Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!daemon Date: Sat, 3 Feb 90 19:33:03 EST Sender: From: chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Bo Chi) Message-ID: <9002040533.AA02111@vlsi.waterloo.edu> Original-To: china-distribution@cs.toronto.edu Subject: News Digest Newsgroups: ut.chinese Distribution: ut Sender: list-admin@csri.toronto.edu Approved: nobody@csri.toronto.edu | +---------I __L__ ___/ \ -------I +----+----+ | ___\_\_ | \./ | | -----+- | | | | | __ \/ | --+-- |--- | |---| | I----+----I | I__J/\ | __|__ | | | |---| | | | _____ \ | /| \ | | | L__-| | I I---------J / J \/ | | V | J Saturday, February 3, 1990 No. Subject # of Lines 0. Brief News: Chinese students among Nobel nominees...................61 1. U.S. report details human right crimes by China ....................28 2. China protests new sanctions approved by U.S. Congress..............54 3. Gorbachev to propose multiparty system for Soviet Union.............30 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0. Brief News ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chinese students among Nobel nominees [Associated Press 2-1-90/izzyq00@oac.ucla.edu] Nominations for the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize closed Thursday. The Norwegian Nobel Institute reveals only that 80 valid nominations had been received for 56 individuals and 24 organizations. The list of candidates reportedly included Chinese students and their leader Chai Ling, whose pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in June. The other candidates are Gorbachev, Czech President Havel, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, and Czechoslovak students who demostrated agaist the toppled hard-line regime. Dalia Lama arrived in Czechoslovakia [UPI 2-2-90/izzyq00@oac.ucla.edu] The Dalai Lama of Tibet, last year's Nobel Peace prize winner, arrived in Prague Friday on a five-day visit at the personal invitation of President Vaclav Havel. A Foreign Ministry source said the visit brought "a rather sharp protest" from the Chinese ambassador. In Beijing, the Czechoslovak ambassador to China was summoned to the Foreign Ministry. Ferry sank on Yangtze River [AP/lin@Neon.Stanford.EDU Fangzhen Lin] A ferry sank after being struck by an oil tanker on the Yangtze River in central China, killing 70 people and leaving 43 others missing, according the the Thursday edition of the Shanghai newspaper Liberation Daily. It said the accident occurred near Anqing in Anhui province. The report gave no details on the collision. Chinese Ambassador visited Nixon [Washington Post 2-1-90/simone@nyspi.bitnet J. Yang] Chinese ambassador Zhu Qizhen visited former president Nixon to exppress appreciations for his support for President Bush's anti-veto battle. Mr. Bush also called his old superior to say thank-you's. Before the vote Mr. Nixon called five Republican senators asking them to support Bush. Israeli presence in PRC [AP/izzyq00@oac.ucla.edu] An Israeli scientific academy will open an office in Beijing next month, establishing the Jewish state's first presence in the Chinese capital, an Israeli diplomatic source said today. "We think ... academic cooperation is a good start," the diplomat said. "It is a nice way for two ancient civili- zations to meet after 4,000 years." China and Israel do not have formal relations. Beijing has said it will not normalize ties until Israel returns land seized from Arab countries in 1967. Dukakis offers help to Chinese students [The Boston Globe 2-1-90/mok@hdsrus.enet.dec.com] Gov. Dukakis yesterday offered support to Chinese students while meeting Chinese students from Boston College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston, Harvard and Brandeis universities. Dukakis said that he would strive to ensure that no Chinese students living and working in Massachusetts would be subject to any harassment or intimidation by Chinese officials and that he would work with federal lawmakers seeking to turn Bush's executive order into law. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. U.S. report details human right crimes by China ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Associated Press 2-2-90/izzyq00@oac.ucla.edu] The State Department's annual human rights report "describes every human rights crime you can think of" on the part of the Chinese government, a congressional source who has seen the unreleased document said Friday night. The source said, "It describes every human rights crime you can think of: murders, disappearances, executions, suppression of labor rights, religious persecution of Catholics and Buddhists, slave labor camps in western China you name it, it's in there." Another source said the document avoided high-temperature rhetoric, confining itself to "factual and accurate" statements. The two sources were confirming a report about the document broadcast Friday evening by NBC News. The network quoted from the document: "As of year's end, there were continuing reliable reports of beatings of political, detainees in the Beijing area by security forces... prisoners, both criminal and political, are subjected to severe psychological pressure to confess." Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is scheduled to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on successive days next week. The two congressional sources said he was sure to be questioned about the document. The annual report is given to the House or Senate committees in alternate years, and had not been scheduled for release until Feb. 21 by the House committee. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. China protests new sanctions approved by U.S. Congress ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Associated Press/yawei@ucs.indiana.edu] China Friday strongly protested U.S. legislation imposing trade sanctions on China. It said Congress had ''willfully trampled on the basic norms governing international relations.'' Separately, President Bush, citing national security grounds, is ordering a Chinese-owned corporation to sell its interest in a Seattle aircraft parts company, administration sources said. Bush's order for the divestiture of the Mamco Manufacturing Co., is the first time he has taken such action under trade legislation enacted in 1988. An inter-agency review panel had recommended that China's 1988 purchase of the company be overturned, according to administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The panel found that the company was involved with sensitive materials that could have military applications. Meanwhile, China's protest against new sanctions was lodged by Vice Foreign Minister Liu Huaqiu in a meeting with U.S. Ambassador James Lilley, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Liu said he had been instructed to ''express our utmost indignation and lodge a strong protest'' against the ''hegemonist act of the U.S. Congress, which, basing its legislation on rumors, has willfully trampled on the basic norms governing international relations and wantonly interfered in China's internal affairs.'' The sanctions bill was passed Wednesday by a 98-0 vote in the Senate after earlier approval by the House. It was expected to be signed into law by President Bush. But the legislation is largely symbolic, reflecting actions Bush took following the military crackdown of the student-led prodemocracy movement in China last year. The bill gives the president the power to waive the measures if he deems it in the national interest or if he can show Congress there have been human rights improvements in China. The sanctions suspend financial underwriting for U.S. companies investing in China and aid under the Trade and Development Program. Sales of military and crime control equipment are stopped and controls are put on export of U.S.-built satellites and nuclear cooperation. The legislation also calls for a review of China's most favored nation trading status if repression against political dissidents continues. Bush has already eased some sanctions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Gorbachev to propose multiparty system for Soviet Union ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Associated Press/yawei@ucs.indiana.edu] President Mikhail Gorbachev will ask the Communist Party leadership to break its 7-decade hammerlock on power, a Soviet news agency said Saturday Gorbachev will ask the Party to accept the possibility of competing political parties, it said. The report also said the Soviet leader would propose a complete change in the party structure. It also said Gorbachev would tacitly endorse the concept of private ownership. The stunning disclosures came just 2 days before a party Central Committee meeting that is expected to be a forum on the future course of the nation and probably the most crucial test of Gorbachev's five years in power. If Gorbachev does indeed ask the party to break its monopoly on power, and the increasingly splintered party leadership agrees, it could thrust the superpower into a cycle of change. Such reform already is being played out on a smaller scale throughout the East bloc. A bitter fight over reform is expected at the closed-door Central Committee meeting Monday and Tuesday. Progressives are calling for a multiparty system and a virtual apology for decades of dictatorship. Diehard Communists want to retain their lock on power and keep central planning and collective farming, which have brought the country to economic ruin. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Executive Editor: yawei@rose.bacs.indiana.edu or yawei@iubacs.bitnet | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | China News Digest Subscription (Canada): xliao@ccm.umanitoba.ca | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NDCanada Editor: (Bo Chi) chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.edu | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+