Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!daemon From: chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) Newsgroups: ut.chinese Subject: Dec. 9 (I), News Digest Message-ID: <8912091614.AA07706@vlsi.waterloo.edu> Date: 9 Dec 89 11:14:31 GMT Sender: Distribution: ut Lines: 217 Approved: nobody@csri.toronto.edu Original-To: china-distribution@cs.toronto.edu | +---------I __L__ ___- i \ ------I +----+----+ | ___\_\_ | \./ | | -----+- | | | | | __ \/ | --+-- |--- | |---| | I----+----I | I__J/\ | __|__ | | | |---| | | | _____ \ | /| \ | | | L__-| | I I---------J / J \/ | | V | _/ * C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t * (ND Canada Service) -- Dec. 9 (I), 1989 Table of Contents # of Lines 1) China News Digest and Chinese Students, seen by an American ....... 35 2) Communism Dying? American's View .................................. 90 3) Meeting of the Leaders of the Front for Democratic China .......... 70 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. China News Digest and Chinese Students, seen by an American -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: scott%sage@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) Date: Fri, 8 Dec 89 (Center for Information and Language Studies, University of Chicago) ... We have also made copies of this digest and the China News Digest available to our East Asian Library. The East Asian Librarian has generously agreed to make space available so that people without net access can read these. We give three copies of each issue. Two are available to the public and one is kept for the library's archives. If my own experience is any guide, Chinese students haven't done much to communicate with American students and faculty about all of these issues. I am only peripherally aware of activities of the (apparently quite active) Chinese community at the Univer- sity. There is a quite natural tendency for a Chinese community to be relatively isolated from the larger University community because of cultural and language barriers. Even so, if the Chinese community were to make better use of the communication channels available to it, it would achieve higher visibility of its aims, and perhaps a higher degree of support. I would have thought that identifying and cultivating support among Americans who care about you would be an important goal. This message was also posted to soc.culture.china. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Communism Dying? American's View ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "J. Ding" BY: LANGER, GARY ; Associated Press Writer DATELINE: NEW YOR (AP) December 06, 1989 Half of all Americans believe communism is dying, twice the number who thought so nine months ago, a Media General-Associated Press poll has found. The survey found views of communism shifting radically as reform sweeps Eastern Europe, with far fewer Americans now seeing the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies as a threat. But more Americans feel threatened by China, where authorities in June suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators. And the poll found no change in the relatively high level of concern about communism in Latin America. The survey tracked opinion by repeating questions that first were asked in a Media General-Associated Press poll in March, a few months before the democratic reform movement gained full force in Eastern Europe. The change in opinion was striking. Then, for example, only 19 percent said communism was on the decline around the world. In the new poll, 54 percent said communism was declining worldwide a nearly threefold increase. Similarly, 52 percent regarded communism in Eastern Europe as less of a threat to U.S. security now than in the past; in March, just 28 percent held that view. And 51 percent in the new poll saw Soviet communism as less of a threat to the United States, up from 38 percent nine months ago. In one of their broadest measures, the surveys asked respondents: "In your view, is communism dying, or not?" In March, 25 percent said yes. In the new poll, 52 percent said yes. The new survey was conducted Nov. 17-25, as many of the changes reshaping Eastern Europe were still evolving. The changes, some of which culminated after the poll was done, include establishment of a partially non-communist government in Poland and the fall of Communist leaderships in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Optimism was the greatest for East Germany, where on Nov. 9 the Berlin Wall was opened after 28 years of division from the West. Sixty percent in the survey expected that within their lifetimes East Germans will enjoy the same freedoms Americans have now. By contrast, only 26 percent expected American-style freedoms to come within their lifetimes to residents of the Soviet Union, where reforms are progressing more slowly and the Communist party retains supremacy. And only 14 percent expected such freedoms in China, where soldiers staged a bloody crackdown on dissidents near Tiananmen Square on June 3-4. Indeed, during the past nine months more increasing threat to the United States, while those seeing China as less of a threat fell from 34 percent in March to 20 percent now. While fewer Americans now believe China is moving away from communist political and economic systems, the opposite was true for Eastern Europe and for the Soviet Union. Seventy-five percent believed some of the Eastern European countries are moving away from communist economies, up from 47 percent in March. And 70 percent believed some of Eastern Europe was dropping the communist system, more than double the number in March. The movement of opinion about the Soviet Union, like the change there, was less abrupt. Sixty-seven percent believed the Soviets are leaving their communist economic system, up from 58 percent; and 48 percent believed the Soviets are changing their political structure, up from 31 percent. As in the earlier poll, concern was greatest about communism in Latin America: Forty-six percent called it an increasing threat to the United States, virtually unchanged from March. Men and more highly educated respondents in the new poll were likeliest to believe that communism is declining or even dying, and that the threat to the United States posed by the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is decreasing. The survey, conducted by telephone, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Media General Inc., a communications company based in Richmond, Va., publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Richmond News Leader, the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune and the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal, and operates TV stations WXcL in Tampa, WCBD in Charleston, S.C., and WJKS in Jacksonville, Fla. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Meeting of the Leaders of the Front for Democratic China ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "J. Ding" BY: GOLDEN, ED ; Associated Press Writer DATELINE: NEWTON, Mass. (AP) December 06, 1989 Leaders of the Chinese democracy movement opened a five-day planning session Wednesday to blunt criticism from the Chinese-American community that they are disorganized. "Our goal is to overturn one-pary rule by the Communist Party, not to overthrow the Communist Party. We want to use peaceful, non-violent measures," said Yan Jiaqi, chairman of the Front for a Democratic China. The Front is an umbrella organization of the Chinese democracy movement that has been criticized by Chinese students and residents in the United States as lacking focus. "We have delegates from England, Australia, Hong Kong, France and the United States. They have all come to decide our future work. It's a very important meeting," Yan said. Subjects on the agenda included how to separate personal finances from money donated since the student uprising was crushed by Chinese authorities in Baijing's Tiananmen Square in June. Wu'er Kaixi, one of the student leaders in Tiananmen Square now on a one-year fellowship at Harvard, has in particular been criticized by the Chinese-language press in the United States for allegedly confusing his personal finances with the front's finances. Representatives from Chinese communities around the world were to report in an effort to lay out a specific program for the group's long-term operation. An afternoon, closed-door meeting Wednesday was to consider relations with Taiwan. "We cannot accept Taiwanese independence. Taiwan is part of China. But we have to decide our policy towards Taiwan's democratization and the changes taking place there," Yan said. "We want to go to Taiwan anr see the situation. We can't go from the mainland." Wan Runnan, founder and former president of a Peking-based computer firm and general secretary of the FDC, has planned an exploratory trip to Taiwan to speak with members of various political groups, including the independent opposition party that was formed in the last few years, Yang said. He said the FDC was not thinking about siding with any particular group in Taiwan since FDC members include active members of Taiwan's ruling party, the Kuomintang, as well as former members of the Communist Party. Another item to be addressed was the FDC's policy toward Tibet. The Chinese government has claimed sovereignty there since the 13th century. Tibetans claim to have a different culture and say they should be independent from Chinese rule. Yan met this week in Paris with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled religious leader, to propose a solution for the problem. It involved forming a federation so that Tibet's relationship with China would be more like a state, Yan said. Yan, who said he offered the proposal on behalf of the FDC, said the Dalai Lama offered no response. FDC leaders said they would present a position when their meetings end Sunday. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Editor: Gang Xu (NDUS) E-mail: gxu@kentvm.bitnet | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ============================================================================= News Transmission chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (or) -------------------- --------------------- Local Editor: Bo Chi chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sat Dec 9 11:12:27 EST 1989