Newsgroups: uw.chinese Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!chi From: chi@vlsi.waterloo.edu (Bob Y. Chi) Subject: news from china-net Message-ID: <1991Jun21.025442.26857@vlsi.waterloo.edu> Lines: 109 Sender: jshen@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Jun Shen) Organization: U. of Waterloo, Canada Distribution: uw Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1991 02:54:42 GMT Approved: jshen@dragon.uwaterloo.ca Lines: 110 >From CHINA-NT@uga.cc.uga.edu Thu Jun 20 18:08 EDT 1991 From: Baichen Liu/ Subject: Bush's speech in CA ************************************************************ * * * Asian/Pacific American Salute to the President * * * * Date: June 16, 1991 * * Place: Mile Square Regional Park, Fountain Valley * * Organized by Asian/Pacific Coalition * * * ************************************************************ Dear CSSA/UCLA Members: As you may have seen on the TV the President Bush gave a speech on that event. In his speech, he has addressed the issue of renewal of China's MFN for next year (You may find a transcript of Bush's speech at the end of this message). We have learned two days before the event, that the Chinese consulste was activily organizing students from Southern California (including UCLA) to represent the Chinese students in the area to show their support to Bush's decision on China's MFN. Those students were brought to a meeting in Long Beach by a consul from LA consulate. After the meeting, the consul distributed tickets and told those students to prepare some signs for the event, and asked them to further distribute the extra tickets among students who support UNCONDITIONAL RENEWAL only. Fully understanding the controversy over this issue, the elected board of CSSA/UCLA felt what the Chinese Consulate was doing was UNFAIR. Therefore, we decided to let people to hear the voice from both sides. Four out of five elected board members held a meeting and reached an agreement on a motion to send those messages to Bush during the event. Members of CSSA/UCLA, including the former president Ms. Zhang, Guofeng, one of the board members, several other CSSA members, and myself, the current president, attended the event. We brought two three-yard-long signs: "We Support CONDITIONAL Renewal of MFN" and "We Concern HUMAN RIGHTS in China." The sighs were raised in front of the President, with a distance about twenty yards from the stage. In his speech to more than 40,000 Asian Americans, Bush emotionally defended his position on renewal of MFN to China. He also refered that right before his speech, he had met with some "real Chinese student leaders" who "stood in Tiananmen Square" and supported his position. He then pointed to the signs those students held up, including those four whom Bush thought were the "real leaders from Tiananmen Square" (two of them are from UCLA). The signs said "President Bush, your decision to renew MFN to China is great!" "Renewal of MFN serves the interest of America", "We don't want trade war with China", etc. The two UCLA students were later identified as students who have no positions in our CSSA nor in Tiananmen movement. After Bush's speech, people with different opinion had a debate. But the debate was cut short before reaching an understanding because the supporters of UNCONDITIONAL RENEWAL did not want to continue. They left together with Ms. Li, Yunfei, the broadcastwoman of Panda TV in Los Angeles. For information about the political stance of Panda TV, you may like to watch Channel 18 in southern California. Ms. Wang, Chaohua, on of the wanted Tiananmen student leaders, was also there. She supports CONDITIONAL RENEWAL. Channel 13 interviewed her after the speech. It is my duty to clarify that those students who attended the Long Beach meeting held by the Chinese consulate and who met with Bush were not authorized by UCLA CSSA to represent our organization. Baichen Liu President Chinese Students and Scholars Association University of California, Los Angeles (CSSA/UCLA) For your interest, I hereby attach the following: Transcripts of Bush Speench in the Orange County gathering ---------------------------------------------------------- "...I don't want to be the President to isolate China. I want to be the the President to facilate change for human rights in China. Let me give you one more minder on this and I will get on to another. I want to talk about these guys. you guys wait and I am going to get to you. When I ask you to hold that sign up, please do it. Because I agree with you. Now let me finish this one point here. I have another example. In December of 1990, over strong objections through many of the Congress, I vetoed the so called "Pelosi bill." I don't mistrust her intentions, but She was wrong. Unnecessary legislation. If that bill had becone law, I am convinced in my mind that Beijing would use it as pretext to stop permitting Chinese young people to study in the United States. And instead, I extended even greater pretections in provided for in the Pelosi bill, first throughj presidential memorandum, and then through far reaching executive order. And you know, in the last year alone, we issued 11,500 visas to Chinese students and scholars to study in the United States. And that would have been 11,500 opportunities lost if we had turn our back on Chian. And I might say I met with some of the student leaders, the real student leaders, just a minute ago, Chinese people studyig in the United States, four of them having stood in Tiananmen Square. And these signs say it: "Renew MFN for China without condition," because we want to be able to affect change through human rights in China. We will be continuing to reform, in urge China to reform internally, and to rejoin the community of nations, and we can be assure of success. What we can be assure that without American dialogue, without your commitment to freedom being understood in China, the movement for reform in China will be set back. And I don't want to be here as president when we set back the chance for huamn rights in any country. ..."