Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!daemon Sender: From: chengpi@ecf.toronto.edu (CHENG) Original-To: utchinese Subject: News Digest Message-ID: <89Oct25.205340edt.21012@ecf.toronto.edu> Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 20:53:19 EDT Newsgroups: ut.chinese Distribution: ut Sender: list-admin@csri.toronto.edu Approved: nobody@csri.toronto.edu | +---------I __L__ ___- i \ ------I +----+----+ | ___\_\_ | \./ | | -----+- | | | | | / \/ | --+-- |--- | |---| | I----+----I | /__\/\ | __|__ | | | |---| | | | _____ \ | /| \ | | | L__-| | I I---------J / J \/ | | V | _/ * C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t * (ND Canada Service) -- Oct. 25 (I), 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines 0) Headline News ....................................................... 13 1) Beijing Set up Watchdog over China-backed Companies in Hong Kong .... 44 2) NCNA Officer Returns to China After Failure to Seek Asylum .......... 47 3) Chai Ling might still be in hiding, Wang Dan may soon appear on TV ................................. 28 4) People's Daily Attacks Head of Nobel Prize Committee ................ 50 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Headline News ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Hungary declared itself a democracy on Monday, Oct 23, 1989, 33 years after Soviet troops crushed an anti-Stalinist uprising. Chants of "Russians go home!" and "Communism no more!" rose from a crowd of 100,000. Acting President Matyas Szueroes formally declared Hungary a democracy after 41 years of communist rule. He said:" The Republic of Hungary has become a state governed by law, where the values of ... democracy and democratic socialism are equally valid. Two weeks ago, the ruling Communist Party dissolved itself in favor of a successor Socialist Party favoring democratic ideals and multiparty elections. The party issued a statement Friday rejecting the Soviet invation of 1956. [From: Tang@alisuvax.bitnet (D. Tang)] [Source: Des Moines Register (AP News), 10/24/89] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Beijing Set up Watchdog over China-backed Companies in Hong Kong ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hkucs!kwchan@uunet.UU.net (Chan Ki Wa) [Source: South China Morning Post, 10/24/89] By Lulu Yu Beijing has set up a special watchdog within the New China News Agency (NCNA) to ensure China-backed companies in Hongkong do not deviate from the Communist Party line. The move is part of the Chinese Government's drive to clamp down on what they consider to be "subversive activities" in the aftermath of events in Tiananmen Square. It coincides with the appointment of a senior Beijing official, Mr Pan Zengxi, as vice-director of the NCNA, China's de facto mission in Hongkong. It is believed that the 60-year-old Mr Pan, who was Vice-Minister of the Central Government's Ministry of Transport and Communications until last year, will play a key role. His portfolio includes economic affairs, currently the main responsibility of NCNA's most senior vice-director, Mr Zheng Hua. Other vice-directors under the leadership of Mr Xu Jiatun are Mr Qiao Zong-huai, Mr Zhang Junsheng, Mr Mao Junnian and Mr She Mengxiao. Little is known about Mr Pan, who is currently on an official trip to Beijing with Mr Zheng Hua, although he has been here for a year. His appointment is expected to be announced within a few days. Chinese sources said that with the establishment of the watchdog, Beijing would be better able to keep track of the activities of leftist firms, organisations and even individuals. A number of China-funded companies such as the controversial Wen Wei Po newspaper, are known to have adopted an anti-government stance in support of dissidents in the wake of the June 4 crackdown. Others are believed to be on the side of liberal political groups which championed democratic reforms disliked by China. In an environment where the community is increasingly split between the liberal and the pro-China conservative camps, Beijing wants to ensure that all its representatives in the territory are sympathetic towards official Chinese policies. One method of whipping companies into line is by controlling their purse strings through the NCNA watchdog. More than 2,000 companies here will be under surveillance. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. NCNA Officer Returns to China After Failure to Seek Asylum ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hkucs!kwchan@uunet.UU.net (Chan Ki Wa) [Source: South China Morning Post, 10/24/89] By David Chen Xu Haining, the maverick former researcher of the New China News Agency's (NCNA) Hongkong branch who demonstrated for the pro-democracy movement and later sought asylum in Britain, has returned to his home-town of Hangzhou, as an officer in a research institute. Chinese sources said at one time it was being considered whether to send Mr Xu back to Hongkong to work, but it was decided he would do better being with his mother who also worked in Hangzhou. Mr Xu, 27, came into prominence briefly in May when he and other NCNA members demonstrated outside the news agency headquarters in Queen's Road East in sympathy for the pro-democracy movement in Beijing. Later he disappeared, and in an open letter said he had formed a movement with more than 170 signatures from the local NCNA staff. He then approached several consulates in search of political asylum. Two months ago, he quietly flew to London with the British making all the arrangements. There he would have faded from the public eye - but for two considerations. After "debriefing" Mr Xu, the British found he had little to offer them as he was only a junior official who knew little of what was going on in China or in Hongkong. He was put up in a refugee camp where he led a meagre existence with few friends to talk to. Then he came across a newspaper report saying that his chief, Mr Xu Jiatun, Hongkong director of the NCNA, had promised that those wayward dissidents, including the young researcher, would not be punished. Regretting that he had made the move to Britain, Mr Xu approached Chinese Embassy in London. Embassy officials were taken aback and had to seek instructions from Beijing, so Mr Xu was told to return in a few days. But he did not do so, as the British had by then discovered his move. He was put up in a safe house, but later returned to the Chinese Embassy. This time the embassy staff refused to let him go. On the day of his departure he met an impartial observer confirming he wanted to go back home. He returned and after a period of rest, went back to work. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Chai Ling might still be in hiding, Wang Dan may soon appear on TV ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hkucs!kwchan@uunet.UU.net (Chan Ki Wa) [Source: South China Morning Post, 10/24/89] Meanwhile sources have said that Chai Ling, the girl who was a leader of the hunger strike at the height of the Tiananmen Square movement and now wanted for counter-revolutionary activities, is still in hiding somewhere in China. The source indicated she might be at an embassy, taking refuge like dissident astrophysicist Professor Fang Lizhi and his wife, Ms Li Shuxian. Other sources have said Wang Dan, the Beijing University student leader who was foremost in the democracy movement together with Wu'erkaixi, might soon appear on television to tell his story, in the same way as four other hunger-strikers, including the famous Taiwan composer Hou Dejian, had done about a month ago. There have also been allegations that Mr Wang's background was not as straightforward as it had appeared during the spring protests. Sources said Mr Wang might have other connections which would put him in a more favourable position to give information to the Government. In the retreat from Tiananmen Square on that fateful morning of June 4, the students lost contact with him. He did not surface until two months later when he appealed to a Taipei reporter, Huang Tei-pei, who had returned to Beijing only a day earlier seek help for his escape. The escape bid was foiled and Mr Wang was said to have fallen into the hands of the public security. An analyst said: "The sequence of incidents is far too coincidental and we need more information to reassess Wang's role in the student movement." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. People's Daily Attacks Head of Nobel Prize Committee ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: hkucs!kwchan@uunet.UU.net (Chan Ki Wa) [Source: Associated Press] China yesterday launched a bitter personal attack on the head of the Nobel prize committee, accusing him of supporting Tibetan separatists and tarnishing Beijing's reputation. The official People's Daily said Mr Egil Aarvik had outrageously likened China's response to the granting of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, to Adolf Hitler's protest against the decision to give the award to a German journalist in 1935. In a commentary headlined "Aarvik's Absurd Logic", the newspaper said: "The Chinese people believe the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Dalai Lama is an unfriendly act. "The committee under Aarvik's leadership had given support to the Dalai Lama who want to split the motherland and dreams of restoring feudalism to Tibet. "Instead of showing regret fro the serious impact of this erroneous decision, Aarvik has flown into a rage and made vicious attacks on China. His attitude had been crude and unreasonable." China has formally protested to Norway over the decision to award the prize to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader who fled Tibet after an abortive uprising in 1959. Norwegian state television has reported that Beijing threatened to break all economic ties with Norway if a government representative or King Olav attend the award ceremony for the Dalai Lama in December. "Even more intolerable is that in order to smear and distort China's image Aarvik absurdly compared China's criticism of the granting of the prize to the Dalai Lama to Hitler's opposition to the award of the prize to a German journalist in 1935," the newspaper. Mr Aarvik said last week that Beijing's response mirrored that of Hitler when Carl von Ossietzky won the award in 1935. Hitler barred the journalist, then an inmate in a concentration camp, from collecting his prize. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama said yesterday that he would remain "a simple Buddhist monk" despite winning the Nobel Peace Prize. But he said the award would heighten world awareness of Tibet's struggle against Chinese rule. "I will not be a different person," the Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader said at his first public address since returning to his exile home in Dharamsala after winning the prize. He told a crowd of 4,000 Tibetans celebrating the 29th anniversary of the Tibetan Children's Village that the Nobel prize would make the Tibetan cause better known. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Deming Tang E_mail: Tang@ALISUVAX.bitnet | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Note: Following this package is the News Digest introduction. 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