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CND-Global, April 17, 1998 (GL98-054)
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(Global News, No. GL98-054)
Friday, April 17, 1998
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ISSN 1024-9117
Table of Contents # of Lines
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1. News Brief (10 Items) ............................................... 202
2. Cambodia's Pol Pot Dead, China Keeps Silence ......................... 41
3. News from "China Daily" (4 Items) .................................... 39
4. News from Taiwan (7 Items) ........................................... 36
5. What's in April 17th's Hua Xia Wen Zhai #368 (cm9804c) ............... 41
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1. News Brief (10 Items) ............................................... 202
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(1) North and South Korea Talk Resumes in Beijing
(2) US Warns of Sombre Impact of Trade Deficit on June Summit
(3) Tougher Car Emission Measurements to Be Used by China
(4) Flight from Chongqing to Taiwan Via Macao to be Launched in May
(5) China to Build Giant Theater Complex
(6) Deadly Tornado Hits South China Tornado
(7) Three Coal Mine Explosions in a Row Kill 82: Xinhua
(8) China to Send Loan to Indonesia via IMF
(9) Beijing Moves to Save Precious Farmland
(10) Government to Unify Local-Foreign Tax by 2000
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(1) North and South Korea Talk Resumes in Beijing
[CND, 04/17/98] After two days of standoff, the suspended conversation
between representatives of the North and South Korean governments resumed
in Beijing at a dinner meeting which lasted past Thursday midnight, AFP
reported. The two parties agreed to hold Red Cross talk this month to
continue discussion on helping reunite families on the two sides of Korea.
A day before, the two groups had decided to remain in Beijing until
Thursday, hoping to re-ignite their talks, UPI reported on Wednesday. The
North delegates earlier planned to return to Pyongyang on Wednesday for
the celebration of the late KIM Il-sung's 86th birthday. According to a
spokesman of the South Korean Embassy, Chinese moderators have helped the
two Korean governments to stay in close contact, although they remain far
apart on several critical issues.
Pyongyang urgently requested 200,000 tons of fertilizer to catch the
spring planting season and ease the nation-wide famine, while Seoul
demanded political concessions for the aid, packaging war-torn family
reunion, exchange of permanent envoys, and reopening of border liaison
offices into the deal. The talks were the first meeting between the two
Korean governments since Kim Il-sung's death in 1994.
(Weihe GUAN, Jim YU, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(2) US Warns of Sombre Impact of Trade Deficit on June Summit
[CND, 04/16/98] The United States said the growing trade deficit with China
would cloud the forthcoming summit in Beijing, AFP reported. "If left
unattended, the growing imbalance in our trade relationship could even have
a sombre impact on the summit," Undersecretary of Commerce for International
Trade, David Aaron, was quoted as saying at a meeting in Beijing. He said
China has reported an average annual growth of 25 percent in exports to the
United States since 1985 while its imports of American products have
increased by only 10 per cent yearly over the same period of time. According
to American figures, the US trade deficit with China was $49.7 billion last
year, the report said. President Bill Clinton is scheduled to pay a state
visit to Beijing in late June. (Bing Wen, Yin De AN)
____ ____ ____
(3) Tougher Car Emission Measurements to Be Used by China
[CND, 04/14/98] China is preparing a series of tougher measurements to
control the emission of vehicles, aiming to bring down the pollution
level produced by car exhausts, reported AFP.
FAN Yunsheng, deputy director-general of pollution control at the State
Environment Protection Administration, said on Tuesday, "We will take
tougher measures later this year to ban vehicles failing to meet
emission standards from taking to the road." The World Bank has warned in
its recent study that the pollutants in China's big cities would very
likely cause long term health problems and add to global warming. 90
per cent of the carbon monoxide and 40 per cent of the nitrogen oxide
emissions in China are from motor vehicles.
A random exhaust check on April 1 in Beijing failed 60 per cent of the
cars. Out of 214 vehicles only 83 had low enough exhaust emissions.
(LIU Yanping, YIN De An)
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(4) Flight from Chongqing to Taiwan Via Macao to be Launched in May
[CND, 04/13/98] In cooperation with Air Macao, Chongqing will launch an
indirect air route to Taipei and Kaohsiung next month with stopovers in
Macao, Xinhua news agency reported quoting airline deputy general manager
ZHOU Yunda. The new routes would "serve as a bridge to further promote
cross-straits tourism, trade and economic cooperation", Zhou said. Annual
trade between Chongqing and Taiwan has reached over 20 million dollars.
Taiwan business investment in the city is around 700 million dollars, and
the city receives 100,000 Taiwanese tourists each year, Chongqing vice
mayor XU Zhongmin said.
Xinhua also reported that China's semi-official Association for Relations
Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) has invited officials of Taiwan's
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) to visit the mainland next week or at
"any other time convenient for both sides" for talks aimed at resuming
contacts suspended since 1995. SEF officials in Taipei welcomed the
invitation. (Shiji SHEN, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(5) China to Build Giant Theater Complex
[CND, 04/14/98] China has decided to build a 120,000-square-metre theater
complex in the center of Beijing, AFP and Reuters reported on Tuesday,
quoting Chinese media. The complex, which will be the largest one in
China, will have a 2,500-seat opera theater, a 2,000-seat concert hall, a
1,200-seat drama theater and a 300-seat rehearsal center. It will be
located west of the Great Hall of the People. The project, which was
originally proposed in the late 1950's, will cost about $427 million
(3.54 billion yuan), including about $100 million investment from overseas,
and is expected to take about four years to complete. In July, a committee
will select an architecture design from bids submitted by 19 domestic and
21 foreign firms. (Weijun LIU, De An YIN , Liedong ZHENG)
____ ____ ____
(6) Deadly Tornado Hits South China Tornado
[CND, 04/14/98] Seventeen people died and more than fifty were injured in
a tornado that struck south China's Hunan province on Saturday, said AFP.
The state radio reported that over 7,500 village homes were destroyed in
the cyclone. The report said that twenty-eight boats were capsized in the
Shuifu reservoir. Hail stones, some as heavy as four pounds (2 kilograms)
carried by high winds, damaged over 20,000 homes in Zhaoqing and Qingyuan,
according to reports from the Chinese-language daily Ming Pao. The paper
further said these unexpected natural disasters have amounted to $35.7
million (300 million yuan) in economic losses. (Sue BRUELL, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(7) Three Coal Mine Explosions in a Row Kill 82: Xinhua
[CND, 04/12/98] Three consecutive coal mine explosions within a week
killed as many as eighty-two people and left more than forty-eight injured
in Henan province, the second largest coal producing region in China,
reported the Chinese Xinhua news agency Thursday.
The worst explosion happened on April 6 in Pingdingshan city, killing
forty-seven and injuring eleven, adding up to eleven explosions in THIS
city since 1997, which have killed more than two hundred people.
On April 2, the first explosion occurred in a coal mine belonging to the
Huaheng Industrial Development Corporation in Hebi city, leaving twenty-
one out of twenty-six people dead. And on April 3, another fourteen were
killed and thirty-seven injured by fires in a privately-owned coal mine
in Ruzhou city.
The provincial officials on the sites revealed that two of three coal
mines were not licensed and the third one had no proper certification.
Officials also urged the local government to close illegally operated coal
mines and improve safety control to stop accidents.
China has a terrible safety record for coal mines due to the loose
supervision and numerous coal mines illegally operated without licenses.
Especially at town or village level, about one-third had no licenses.
(ZHU Junhua, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(8) China to Send Loan to Indonesia via IMF
[CND, 04/13/98] China has pledged to send $400 million in standby loans
via the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to boost Indonesia's crumbling
economy, said an AFP report from Jakarta on Monday. China is also
following through on its word to send three million dollars worth of
medicine and food, plus $200 million in export credit facilities for the
next two years. This generosity is intended to enhance trade relations
between Indonesia and China. (Sue BRUELL, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(9) Beijing Moves to Save Precious Farmland
[CND, 04/15/98] A one-year ban on non-agricultural use of farmlands has
been extended until April 1999, according to a Wednesday report by AFP
from Beijing. Recently, real estate development firms have been buying up
precious areas of arable land for housing and other projects. Natural
forces, such as soil erosion by wind and water, also degrade China's
available arable farmland.
ZHOU Yongkang, the newly-appointed Minister of State Land and Natural
Resources, warned about unresolved problems in extending the protection of
farmland for another year. As quoted by China Daily, he said there are
"difficulties of handling cases of illegal occupation of state land for
construction projects by local authorities." He cited protests by peasants
who lose their plots to real estate developers working together with local
authorities. However, Zhou mentioned an exemption: massive development of
low-income housing "and other key projects with special state permission."
(Sue BRUELL, YIN De An)
____ ____ ____
(10) Government to Unify Local-Foreign Tax by 2000
[CND, 04/14/98] Income tax rates for domestic and foreign-funded firms
will be unified by 2000, said Reuters, citing a China Business Times
report.
According to officials of the State Administration of Taxation, the
government aims to give foreign investors "national treatment", intending
to assess them at the same tax rate as domestic firms.
Currently, domestic firms are levied a 33 per cent income tax, while
foreign-funded companies enjoy preferential rates as low as 15 per cent,
in addition to their two-year tax exemption and three-year reduced rates
status.
The report said that increased tax evasion had been noticed due to the
different tax rates between domestic and foreign-invested firms, which is
costing the government's tax revenue. (Ray ZHANG, Liedong ZHENG)
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2. Cambodia's Pol Pot Dead, China Keeps Silence ......................... 41
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Source: AP, Reuters
Written by: Jim YU
[CND, 04/16/98] Pol Pot, whose Khmer Rouge regime led to the deaths of as
many as 2 million Cambodians, died of a heart attack on Wednesday late
night in Bangkok, Thailand. His body was exposed in a small hut less than
300 meters from the Thailand-Cambodia border for Western jouralists to
confirm his death.
Pol Pot, born Saloth Sar on May 19, 1925, started to build up the Cambodian
Communist Party in 1963 and later became the party secretary. In 1975 he
led the overthrow of the government of Norodom Sihanouk and became the
prime minister of the communist government. Under his rule, mass killings
occurred in the infamous "killing fields," and up to 2 million Cambodian
civilians died of starvation, overwork or execution during the period
up until 1979, when a Vietnamese invasion chased Pol Pot and his Khmer
Rouge followers out of their ruling seats. Cambodia thus entered a war
period, with Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge allied with Prince Sihanouk's royalists
against the Vietnamese-backed Hun Sen government. In 1985, Pol Pot was
reported thrown out of the Khmer Rouge's leadership, and in 1992, Sihanouk
turned against the Khmer Rouge to ally himself with Hun Sen. The Khmer
Rouge later split apart, and part of it defected to the government in 1996.
During his rise in the communist party and his war against Vietnamese-
supported government, Pol Pot constantly received military and financial
aid from the Chinese government and was a close friend of many communist
leaders including Mao Zedong. Since his fall, many in the west have
demanded that Pol Pot be arrested and tried in an international court
for his killings in the late 1970s. While preparing for President Bill
Clinton's June visit to China, US officials recently requested that China
help bring Pol Pot to justice, believing that the trial would be very
difficult to hold without Beijing's cooperation. The US government did
not receive an official response from China before the news of Pol Pot's
death arrived.
Across Asia, governments have been slow to react to Pol Pot's end. In
China, there has been no report in official news media.
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3. News from "China Daily" (4 Items) .................................... 39
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_From: chinfo <chinfo@chinfo.com>, 04/15-16/98
Abridged by: Chaohua WANG
* Huizhou and Shantou cities in eastern Guangdong and the Shenzhen Special
Economic Zone have also reported discoveries of the red tide which is now
striking the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) where it has
caused heavy economic losses. In the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone, which
borders Macao, more than 30 tons of fish have been killed by the red tide
disaster. The total economic loss has come to over 2 million yuan
(US$241,000).
* Some 90 billion cubic metres of underground water reserves are exploited
in China annually, with the current exploitation rate standing at 90 per
cent. Xi'an city in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has recorded
various degrees of subsidence over a 162-square kilometre area. Shanghai
has limited its annual exploitation of underground water to some 25 per
cent of the total available capacity. (Xinhua)
* The famous Chinese pingju performer XIN Fengxia died of a cerebral
hemorrhage at the age of 71 on Sunday, People's Daily reported yesterday.
Xin was popular among many Chinese people for her unique performance of
pingju, a local opera of China, for her exceptional outspoken courage
since the late 1950s, and for her achievements as a self-educated author
after the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. (CD-Xinhua)
* Beijing's modern drama world has experienced prosperous seasons since last
December. Most of the box-office hits have been foreign plays. They are
"Death without Burial" by Sartre, "Knock" by Jules Romains, "Blue Bird" by
Maeterlink, "Pavel Korchagin" by Ostrovsky, "Waiting for Godot" by
Beckett, "A Doll's House" by Ibsen and a composite performance of "The
Three Sisters Waiting for Godot" bringing together Chekov and Beckett.
"The Threepenny Opera" by Brecht is now in rehearsal. Two Chinese plays--
Li Liuyi's "Rain Over, Sky Clear" and Peng Tao's "Greenhouse Girl"--have
been staged in the last four months, as well as from some short and
informal performances by troupes from other cities.
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4. News from Taiwan (7 Items) ........................................... 36
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Source: Taiwan's China News (04/12/98 - 04/13/98)
Contributor: Chang-Jiu CHEN; Abridged by: TIAN Yu.
* Japan decided on Friday to uphold an amendment of a bill acknowledging
the validity of Republic of China passports and resuming 72-hour visa-
free privileges for Taiwan visitors.
* The Mainland is going to conduct a Kilo-class submarine exercise in the
open sea off the east of Taiwan in the near future, the China Times
Express quoted a DPP lawmaker as saying.
* Bribery and corruption have existed in the military for decades and
military authorities deal with suspected or implicated officials by
turning "big problems into small problems and small problems into no
problem at all" to save the reputation of the military, a member of the
Ministry of National Defense told the China News.
* The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at Taiwan hog farms in March last
year has cost the local food industry nearly NT$60 billion, the
Industrial Development Bureau said.
* Despite of Beijing's very public and firm "no" to a Taipei proposal that
the two work together to solve the problems created by the Asian
currency crisis and convene a forum to be attended by Southeast Asian
countries, Taipei seems determined to push through with the plan.
* Taipei sent a group of senior finance and economic officials to the US
to seek Washington's support for Taipei's offer to work with Beijing in
helping financially battered Southeast Asia.
* The eldest son of one of Taiwan's most powerful crime bosses was killed
in Taipei by a member of a rival gang, setting off fears of a mob war.
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5. What's in April 17th's Hua Xia Wen Zhai #368 (cm9804c) ............... 41
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_From: CND Hua Xia Wen Zhai Editorial Board <cnd-cm@cnd.org>
Hua Xia Wen Zhai
(CND Chinese Magazine)
Issue #368
April 17, 1998
ISSN 1021-8602
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Table of Contents (cm9804c)
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1. Headline News of the Week (Apr 8 - Apr 15) .......................... CND
2. Glimpse of China: On China's Unemployment Problem ............. LIN Siyun
3. Current Affairs: China's New Foreign Minister (Part 3)
-- Why No Promotion for LIU Huaqiu ...... CHEN Youwei
4. Travel: Alaska Tour Journal (Part 1) ............................ HUA Hua
5. "WoMen" (One of Us): Running My Own Business ............. ZHANG Xiaoming
6. Information Exchange: Jurisdiction on Inheritance Involving Foreigners
7. People: CND Interviews Iris Chang, Author of "The Rape of Nanking" .. CND
8. Opinions: Apologize When Apology Is Due .................... NAKAE Yosuke
Comments on "Comments on Human Rights Improvement" .... LIU Jie
9. Riddle: 5 Items
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CND-CM Executive Editor: TANG Hong
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