturday. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, whose patrons include the exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and Nobel laureates Desmond Tutu and Jose Ramos-Horta, said the nun, now 22 years old, was imprisoned on June 17, 1992...."
Stratfor.com Weekly Analysis 7/26/99 "...China has become obsessed with a couple million middle-aged members of a group that does a lot of strange exercises and whose leader lives in New York. Sensible people - like those at the New York Times - can't understand why the Chinese government cares about Falun Gong when there are so many serious economic problems to worry about.... The reason China is so concerned is because the Chinese know that there is no solution to their economic problems. Therefore, they are bracing for the social and political consequences of long-term economic failure. Beijing understands that in times of misery, seemingly harmless groups can suddenly challenge the regime. The crackdown on Falun Gong expresses Beijing's deep-seated insecurity. If China's economy can't recover, can the regime survive? President Jiang Zemin intends to do whatever is necessary to make certain it can....."
Dallas Morning News 8/3/99 AP "...China's police force will begin paying cash rewards for tips leading to the capture of wanted criminals, and the first on the list is the leader of a banned meditation sect, a Beijing newspaper reported today. State-run television and other media had reported Monday that police would begin paying rewards of more than $6,000 for information enabling them to capture wanted criminals..."
The Associated Press 8/8/99 "...China has blocked a proposed visit by Pope John Paul II to Hong Kong over the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Taipei, a Hong Kong newspaper reported Monday. A spokesman for China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the Union of Asian Catholic News agency that Beijing had ruled out a visit to this Chinese territory in November as part of John Paul's Asian tour because of politics, according to the South China Morning Post. The South China Morning Post said the Chinese spokesman cited the Vatican's ``so-called diplomatic relations with Taiwan'' as the reason for keeping the pope out...."
London Daily Telegraph 8/10/99 Diane Stormont "... BEIJING has vetoed a proposed papal visit to Hong Kong later this year, citing the Vatican's diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The move has angered many in the former British colony, who said it set further limits to Hong Kong's autonomy under Chinese rule. The Pope said last year that he would like to visit Hong Kong during his Asian tour this November. He had hoped to conduct Mass for the territory's 250,000 Chinese Roman Catholics and the many Filipino faithful who work as domestic helps. It would have been the first papal visit since 1970. ..."
South China Morning Post 8/10/99 Agencies "...China's state-controlled media are proclaiming widespread success in the campaign to force members to leave a banned meditation sect accused of opposing the government. Officials in Shijiazhuang, 300 kilometres south of Beijing, reported that 96 per cent of those practising Falun Gong had already recanted, the Guangming Daily reported on Tuesday. According to government officials, the ruling Communist Party's crackdown on the sect has mainly involved obtaining pledges from Falun Gong members to leave the sect, without any further penalties for most. Those held responsible for organising the sect and those who refuse to apostacise may face additional punishment, such as expulsion from the Communist Party and in some cases criminal prosecution, they say. ..."
Nando Media 8/15/99 AP "...China criticized the United States on Saturday for allowing the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, to visit this week. The Buddhist leader began a four-day visit to New York on Thursday to conduct meditation seminars. China regards the Dalai Lama, who lives in India, as a rebel agitator. He received the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful campaign for autonomy for his homeland...."
HUMAN RIGHTS & DEMOCRACY
President Clinton will raise objections to the sale of prisoners' body parts for transplants when he meets Beijing's leaders, but he will not meet any dissidents for fear of upsetting his Communist hosts.
The Chinese government has pulled the visas of three reporters for Radio Free Asia, which broadcasts to mainland China in Chinese about human rights abuses and other issues - so the reporters cannot accompany the president to China. The RFA, funded at $25 million a year, was launched in 1996 as the result of a congressional initiative.
Regarding China and human rights, Clinton wrote about "real progress -- though far from enough" that China has made in human rights during the past year, consisting of the release of "several prominent dissidents"; President Jiang Zemin's receiving a delegation of American religious leaders; and China's announcement of its "intention to sign" an important international treaty on human rights. Two of the three releases were dissidents who have been forced into exile and China has not said when it would ratify the treaty if it is signed this fall.
6/28/98 San Diago Union-Tribune: "The Clinton administration argued that once the United States stopped challenging China's human-rights record and withdrew the threat of economic sanctions, China would ease repression at home. In fact, the Chinese government has responded by exiling a couple of prominent dissidents and arresting many others -- in sum, by maintaining one of the world's most repressive regimes. The administration says its brand of engagement has fostered stability in Asia. Why then, has China fired missiles off the coast of Taiwan, seized islands in the South China Sea and continued to increase its defense spending at an alarming rate? Finally, to avoid offending Chinese sensibilities, the White House invents excuses for indefensible practices such as forced abortion and religious repression. The administration always has argued that its policy of engagement will make China more like us. In fact, it is making us more like them."
On the ninth anniversary of Tiananmen, Clinton stands at the very spot shoulder to shoulder with the killers.
Geraldo Rivera in Tiananamen Square, 6/23/98 - was looking around with his guide(s) when a Chinese man attempted to approach him. He was kept back by someone who was with Geraldo and the police came up. Geraldo asked his guide what was going on and was told this man was there to address his grievances. After standing there a moment and watching the man being pushed away. Geraldo hurriedly turned his back to him and walked away. Geraldo asked his guide what would happen to the man and was told, to the effect, that it wouldn't be pleasant.
Regarding the Clinton broadcast from China - according to ABC News, White House estimates of the number of Chinese who viewed the debate were based solely on an "extrapolation" of the number of possible viewers. The surprising figure of 600 million viewers that the White House gave the press (out of a possible 1.2 billion) was based solely on an estimate that "was 'exrapolated' from the fact that 90 percent of Chinese households have televisions."
7/13/98 AP concerning arrests of dissidents in China, after noting disappointment ".Clinton praised President Jiang Zemin as a visionary, calling him ``the right leadership at the right time.'' ."
7/3/98 South China Morning Post "President Bill Clinton's trip to China was a disappointment because it has not done much to improve human rights in that country and has harmed Chinese pro-democracy movements, Chinese dissidents said. The dissidents also criticised Mr Clinton's visit to Tiananmen Square, site of the 1989 bloody democracy demonstrations, saying he did not make any gestures there to the democratic movements in China and did not meet with the relatives of the victims.."
Ye Ning, a human rights activist tortured by the Chinese government for his pro-democracy activities, said Mr Clinton's visit had hurt democracy movements on the mainland. ''Clinton has given the image to the world, especially to the Chinese people ... and opposition forces that the government of the United States strongly and unconditionally supports the Chinese mainstream communist leaders,'' said Mr Ye. ''That kind of message is very harmful to any potential of Chinese change and the (opposition).''
The Federalist Digest 7/3/98 ".It turns out that not many Chinese actually heard Mr. Clinton's much-lauded "live" human rights press conference. Xinhua, the state-controlled news agency which reaches about 85% of Chinese homes by television, left out many sensitive portions of Mr. Clinton's remarks, and the volume was virtually inaudible. Mr. Clinton's chief apologist, Michael McCurry, protested the ''technical difficulties.'' The volume was fine in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, and on all the Chinese- assembled TVs in the U.S. "
1997 Harry Wu Harvard International Review: ".Since the Chinese Communist Party has come to power it has had little or no tolerance for dissent. Consider the cases of a group that I will call the "three Ws." I am the first "W." In 1957, while attending university in Beijing, I spoke against the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary. For this I was labeled a "counterrevolutionary" and eventually spent 19 years in the reform labor camps or Laogai. In 1979, the year I emerged from the Laogai, the second "W," Wei Jingsheng, was sentenced to 15 years for suggesting publicly that China needed democracy. I was in ,the United States and Wei was in the tenth year of his sentence when the third "W," Wang Dan, received his first four-year sentence for being a student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest. Interestingly enough, the Chinese government imprisoned each of us in three different decades for peacefully expressing our opinions, but we all received our second sentences in the 1990s.I find it highly ironic that the US government can condemn the totalitarian regimes of North Korea and Cuba and yet find the dictators in Beijing acceptable. While the Soviet Union was viewed as the "Evil Empire," China is treated as the "Angelic Empire." As such, China can enjoy the Most Favored Nation trading status which the Soviet Union was never granted. China owes this privilege to the shrewdness of Deng Xiaoping who allowed communist China enough economic leverage to buy off all external pressure. In fact, Western money and technology are the fuel that powers the Chinese Communist Party vehicle."
7/3/98 Teresa Poole The Independent (London): "It was supposed to be President Bill Clinton's final, unexpurgated message to the Chinese people. But it was not to be. After a week in which the US president said he had felt "a steady breeze of freedom", China's state television censors last night cut by half a pre-recorded interview which was supposed to be broadcast largely unedited."
7/6/98 Hindustan Times (New Delhi) N C Menon: ".On the Tiananmen Square crackdown in which several thousand protesters had reportedly been massacred, Clinton was merely content to remark that the action was "wrong." He did not bother to clarify who had done the wronging or who had been wronged. .Much to the dismay of such "friends" of America as Japan, Taiwan, India and other surrounding democracies, Clinton went on to display a strange addiction to "engaging" with China. .To take the relationship forward, Americans must become more sensitive, more patient and acknowledge their own sins. There was not a word about what the Chinese should do. .Some of the deals announced in Beijing were the same ones announced last autumn when President Jiang had visited Washington. ."
Hindustan Times 7/11/98 "Police have detained five members of a newly formed democratic Opposition party in an organised swoop that took place just a week after US President Bill Clinton's visit to China, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said today. The police rounded up key founder members of the China Democractic Party throughout the day yesterday during a planned crackdown on dissent, the information centre for human rights and democratic movement in China said. The new round of suppression has already begun right after Mr Clinton's visit to China. This symbolises that the severe, nationwide suppression of dissidents has resumed. At the same time it also proves that Mr Clinton has returned to America empty-handed on human rights issue.."
AP 7/25 China - "Police have detained four more dissidents, bringing to 21 the number arrested in the last two weeks in one of the government's toughest crackdowns on democracy activists in recent years, a monitoring group said. Five police officers went to Jin Jiwu's house in southern Hunan province Friday night, arresting him and three other dissidents meeting there, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. Their whereabouts were unknown today, the Hong Kong-based group added. .."
FoxNews AP 12/15/98 ".China will enforce stiff penalties for tax evasion including the death penalty in a drive to close massive loopholes in its tax system, Vice Premier Li Lanqing was quoted Tuesday as saying. From now on tax officials "should have an iron face, an iron heart and an iron hand,'' Li told the German financial newspaper Handelsblatt. "As you can see from our TV reports, some people have been sentenced to death because of tax evasion,'' said Li, a member of the Communist Party's powerful Politburo Standing Committee. Li, who is responsible for the nation's fiscal policy, promised improvements in the taxation system where most people evade paying any income tax at all..."
NY Times 12/24/98 Wei Jingsheng ".Wei Jingsheng was deported last year after spending nearly 18 years in Chinese prisons. Last Saturday, when Liu Niachun, a prominent dissident, left his Chinese prison cell and arrived in the United States, many Western reports said he had been "freed" or "released." One year ago, after 18 years in a Chinese prison, I, too, was "released" and sent here. A Chinese official said that if I ever set foot in China again, I would immediately be returned to prison. I cannot identify any legal principle that explains how my expulsion or Mr. Liu's could be construed as a release. Yet the State Department, in a report last January, used my forced exile as evidence that China was taking "positive steps in human rights" and that "Chinese society continued to become more open." These "positive steps" led the United States and its allies to oppose condemnation of China at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in April. In the months that followed, President Clinton and other Western leaders traveled to China, trumpeting increased economic ties and muting criticism on human rights. Thus, without fear of sanction, the Chinese Government intensified its repression in 1998. Once the leaders achieved their diplomatic victories, they turned to their main objective: the preservation of tyrannical power. This year, about 70 people are known to have been arrested, and in recent weeks the Government has greatly stepped up that pace.."
Newsday AP Tom Raum 1/8/99 ".Rival Chinese dissident groups exchanged shoves and shouts Friday after one group of exiles told a congressional panel that conditions have worsened dramatically in the seven months since President Clinton's visit to China. The hearing before the House International Relations Committee demonstrated the fractious nature of the Chinese dissident community. Protesters complained that they hadn't been given a chance to testify. In a separate appearance, Chinese Ambassador Li Zhaoxing criticized those who testified, insisting that China punishes only those who break its laws. Wei Jingsheng, who spent 18 years in Chinese prisons, told the committee that there had been ``a constant stream of arrests'' since Clinton's visit in June.."
BBC 1/15/99 ".At least one person was killed when Chinese police and troops broke up a large protest in the centre of the county, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights organisation. More than 3,000 villagers and farmers gathered outside a government office in Hunan province to protest against corruption and high taxes, according to the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China. The protest, in the village of Tao Lin near the city of Changsha, is reported to have taken place on 8 January, but information has only recently become available.."
Washington Post (via International Herald Tribune) 1/18/99 Jim Hoagland A year ago, the Chinese government forced Wei Jingsheng into exile in the United States. In that time China's most heroic campaigner for democracy has met the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Canada and Sweden, the presidents of the Czech Republic and Taiwan, and many other pashas of international politics. But when Representative Nancy Pelosi recently asked Mr. Wei how many Clinton administration officials have taken the trouble to seek out his views on the growing crackdown on dissent in China, or ask what they could be doing to advance change there, his reply appalled the California Democrat. The answer: None. Not Madeleine Albright, not Al Gore, not Sandy Berger. Not even Harold Koh, assistant secretary of state for human rights.."
Washington Post 2/12/99 Edward Timperlake William Triplett II ".A foreign army general known to have the blood of his countrymen on his hands travels on a diplomatic passport to a democratic country. If the general's name is "Pinochet" and the democratic country is Britain, he is stripped of his diplomatic status, placed under arrest and threatened with extradition into the hands of his accusers. But what if the general's name is "Zhang" or "Xu" or "Chi"? And what if the blood on their hands comes from Chinese young people? And what if the democratic country they visit is the United States? An entirely different result..By our count, at least six PLA general officers with substantial responsibility for murdering their own young people have received full military honors here. Most also have had an Oval Office visit. And most of the visits have been outside of public view. The first post-Tiananmen visitor was Gen. Xu Huizi, deputy chief of staff at the time. According to an American general with direct knowledge of the event, Gen. Xu was in "tactical control" of the PLA troops at the massacre.."
AFP 2/27/99 "...Chinese authorities have arrested one dissident and sentenced another to 18 months detention on Saturday on the eve of a visit by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as her department slammed human rights abuses by Beijing. Ahead of Albright's arrival here Sunday and the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC), a founder of the China Democracy Party (CDP) was detained just days before the outlawed party's planned inaugural national conference. Wu Yilong was arrested at his home in the eastern city of Hangzhou late Friday by two police officers who did not give a reason for the detention, his wife Shan Chenfeng told AFP...."The Chinese government is indignant and firmly opposes the American State Department report on human rights," foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue was quoted as saying on state television. "Instead of preoccupying itself with violations of human rights committed in the United States, the American government deliberately distorts the situation on human rights in other countries." President Jiang Zemin has vowed to "nip in the bud" all opposition, amid signs of nervousness from the Beijing leadership about the dissident movement as an economic slowdown leads to growing social discontent. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the June crackdown on pro-democracy reform in Tiananmen Square...."
6/29/98 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO STUDENTS AND COMMUNITY OF BEIJING UNIVERSITY Beijing University, Beijing, People's Republic of China "…I welcome the strong, bipartisan vote in the House today to extend normal trade relations with China. This vote reflects my conviction that active engagement with China --expanding our areas of cooperation while dealing forthrightly with our differences -- is the most effective way to advance our interests and our values. Over the past year and during my recent trip to China, engagement has produced tangible results and steady progress on vital issues: fostering political and economic stability in Asia; stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction; combating international crime and drug trafficking; protecting the environment; promoting human rights and religious freedom....."
U.S. Department of State China Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 2/26/99 "…The Government's human rights record deteriorated sharply beginning in the final months of the year with a crackdown against organized political dissent. The loosening of restrictions on political debate and activism by authorities for much of 1997 and 1998, including toward public calls for political reform and expressions of opposition to government policies, abruptly ended in the fall. The Government continued to commit widespread and welldocumented human rights abuses, in violation of internationally accepted norms. These abuses stemmed from the authorities' very limited tolerance of public dissent aimed at the Government, fear of unrest, and the limited scope or inadequate implementation of laws protecting basic freedoms. The Constitution and laws provide for fundamental human rights, but these protections often are ignored in practice. Abuses included instances of extrajudicial killings, torture and mistreatment of prisoners, forced confessions, arbitrary arrest and detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process. Prison conditions at most facilities remained harsh. In many cases, particularly sensitive political cases, the judicial system denies criminal defendants basic legal safeguards and due process because authorities attach higher priority to maintaining public order and suppressing political opposition than to enforcing legal norms. The Government infringed on citizens' privacy rights. The Government continued restrictions on freedom of speech and of the press, and tightened these toward the end of the year. The Government severely restricted freedom of assembly, and continued to restrict freedom of association, religion, and movement. Discrimination against women, minorities, and the disabled; violence against women, including coercive family planning practices--which sometimes include forced abortion and forced sterilization; prostitution, trafficking in women and children, and the abuse of children all are problems. The Government continued to restrict tightly worker rights, and forced labor remains a problem. Serious human rights abuses persisted in minority areas, including Tibet and Xinjiang, where restrictions on religion and other fundamental freedoms intensified…"
Global Intelligence Update 2/28/99 Red Alert Summary "…Perhaps more significant, Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeals, its highest judicial body, conceded on Friday that it is legally bound to "clarify" its rulings to China's National People's Congress. A few weeks ago the Court had ruled that anyone whose parent was resident in Hong Kong had a right to immigrate there. For various reasons, Beijing objected to the ruling. More important, it claimed that Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeals had to submit that ruling to the National People's Congress for final review. In other words, it asserted that Hong Kong's judiciary was not the final legal authority in Hong Kong, but that China's parliament and, by extension, China's Communist Party, was. On Friday, the five member Hong Kong Court acknowledged that they were obligated to clarify their views to Beijing, in effect putting to rest expectations that the Court was the self- sufficient guarantor of the law in Hong Kong. That meant that everything from property rights to civil liberties was under the control of Beijing. …"
Global Intelligence Update 2/28/99 Red Alert Summary "…. But China has other problems today. Massive unemployment has led to serious social unrest. There has been ethnic violence involving Moslem separatists in Xinjiang province. A wave of bombings has taken place in China, with the perpetrator uncertain. Beijing is seriously concerned about its internal stability. Since few Western businessmen are going to invest in China anyway, the Chinese feel that they can turn their attention to the immediate problem of maintaining political stability and the power of the Communist party. If this means arresting dissidents, clamping down on Hong Kong's legal system, suppressing strikers, then that is precisely what China is going to do. China is making it very clear to the United States that it is primarily concerned with maintaining social stability in an era in which Western investment is drying up. Madeleine Albright is not carrying Western investment in her pocketbook….The absolutely unstated menace is that of nationalization. There may not be much investment coming in, but there are huge amounts of investment already made. China is permitting Western companies to exploit those investments without hindrance, to this point. But the presence of this investment in China represents as huge vulnerability…."
The Manchester Union Leader 3/3/99 Richard Lessner "…Having stuffed his 1996 campaign war chest with money from suspect sources, including Red China's People's Liberation Army, Bill Clinton no longer has much need of his Chinese friends. So the President, through his secretary of state, has returned to the familiar themes employed in his 1992 campaign against the hapless George Bush, namely, attacking Beijing's dismal human rights record. It will be recalled that candidate Clinton battered President Bush for what he said was an amoral policy on China that put business relations ahead of human rights. Mr. Clinton was especially critical of the Bush administration's limp business-as-usual response to the Tiananmen Square massacre. No sooner had he been elected President, however, than such themes disappeared from the Clinton rhetoric. Mr. Clinton threw open the doors to trade with Beijing's butchers and greased the skids for American investment in China….. The shift in emphasis paid off for the President. Thankful American businesses poured money into the Clinton-Gore campaign coffers and the Chinese reciprocated by funneling dollars to the Democrats through shady intermediaries. Mr. Clinton made his China policy pay -- handsomely. Now that he is no longer running for reelection, however, and no longer in need of Beijing's money tree, Mr. Clinton has returned to inflated posturing about China's hideous suppression of human rights…."
2/27/99 "…
A guided missile base of mainland China about 10 kilometers from Korla city in southern Xinjiang was attacked by unidentified persons earlier this year, the Istanbul-based "Eastern Turkistan National Center" said Saturday in a written statement. Twenty-one soldiers were killed and six others wounded by fire during the attack at the missile base beside the Lop Nor highway. Eighty military vehicles and a lot of military supply were also destroyed by the fire set by the attackers, the center quoted a Uighur merchant, who recently reached Turkey from Xinjiang, as saying…"
2/4/99 "…China has sent almost 9,000 armed police to Yining city in its northwest Moslem region of Xinjiang, the scene of previous anti-Beijing rioting, official Chinese media reported Thursday. "The Central Committee of the Communist Party is paying special attention to social stability in Xinjiang and particularly in Yili county, and has taken an important decision to station troops in Yining city," the Xinjiang Legal Daily said in an edition seen here Thursday. It said 8,660 armed police had been posted permanently on January 16 to Yining from a location some 150 kilometres (90 miles) away. Yining has a population of 300,000, of whom less than 50 percent are ethnic Uighur Moslems, the majority ethnic group in Xinjiang. The city was the scene of rioting on February 5 and 6, 1997 after a demonstration calling for the release of prisoners and the establishment of an Islamic state independent of Beijing turned violent…."
Reuters 3/5/99 "…China warned the United States Friday that if it backed an anti-China resolution at this year's meeting of the U.N. Human Rights commission in Geneva it would seriously affect Sino-U.S. relations. "If they start doing it again they will fail again and it will have a very negative effect on dialogue and on the human rights dialogue in particular,'' Chinese embassy spokesman Yu Shuning told reporters…. The U.S. Senate voted 99-0 in February to urge the administration to sponsor such a resolution at the U.N. conference, which opens on March 22 and lasts six weeks. The United States did not sponsor such a resolution in 1998 after attempts to pass it at the U.N. in previous years were voted down…. Speaking after a meeting with President Jiang Zemin, Albright reaffirmed Washington's commitment to forging a ''constructive strategic partnership'' with China. "Our relationship, while still well short of this goal, has reached the point where it can withstand even sharp disagreements,'' she said. Yu declined to be specific about the effects if Washington supports a resolution in Geneva, saying that was hypothetical. But it could be expected to have an impact on a visit to Washington by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji in April. Yu blamed "some elements'' in the U.S. Congress and media for trying to prevent the creation of a "constructive strategic partnership'' between Beijing and Washington, but he said they would ultimately fail…."
AP 3/11/99 Tom Raum "…The House of Representatives joined the Senate today in voting unanimously to urge the Clinton administration to sponsor a U.N. resolution condemning Beijing for human rights abuses in China and Tibet. Congress wants the United States to offer the resolution later this month at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on human rights in Geneva. Administration officials have expressed reluctance to do so, although have not yet announced a final position…."
AFP 3/17/99 "…China is preparing to put on trial a former Communist Party official for calling for democratic reforms, a US-based human rights group said Wednesday. Fang Jue, who was first detained by the authorities last summer, will soon be formally arrested and put on trial, New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said. "The period of investigation by the procuratorate will end on March 23 and his case will be referred to the court for charges and trial," an HRIC statement faxed to AFP said. Fang, a former official with the water resources ministry and the Fujian provincial planning committee, was detained by plain-clothes police officers on July 23 while on his way to meet a friend at a Beijing hotel Fang, 44, published an essay in early 1998 calling for democratic reforms, and claiming to represent a silent constituency of middle and high-ranking party officials…."
New York Times 3/28/99 Erik Eckholm "…In late 1997, President Jiang Zemin announced that China would cut the People's Liberation Army, then 3 million strong, by half a million troops as part of China's drive for a leaner, more advanced military that could both defend the homeland and reinforce China's image as a power in Asia. What the president did not say was that as the army shrank, another, more secretive branch of the military, dedicated to internal stability, was already expanding. At the very time of Jiang's speech, it was absorbing 14 army divisions, or more than 100,000 troops. The expansion of the People's Armed Police, a national force trained in riot control, reflects the leaders' growing preoccupation with domestic unrest….Over the last year, according to witnesses and other accounts, armed police units were called out to help the ordinary police contain many of the hundreds of demonstrations and protests reported around China. The armed police have also battled ethnic separatists in the heavily Muslim province of Xinjiang, and have long been used to help control Tibet…."
Houston Chronicle 3/30/99 Cal Thomas Freeper hope "…A couple who live in China's Zhejiang province recently survived a harrowing experience at the hands of authorities. They were punished for having a second child, which is against the dictates of the Beijing regime. Wu (not his real name) was interviewed by a mutual friend who witnessed the events Wu describes. The tape of that interview was carried out of China and sent to me...... Wu says every female of childbearing age in China is required to visit a family-planning inspection center three times per year. If the woman has one child and doctors determine she is pregnant again, she is forced to have an abortion........ Four years after their son was born, Wu and his wife (he is a pastor of several house churches) prayed about having another child. But the family-planning authorities had "put something in her to keep her from getting pregnant again." The device he describes sounds like a cervical cap…."
Human Events Freeper John Galt 3/24/99 "…Paraphrasing cover page of Human Events: Using simple math and average birth rates, the number of baby girls that have logically been murdered in the name of China's one-child per family policy, is in the neighborhood of 120 million. This number does not include elective or forced abortions….."
South China Morning Post 4/5/99 AFP "...Premier Zhu Rongji criticised the bombing campaign as an intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation, warning that the attack could lead to a world war. "All internal matters should be left for the country itself to resolve," Mr Zhu said. "If we should refuse to recognise a country's sovereignty, I'm afraid that would lead to a world war," he told the Globe and Mail of Toronto. The Premier's remarks came on the eve of a two-week North American tour beginning tomorrow in California and ending on April 20 in Canada. Mr Zhu called for an immediate halt to the air strikes, which he said almost caused him to cancel his trip to the United States. "If military interventionism is to be allowed in all internal matters like a question of human rights of any country, that will open a very bad precedent in the world," he said...."
New York Times 4/5/99 Paul Wellstone "…In 1994, when President Clinton formally separated China's "most favored nation" trading status from its human rights record, he insisted that this did not diminish our commitment to pursuing a vigorous human rights policy. The Administration even went so far as to claim that economic growth and liberalization in China, fueled by increased trade with the United States, would actually promote political liberalization. Five years down the road these assurances have proved to be empty rhetoric. Last fall the Chinese authorities undertook the toughest crackdown on dissidents since the Tiananmen Square massacre a decade ago. The State Department's own human rights report, released in February, acknowledged that "China's human rights record has deteriorated sharply over the past year." As that record has worsened, though, the 1994 "de-linkage" has turned into complete disassociation. Human rights and trade are no longer parts of the same overall policy package but are proceeding on completely separate tracks. Two recent pronouncements dramatically demonstrate the contradictions -- if not downright schizophrenia -- of the current American approach. On the same day that Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, said she would travel to China to try to close the deal on China's entrance into the World Trade Organization, the State Department announced that the United States would sponsor a United Nations resolution condemning China's terrible human rights record….."
Reuters 4/7/99 "…In an editorial published in Wednesday's Washington Post, Xu Jin said the visit to Washington of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who is due to meet Clinton on Thursday, was an important opportunity to address the fate of her father and other pro-democracy activists jailed in China. ``I ask for President Clinton's help in calling for my father's release and urging the Chinese government to take steps immediately to improve the conditions of his imprisonment,'' Xu wrote in the editorial. ``I also ask for help in seeking an end to the harassment of my mother, He Xintong, who lives in Beijing,'' she wrote…. Xu was convicted in December 1998 of endangering state security and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In her editorial, Xu's daughter called the trial ``a sham'' and said the Chinese government had violated its own laws by imprisoning her father. ``My father is an innocent man,'' Xu wrote, noting that her father had refused to appeal the conviction because he felt that would ``legitimize the whole judicial procedure, when there is no independent and free judiciary in China…."
Fox News Wire 4/10/99 Freeper CHIEF negotiator "… (AP) — Chinese dissidents and human rights activists launched a World Wide Web site today to promote their campaign for democracy in China and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on the pro-democracy movement…."
The Boston Herald 4/10/99 Editorial "…How dare China's Premier Zhu Rongji compare himself to - of all people - Abraham Lincoln! And what a dastardly threat to the democratic Republic of China on Taiwan by one of the world's most autocratic rulers. Asked at a news joint conference Thursday with President Clinton about the future of Taiwan, Zhu refused to rule out the use of military force by the communist mainland in its efforts to reunite with the island nation. ``Abraham Lincoln, in order to maintain the unity of the United States and oppose the independence of the southern part, resorted to the use of force and fought a war for that, for maintaining the unity of the United States,'' Zhu said. Today is the 20th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, which guaranteed the island arms with which to defend itself, and also declared that any attempt to determine Taiwan's future by force would be ``of grave concern'' to this country. Such was the case 20 years ago, and such is the case today. Too bad Bill Clinton didn't take the opportunity to spell that out…."
Reuters 4/10/99 "…In a case of guess who's coming to dinner, Chinese officials were not too happy about one guest invited to a dinner Friday honoring Premier Zhu Rongji. They sought to have the invitation rescinded for Lodi Gyari, the special envoy of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader who has been seeking autonomy for Tibet. The Asia Society stood by its invitation, but Gyari in the end decided not to attend. Gyari in a letter to Nicholas Platt, president of The Asia Society, said he would not attend the dinner because he did not want to put the organization in ``such an awkward situation'' and more important, the Dalai Lama had entrusted him with the task of reaching out to Chinese leadership…."
Fox Newswire 4/23/99 "...The U.N. Commission on Human Rights Friday denounced "war crimes'' by Serb forces in Kosovo, but shelved a U.S. resolution criticizing China...."
The Associated Press 4/23/99 "...China blocked a U.S. attempt to censure its human rights record today, but Cuba, Iran and Iraq were among nations criticized by the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission. The U.S. attempt to bring U.N. criticism against China suffered the same fate as similar motions had for seven straight years since 1991. The commission voted 22-17 in favor of a Chinese proposal to take no action on the U.S. motion. Fourteen countries abstained. The United States last year suspended its annual effort to criticize China in favor of a policy of diplomacy and dialogue. Washington put forward a motion this year following a sharp clampdown on dissent by Communist Party leaders in recent months...."
AP 4/26/99 "...Chinese leaders wrestled today with the challenge presented by a popular group that surprised authorities and held the largest protest in Beijing since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement 10 years ago. Government leaders met to form a strategy and decided to act publicly as if Sunday's protest by 10,000 people in the heart of Beijing never happened. They ordered official silence by all government offices and news media on the protest, according to an official who attended the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity. The reaction underscores the unease China's communist leadership feels about the demonstrators, followers of a martial arts master who teaches a form of meditation and exercise known as Falun Gong. The police presence in central Beijing remained heavy today. Police also visited political dissidents not known to be affiliated to the group, asking their opinions about Sunday's protest. Protesters made a powerful display of their group's potential strength both in their numbers and discipline. All day Sunday, they stood or sat in silence on the sidewalks outside Zhongnanhai, the compound housing China's leadership, and dispersed peacefully late that night...."
Central News Agency (Taiwan) 5/5-/9 Peter Chen "...An Australian senator has accused mainland China of forcing a pregnant mainland Chinese refugee to abort her baby immediately after she was deported back to the mainland from Australia. Sen. Brian Harradine of Tasmania said the unidentified mainland Chinese woman, who illegally landed in Australia recently, had asked officials at the Port Hedland Detention Center in western Australia to allow her to give birth to her baby before being deported to mainland China because she would face an abortion under mainland China's one-child policy....Harradine on Tuesday told a Senate Estimates Committee hearing in Canberra that the deported woman was one of the three subjected to forcible abortions after being deported to mainland China from Australia. He showed a videotape of the woman being forced to abort her baby as evidence. Harradine was angry with the mainland Chinese authorities for forcing the abortion....."
The Washington Post 5/6/99 William Branigin "...According to federal and local officials, the 36-mile-long island in the western Pacific [Guam] is under siege by Chinese alien smugglers known as "snakeheads." They are bringing in boatloads of illegal immigrants, mostly from China's Fujian Province, to take advantage of what they see as a backdoor to the United States..... "While national attention is focused on the plight of Albanian refugees fleeing Kosovo," the paper complained, "illegal Chinese immigrants" are threatening to "swamp the U.S. territory of Guam." Catching the 600 was proportionally equivalent to "apprehending 57,000 illegal aliens coming ashore in Florida," it said. The document said smugglers typically charge $ 20,000 to $ 30,000 per person for the trip and often enforce payment through indentured servitude. ....In January, the INS flew 116 detained Chinese to Seattle for deportation proceedings, but released 100 of them pending their hearings. That action "may have been a strategic mistake," the Guam internal document said, since word apparently got back to China that the INS was doing just what the smugglers wanted...."
Associated Press 5/18/99 Charles Hutzler "... Emboldened by nationalistic fervor, China's communist leaders are trying to channel public anger against NATO's bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade to discredit exiled dissidents calling for political reform. In a pair of sharply worded editorials, two authoritative Communist Party newspapers have derided U.S.-based dissidents who questioned the anti-American protests that swept 20 Chinese cities last week..."
www.scmp.com 5/29/99 Agencies Freeper Thanatos "...Beijing has deployed extra troops to tighten control over Tibet ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary, the political head of the government-in-exile said yesterday. During a visit to Japan, Sonam Topgyal also confirmed that Beijing broke off contacts last July with the exiled government, headed by spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Asked about fears of unrest in Tibet on June 4, Mr Topgyal said the Chinese were worried and that since March "they have laid really strong restrictions on Tibet ..."
Bangkok Post 5/29/99 "....The Hong Kong government has been summoned by the National People's Congress, China's legislature, to "reinterpret" a ruling made by a Hong Kong court on its Basic Law. This is the first indication that Hong Kong is not the autonomous region of China it portrays itself to be. The repercussions will have a resounding effect, with many wondering which Hong Kong rule will be the next to be "reinterpreted" by China. The decision by the Hong Kong government to refer a ruling made by the Hong Kong Court to China for "interpretation" has set the precedent all democratic believers in the former island colony have feared. Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal ruled in January that under the Basic Law, all children whether plegitimate or illegitimate, not residing in Hong Kong, who have one or both Hong Kong permanent residents as parents, are entitled to live there. Before this ruling, only legitimate children of at least one permanent Hong Kong resident were allowed entry....."
www.scmp.com 5/28/99 WILLY WO-LAP LAM Freeper Thanatos "...Beijing's strategists are studying the possibility that Washington and its allies may target North Korea if Nato succeeds in its war against Yugoslavia. Generals also have warned that the "Nato military machine" might intervene in China, using Taiwan, Tibet or Xinjiang as a pretext. Diplomatic sources said yesterday Pyongyang had related its fear to Beijing that North Korea might become an "Asian Serbia". The sources said Pyongyang had quietly sought the help of Beijing to prevent a potential "invasion" by the West ...."
www.scmp.com 5/28/99 DANIEL KWAN Freeper Thanatos "...An arms race could happen in Asia if the United States and China fail to repair their strained relations, the head of America's biggest bi-partisan group on promoting Sino-US relations said yesterday. The president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, John Holden, warned it was in no one's interest to allow ties to deteriorate. "The most urgent task is for damage control and to rebuild trust by working together and listening to one another," Mr Holden told a Hong Kong luncheon organised by the American Chamber of Commerce..."
5/30/99 Drudge/Itar-Tass Freeper Thanatos "...Sun May 30 1999 17:40:01 UTC -- The Chinese National People's Congress issued a statement on Sunday blasting the US House of Representatives and Senate for adopting a resolution marking the tenth anniversary of the "4th June incident", the XINHUA wire service reported on Sunday. The statement said that "anti-China" forces in the West played "an inglorious role" in the Tiananmen disturbance, by spreading " horrifying rumours" , "masterminding schemes" and sheltering criminals. China condemned the US for the "hypocrisy" of its human rights concepts, furnishing NATO action in Yugoslavia as an example...."
Chicago Tribune 5/31/99 Liz Sly Freeper rface "...Ten years ago the mass student protests in Tiananmen Square were in full swing and a "Goddess of Democracy," modeled on the Statue of Liberty, was towering over the square, a powerful symbol of the reverence over the movement for greater political freedoms in China...In this latest bout of activism, one of the most popular posters plastered around the campuses depicts the Statue of Liberty dripping blood and emblazoned with the word "Killer."..."
Conservative News Service 6/1/99 Scott Hogenson Freeper parcel_of_rogues "...A statement from China's parliament, released in advance of the June 4 observance of the protest that left hundreds of demonstrators dead, accused the U.S. of supporting the protest with "money and goods," in an effort to "directly mastermind" the 1989 uprising. The statement also claims the American media was used to spread "horrifying rumors" in connection with the episode...."
Hartford Courant 6/4/99 Denis Horgan Freeper starlu "...You could wonder what on earth the government in Beijing would ultimately have to do to warrant even modest disapproval from Washington and the marionette masters in the corporate boardrooms....With excruciating irony, the president calls for renewed trade privileges for China exactly on the 10th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, when peaceful pro- democracy demonstrations were crushed and uncounted demonstrators killed and arrested. A decade later the oppression continues - as does our unrelenting kowtowing to the oppressors...."
Manchester Union Leader 6/4/99 Richard Lessner "...Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Ten years to the day after Red China's Communist leaders sent tanks to crush hundreds of unarmed students - and a week after the public release of the Cox Report that ominously detailed Red China's massive nuclear espionage - Bill Clinton was scheduled today to formally ask Congress for renewal of Beijing's most favored nation trade status. This is simply mind-boggling. Apparently Mr. Clinton is so desperate to maintain the appearance that all is perfectly normal with U.S.-China relations that he is oblivious to the symbolic import of his gesture..."
Chattanooga Free Press 6/04/99 Editorial "...Ten years ago today, the world watched with wonder and admiration as a lone Chinese youth stood at Beijing's Tiananmen Square, silently defying a line of Chinese Communist tanks sent to cow demonstrators who were seeking "democracy." That moment of tension is a vivid snapshot of heroism in defiance of Communist troops that were ordered to fire on the civilian crowds, killing hundreds of people. Unrepentant, the Chinese Communists this year defended their atrocity by declaring in the Communist newspaper People's Daily: "The firm and resolute suppression of the political turmoil in Beijing in the spring and summer of 1989 was extremely timely and completely necessary to preserve the country's independence, dignity, security and stability. No matter in the past, the present or the future, unity and stability are the Chinese people's secret weapon for victory." ..."
Insided China Today 6/5/99 Reuters "...China is forging ahead with its policy of torture and executions in Tibet with Tibetans becoming a downtrodden minority in their own country, the Dalai Lama said. "The unending cycle of repression, torture and summary executions continues as before," Tibet's exiled spiritual leader wrote in the preface of a Tibet supplement in the journal of the International Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims (IRTC)..... "The population transfer of Chinese into Tibet continues with alarming intensity, so that the whole country is being transformed into a Chinese area where Tibetans are becoming a powerless minority," the Dalai Lama said...."
Jewish World Review 6/3/99 Jeff Jacoby "...The government that bused demonstrators to the US embassy in Beijing so they could hurl rocks and molotov cocktails through its windows is unchanged in any important respect from the government that sent the tanks and machine guns into Tiananmen Square 10 years ago this week. Yes, there are more computers in China today than there were in 1989...more cellular phones...more Nike sneakers. But there is not more freedom. There is less....."
Washington Times 6/08/99 Wes Pruden "...Nobility can play no favorites, and unless Mr. Clinton wants the United States to stamp itself indelibly as the raging bully of the West and to stamp himself as the coward of the county --which of course he would never, ever do -- he'll have to avenge Tibet, too. China has raped that luckless little Shangri-La far more brutally, inflicting far more death and depravity and populating far more graveyards, than Slobo has done in Kosovo. And Slobo never even stole our nuclear secrets. (But of course he never financed a Clinton presidential campaign, either.) But if civilizing mainland China, which is big enough to hit back, can wait, bombing Yugoslavia, which is small and helpless enough to make an ideal target for bullies, can't...."
Newsday 6/8/99 Ross Terrill "...Ross Terrill's book "China in Our Time," includes an eyewitness account of events in Beijing in 1989. MEMORY IS a luxury, yet also a necessity. "Move on" from Tiananmen Square? Yes, in many ways China and America have rightly done that. The Beijing regime recovered from the violent repression of June 4, 1989, better than anyone expected. Scared by the pro-democracy uprising, and further stunned by the demolition of the Soviet Union two years later, Deng Xiaoping and his anointed successor, Jiang Zemin, bent their energies with some skill to saving Leninism with consumerism. The U.S. government and people have also rightly moved on from Tiananmen. China and America have some common interests, Washington can deal fruitfully with Beijing on a range of issues, and there are other evils in the world besides Chinese soldiers killing unarmed civilians in the streets of the Chinese capital. Still, those of us who saw the tanks and heard the bullets on that sweaty, emotional night do not forget....We are the necessary enemy of the Chinese Communist state. It bolsters its legitimacy in the eyes of the Chinese people by flourishing the bogey of "imperialist" and "hegemonist." The students of 1989 know this mentality because they, too, became "the enemy" of the Chinese state and felt the consequences. Twice President Bill Clinton has referred to China as a former Communist country. This is wishful thinking. It sets us up for wounded surprise when Beijing turns on anti-American sentiment as a fireman turns on a hose, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji lies through his teeth and Chinese spies take advantage of our open society to try (fat chance) to outdo us as a great power...."
Washington Times 3/9/97 William Triplett "....* Enhancing the prestige of the PLA: After the Chinese People's Liberation Army murdered 4,000 young people in and around Tiananmen Square, President Bush ordered "no contact" by American military officers with senior officials of the PLA. Under President Clinton both the PLN's tactical commander at Tiananmen, Gen. Xu Huizi, and the operational commander, General Chi Haotian, have received full military honors at the Pentagon. Yet, neither His Holiness, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, nor noted American human rights activist Harry Wu, is welcome in the Oval Office where Gen. Chi was an honored guest in December...."
Reuters 6/17/99 Paul Eckert "…World Bank funding for a poverty relief scheme that would move Chinese farmers into traditional Tibetan lands could be in doubt because of strong opposition, a senior bank official said on Thursday. The scheme could fall victim to a firestorm of opposition from Tibetan exiles, human rights groups and U.S. officials when the Bank's board votes on the project on June 22, said Yukon Huang, chief of the bank's China mission. ``The Bank's view is that we're uncertain of the outcome because the issues and emotions are very, very high,'' Huang told reporters in Beijing after visiting the project site.
The Chinese government project, for which the Bank would provide $40 million in funding, pits the Bank between its largest donor, the United States, and its largest borrower, China. U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin last month expressed serious concern about the plan, while a furious China has warned it would rethink its ties to the Bank if the loans were not approved. The plan would move 57,775 Chinese farmers -- 40 percent China's majority Han and 60 percent other minorities -- from barren hillsides in the northwestern province of Qinghai to more fertile land in the province and set them up with irrigated farmland and schools. The plan has angered exiled Tibetans, who regard Qinghai as their own and say China is using the programme to dilute Tibetan presence and influence in the area and open the way for greater Chinese exploitation of the region's resources…."
New York Times 6/23/99 "...In a rare public conflict between Washington and the World Bank, Treasury Secretary-designate Lawrence Summers said Tuesday that the United States would vote against a loan to China that would resettle poor Chinese farmers to land that Tibetans claim. Despite the Clinton administration's objections, World Bank officials said they expect that the loan will be approved at the bank's board meeting Thursday. If the United States opposes the loan, as Summers indicated it would during his confirmation hearing Tuesday, it probably would further strain relations with Beijing...."
Hong Kong Standard 6/23/99 "...TIANANMEN Square will be open exclusively to more than 100,000 teenage students at the end of next month as part of a rehearsal for a grand celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic It will be the biggest gathering involving students since Beijing authorities' crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in the square 10 years ago.... During the half-day rehearsal, students will practise displaying 23 patterns with patriotic themes which will form the background for the mass parade along the Chang'an Avenue..... Only students sitting for graduation or university entrance exams this summer are exempt from joining the practice...."
Reuters 6/24/99 Mark Egan "...The World Bank tried on Thursday to defuse one of its most bitter disputes in years as it approved a $160 million loan to China that had angered its biggest shareholders and outraged Tibetan activists. The loan, to be used in part to resettle 58,000 poor Chinese farmers to an area where Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was born, put the bank at the centre of a political storm prompting myriad cries of foul. Among those who opposed the project in recent days were U.S. Treasury Secretary-designate Lawrence Summers, 60 members of Congress, Tibetan interest groups and, most surprisingly, almost half of the bank's 24-member strong board. The loan was approved Thursday against the votes of its first and third largest shareholders -- the United States and Germany -- despite claims the bank violated its own rules in processing the loan. The bank rarely approves loans against the U.S. vote and never on such a high-profile project. ..."
China Times 6/28/99 AFP "...Chinese police have begun detaining artists and writers and accusing them of endangering state security, a Hong Kong-based human rights organization said Sunday. Beijing painter Yan Zhengxue and two Shanghai writers, Jiang Tanwen and Li Xunrong were detained on June 19 in Hangzhou and remain in custody under suspicion of "endangering state security," the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. "This shows that the central authorities have enlarged the scope of their oppression of dissidents to intellectuals," the center said. The three were detained at a Hangzhou bus station after having met with members of the outlawed China Democratic Party, the center said...."
WASHINGTON TIMES 6/28/99 Richard Ehrlich "...Thousands of Chinese prostitutes line the streets of Tibet's capital, mostly catering to a nonstop influx of Chinese construction crews, soldiers, drivers and service workers....They are just some of the millions of Chinese who have already migrated to Tibet looking for a fast buck and a new place to call home. It's similar to America's Wild West, when immigrants from Europe and the East Coast pushed native peoples off their homelands. The racial competition between mostly impoverished, indigenous Tibetans and business-savvy migrant Chinese is now sharper than ever. Tibetan culture is struggling against all odds to survive. As a result, many Tibetans are openly anti-Chinese and eagerly cheered the U.S. strike on China's embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, May 7, which killed three Chinese journalists. The United States says the bombing was accidental.....The Tibetan-Chinese rivalry came to Washington Thursday when intense opposition from Tibetan advocates, including some members of Congress, caused the World Bank to block a $40 million loan to China to move 57,000 poor farmers onto land claimed by Tibetans. The bank voted, over U.S. objections, to allow the migration to go forward only if an investigative panel rules that the impact of the relocations in Qinghai province on indigenous Tibetans is minimal...."
AP 6/29/99 "...Chinese paratroopers with motorized hang gliders and high-tech gear recently staged mock battles on icy mountains in Tibet, state media said Tuesday. The training exercise on a corner of the Tibetan plateau shows China's military has "the ability to carry out an airborne mission in a region with complicated geological conditions,'' the Xinhua News Agency quoted an unidentified military spokesman as saying. Despite low visibility due to rain, all paratroopers hit their targeted landing zones and fought mock battles in gorges, on snow-covered mountains and in swampy areas in Sichuan province's Aba prefecture, Xinhua said. The report was unusual because China's secretive military rarely gives details on or even publicizes training exercises. But Chinese leaders have been unnerved by NATO's military campaign to stop ethnic repression in Yugoslavia's Kosovo region, fearing it could set a precedent for intervention in Tibet and other parts of China with restive ethnic minorities...."
The Straits Times 7/1/99 Choo Li Meng "...ACCESS a China-based website on the Internet these days and you are likely to find fiery anti-American lashings and bold criticisms of the Chinese leadership. With limited outlets for expressing their enmity, more people in China are turning to the Internet, which has become the country's modern-day da zi bao, or "big-character posters", according to recent media reports. Such posters were a common sight after the Chinese Revolution, when those upset with their compatriots, employers or the government, wrote their grievances on sheets of paper and put them up strategically at universities, factories and parks...."
Central News Agency (Taiwan) 7/10/99 "…Mainland Chinese President Jiang Zemin has ordered the formation of a task force to prepare for talks with the Dalai Lama, according to a report released on Saturday by Taiwan's Cabinet-level Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC). MTAC said in an analysis of "the trilateral ties among the United States, mainland China and Dalai Lama" that it is expected that the content of the talks will be within the scope of the "five-point dialogue basis" proposed by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping in 1978 when he met a brother of the Dalai Lama in Beijing. The five points are as follows: -- The Dalai Lama and his followers are welcome to return to mainland China to settle or visit at any time; -- If the Dalai Lama returns, he will enjoy the same political treatment he enjoyed prior to 1959, the year he and his followers fled to northern India after mainland Chinese troops' invasion of Tibet; -- The Dalai Lama may return to Tibet for a visit, but he must live in Beijing; -- It is up to the Dalai Lama to determine when he will come back to mainland China, but before he decides to return, he must make a brief statement to international news media, the text of which he can decide for himself; and -- Tibetans who fled with the Dalai Lama to northern India in 1959 can freely return to Tibet to settle or visit. …"
Audrey's Missiles Newsletter 7/16/99 "…She [China] had asked for $160 million dollars to fund a project in Tibet, a project to resettle 58,000 poor Chinese farmers in an area where Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was born.. The reason for the outrage in this country is the very obvious effort on the part of the Chinese to disperse and absorb the native population of Tibet. The approval followed one of the most bitter disputes in years, with almost half of the bank's 24 member board opposed to the project. Among those opposed was the United States largest shareholder) and Germany (third largest shareholder). Four directors abstained from the final vote which approved the loan….."
AP 7/16/99 "…China defended its oft-criticized policies in Tibet, claiming in a report Friday that the Himalayan region's social development and human rights have witnessed ``world shaking'' progress under Chinese rule. The lengthy report was the latest in a series of commentaries and documentaries marking the 40th anniversary of China's occupation of Tibet following a failed uprising on March 10, 1959, against communist forces that marched into the region nine years earlier….. It provided statistics claiming great progress in establishing medical services, schools and other public facilities in Tibet since 1959. As a result, infant mortality fell to 36.77 per 1,000 last year compared to 430 per 1,000 in 1959 and life expectancy has risen to 67 years from 35, it said….."
EWTN News Brief 7/19/99 "…Population Research Institute (PRI) said the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) wants the US government to give $50 million per year to a program in 32 Chinese counties that would reportedly "replace direct coercion with more subtle forms of pressure that the UNFPA commonly employs to stop Third World families from having children." UNFPA has said that the Communist government has agreed to suspend the one-child policy for a four-year experiment administered by UNFPA, while admitting that China uses birth quotas and requires parents to obtain birth permits before having children, requirements which the UN previously had denied China employed…."
Washington Post 7/21/99 "...China has been intensifying its repression of free speech and religion. More than 200 dissidents have been rounded up since May, and several have been sentenced to 10 or more years in prison. Their activities had been peaceful: membership in the China Democratic Party or assistance to laid-off factory workers..." ..."
The New York Times 7/27/99 Wang Dan Wang Juntao "...We had many questions when we heard that the Chinese Government had outlawed Falun Gong, the faith-healing sect led by a Chinese guru living in New York, and detained thousands of its members last week.... Is this the same President of China who recited the opening words of the Gettysburg Address when he visited the United States in October 1997? Or the Jiang Zemin who openly debated the issue of human rights with President Clinton in the Great Hall of the People in June 1998? Is this the same Jiang Zemin who agreed to sign the two United Nations human rights covenants last year, declaring that China would henceforth improve its human rights record? None of that has come to pass. At the end of 1998, Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin, founding members of the China Democracy Party, were each sentenced to more than 10 years for trying to establish an opposition party. And this year, more than 200 members of the China Democracy Party have been arrested and prosecuted by the regime...."
BBC 7/27/99 "...The Chinese authorities have seized thousands of books, cassettes and videotapes in the nationwide crackdown on the banned Falun Gong sect. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said police in the central city of Wuhan had confiscated and destroyed 130,000 books and 27,000 audio and video tapes relating to Falun Gong. In the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwestern China, the authorities seized 3,200 books, 1,200 video tapes and over 10,000 cassette tapes, while in Tianjin, northeastern China, more than 73,000 books were confiscated, Xinhua reported on Tuesday...."
Reason website 7/28/99 Cox Reports Interviewed by Michael W. Lynch and Jeff A. Taylor 8/9 99 Reason: That seems to be the backdrop of what we are talking about--the movement of technology and information across borders. Repressive regimes like China's seem to want to cherry-pick technology for the state while keeping information from the public. Is there anything that U.S. policy can do to change that? Cox: Some of the things are so obvious that they are often overlooked. The president of the United States made a 10-day trip to the PRC. He refused to meet with the founders of the Chinese Democratic Party while he was there. At the same time, he pointedly called Jiang Zemin "the right leader at the right time." The message was not lost on the Communist Party. They rounded up the leaders of the Democratic Party, who attempted to register within the rules, and put them in jail, where they still remain.
U.S. News & World Report 8/9/99 Steven Butler "...The 7 p.m. news, the most-watched television program in China, has become something of a joke these days. Every day this past week, the government has devoted the program to blasting its latest political nemesis, the popular spiritual sect known as Falun Gong and its leader, Li Hongzhi. In one episode, the authorities drove a steamroller over books and videotapes sect members use for their exercises. In another, they called on obscure figures allegedly from Li's past to denounce him as a charlatan. There's no doubt the Communist Party means business. But the people find their government's fit of pique downright amusing. "It makes the party lose face," says Zhao Fuyi, a college professor, "to be struggling against a group it shouldn't even consider a rival." ..."
Washington Post 8/3/99 John Pomfret "...China sentenced two leaders of its first opposition party to lengthy jail terms today, an indication that Beijing has taken advantage of nationalist sentiment triggered by NATO's bombing of its embassy in Yugoslavia to clamp down further on dissent. The No. 1 Intermediate People's Court in Beijing sentenced Zha Jianguo to nine years and Gao Hongming to eight years on charges of subverting state power, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. ..."
AFP 8/3/99 "...Babies in China are forcibly aborted, often into bedpans and beyond seven-and-a-half months gestation, a doctor testified to an Australian Senate committee Tuesday. Code-named Dr Wong, the woman said the practice was widespread under China's one child policy, contradicting Beijing's claim that women are not forced to abort babies if they have more than one child. The doctor was giving evidence in an inquiry set up to investigate claims by senator Brian Harradine that a Chinese woman, Zhu Qingping, was forced to have an abortion after being deported from Australia.
Harradine told a senate committee earlier this year the woman was eight-and-a-half months pregnant when deported and just days from giving birth when she was allegedly forced to the pregnancy terminated....Wong added that if women ignored the one child policy they often lost their job and government assistance in health, education and accommodation. If doctors refused to carry out the policy they would go to jail, she said...."
BBC 8/4/99 Chris Nuttall "...The Chinese Government has been blamed for cyber attacks on Websites and Internet Service Providers supporting the Falun Gong movement. Some of the attacks, which appeared to be aimed at blocking access to information on Falun Gong, have been traced back to Beijing, where authorities are becoming increasingly sophisticated in restricting the influence of the Internet on Chinese society...."
AFP 8/4/99 "...Exiled Chinese dissidents Wednesday voiced concerns at the crackdown against groups seen as threats to the ruling Communist Party and warned of a revival of practices last seen in the Cultural Revolution. "The calamity of China not only includes the pain of despots, but more so the bitterness of totalitarians," said leading exiled dissidents Wang Dan and Wang Juntao in a joint article. "It is already 30 years since the totalitarian government of the Great Cultural Revoultion, can we now watch the reemergence of totalitarianism in China without denouncing it?," they asked in the article in the electronic Xiaocankao Daily News, compiled by exiles in Washington and e-mailed to thousands of people in China. The two dissidents condemned the crackdowns on the outlawed China Democracy Party and the July 22 ban of the Falungong spiritual group as arbitrary acts by a government aiming to maintain its monopoly rule...."
Associated Press 8/5/99 "... A member of the China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for participating in the outlawed group, the man's wife said Thursday. She Wanbao, a 41-year-old former bank official, was sentenced Wednesday by a court in the southwestern province of Sichuan, said his wife, Wen Ying...."
AFP 8/7/99 "...China has intensified its crackdown on the dissident movement ahead of the 50th anniversary of communist rule in October, with four democracy activists set to be handed jail sentences next week, a rights group said Saturday. According to the Centre for Information on Human Rights and Democracy in China, four members of the China Democracy Party (CDP) will be sentenced next week after being accused of subversion. The four are Wang Zechen and Guo Chengming from the north-east Liaoning province, Tong Shidong from Hunan in central China, and Jiang Qisheng from Beijing, a statement released by the Hong Kong-based rights group said...."
South China Morning Post 8/11/99 AFP "...A World Bank-financed project to move nearly 58,000 people across the Tibetan plateau is being portrayed by officialdom as a necessary part of a global economic and social development programme for poverty-stricken western China. But, if moving the people from the over-populated eastern part of Qinghai to relatively deserted Dulan in the province's centre is officially to fight poverty, local authorities do not disguise the fact that their real motive is economic. Qinghai is one of the poorest regions in China despite vast natural resources..... But it has been denounced by Tibetan rights groups as trying to dilute the indigenous population, and by ecologists who say the development will damage the surrounding flora and fauna...."
Newsweek 8/16/99 Melinda Liu "...In 1958, the Dalai Lama was a 23-year-old god-king on the verge of losing his realm. The Chinese communists were closing in, and Tibet's spiritual leader was desperate. That's when he first heard that the Central Intelligence Agency was stepping up its activities in his domain. The Dalai Lama's lord chamberlain arranged a meeting for him with two CIA-trained guerrillas, so they could demonstrate their skills. The Tibetan warriors pulled out a bazooka, fired it, then took 15 minutes to reload before they fired again. His Holiness was incredulous. "Will you shoot once and then ask the enemy to wait 15 minutes?" he asked his disciples. "Impossible." ...How the CIA took the Dalai Lama's disciples under its wing is one of the most exotic episodes in the annals of Western intelligence. The intimate details of Operation ST CIRCUS are only just now emerging, as retired spooks publish memoirs and graying guerrillas publicly contemplate the violent karma of their past. Tibetan veterans still fondly recall training secretly in Colorado with Americans they knew as "Mr. Ken" or "Mr. Mac," then parachuting into Tibet out of the silver C-130s they called "sky ships." Their operations scored spectacular intelligence coups-including, NEWSWEEK has learned, early hints that China was developing the atomic bomb. Yet the Dalai Lama, a devout pacifist, was reluctant to cooperate with the CIA from the start.... By the mid-'60s, the Tibet operation was costing Washington $1.7 million a year, according to intelligence documents. That included $500,000 to support 2,100 guerrillas based in Nepal and $180,000 worth of "subsidy to the Dalai Lama." But it was at this time also that Washington became disillusioned with the operation, which had no hope of reversing the Chinese occupation, and scaled back. After the United States cut its support, Beijing pressured Nepal to close the Mustang camps. From his exile in Dharmsala, the Dalai Lama wanted it to end. In July 1974 he sent a 20-minute-long recorded message asking the fighters, now led by a CIA-trained Khampa named Wangdu, to surrender their weapons to local Nepalese authorities. Wangdu and a handful of bodyguards tried to escape and made their last stand against Nepalese soldiers only 20 miles from the Indian border. At nearly 18,000 feet, where the air is thin and a man can see forever, all but one died in a barrage of gunfire. Wangdu's death marked the end of the CIA-trained guerrilla movement, but Chinese authorities have long memories. ...."
South China Morning Post 8/19/99 Daniel Kwan "…Police will have online access to personal details of every adult within three years, Xinhua reported yesterday. A national computerised database is being set up which will include identification certificate numbers and photographs of everyone above 16, allowing officers across the mainland to "share information over the Internet", the news agency said. As a prelude, police stations in 133 cities will have their computer systems connected through the Internet by the end of the year. .."
Washington Post 8/19/99 Michael Laris "…Chinese security agents have detained an American who was "inspecting" a proposed World Bank project in northwestern China and accused him of engaging in an "illegal investigation," according to the World Bank and the man's wife. Tibetan advocate Daja Meston, 29, of Newton, Mass., who was detained three days ago, entered China on a tourist visa and traveled to Qinghai province's remote Dulan county earlier this month to interview residents about a controversial World Bank project, according to his wife, Phuntsok Meston. The project would move tens of thousands of poor Chinese farmers to a new area with better agricultural prospects. But critics say the project will dilute the Tibetan population in the new area, and the World Bank voted in June to delay its funding pending a bank inquiry Meston was detained along with an Australian scholar, Gabriel Lafitte, also a longtime advocate of Tibetan causes. A source familiar with the detentions said Chinese authorities apparently suspect that the men were "pushing a broader cause of Tibetan separatism." …"
Hong Kong Standard 8/19/99 Agencies "…CHINA has slipped backwards on human rights with a ban on the meditation sect Falun Gong and the imprisonment of members of an outlawed opposition party, an Australian official says. The head of an Australian human rights delegation said daylong talks on human rights with Chinese officials included ``quite a bit of discussion'' about Falun Gong, the meditation group with millions of members that the government banned last month. Chinese officials said the country remained committed to ratifying two key United Nations conventions on human rights, but the ban on Falun Gong ``raises serious questions about China's international commitment to freedom of assembly and expression'', said Miles Kupa, deputy secretary of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. …"
Fox News (AP) 8/20/99 "…An American researcher detained in China's remote northwest was severely injured jumping from a building while trying to escape, China's Foreign Ministry said Friday. China identified the man, a Tibetan linguist, as Daja Mizu Meston. He had earlier been identified by the World Bank as Dagamizu Meston. Meston jumped from the building Wednesday, ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao said in a statement carried by state media. Zhu said Meston "is out of danger after emergency treatment.'' Meston and Australian scholar Gabriel Lafitte are being held in Qinghai province, a remote area of the Tibetan plateau. The government says it detained them for "illegal covering and photographing.'' The pair were conducting interviews in Dulan County, which is targeted for a controversial World Bank aid project, officials and experts on Tibet said. The U.S. State Department said they were believed to be preparing an independent study of the project's impact. …."
Los Angeles Times 8/20/99 Jim Mann "…-In June 1998, during his visit to China, Clinton stood by proudly as Chinese President Jiang Zemin, at a televised press conference, seemed to suggest that he was open to a dialogue with the exiled leader of Tibet. A headline in The Times branded Jiang's remarks "stunning." A Clinton aide told the Washington Post that China had extended "an unusual olive branch." Just over a year later, those much-heralded efforts have gone nowhere. As the Dalai Lama tours the United States this week, China shows no sign of any willingness to talk with him. Indeed, the regime has returned to its old habit of personal attacks. A Foreign Ministry spokesman recently called the Dalai Lama "a political exile engaged in the activities of splitting China."… Other China issues cropped up, forcing the White House to shift priorities. And so, without admitting it, the administration gave up. …"