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                 * C h i n a   N e w s   D i g e s t *

                      (News General + NDCanada)

                       -- Feb. 23 (I), 1990


Table of Contents
                                                                     # of Lines
1. Cao Changqing Leaves for Columbia University ....................... 9
2. China Government Protest US State Department Report ................ 51
3. Hong Kong School Strives to Keep Democracy Spirit Alive ........... 126
4. CBC TV Special Report "Eight Months After June 4th" ................ 8
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1. Cao Changqing Leaves for Columbia University
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From: simone@nyspi. (J. Yang)
Source: World Journal, L.A., 2/22/90

The  Chief  Edidor  of  Press  Freedom  Herald  Cao Changqing was
resigned on Feb. 21 and the position was officially taken over by
Teng Ben, who is a graduate stu- dent at UC at Santa Barbara. Mr.
Cao  will  leave  for Columbia University on Feb. 25 to joint the
study on China's Human Rights.

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2. China Government Protest US State Department Report
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From: (Yagui Wei) yawei@ucs.indiana.edu
Source: (AP) News 2/22/90

Beijing Protests U.S. Report On Human-Rights Abuses

    BEIJING  -  China  Thursday  strongly  protested a U.S. State
Department  report  that  accuses  it  of widespread human-rights
abuses.

    Beijing  insists the report is based on lies and hearsay. But
a  Foreign  Ministry  spokesman  refused to say if his government
planned to retaliate.

    Past  responses  to  foreign  criticism  often have contained
warnings that relations would be damaged.



    ''The  government and people express their utmost indignation
at  this  (report), which violates basic norms governing interna-
tional relations,'' said the spokesman, Li Zhaoxing.

    The  State Department report, issued Wednesday, contained the
strongest public criticism ever of China under senior leader Deng
Xiaoping.

    Its  comprehensive listing of abuses, from torture and secret
executions  to  pervasive  surveillance, was expected to halt the
slight warming of U.S.-Chinese relations.

    That  warming  started  with  the  December visit of National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.

    A  Western  diplomat,  speaking  on  condition  of anonymity,
predicted  that  official Chinese contacts with the U.S.  Embassy
in Beijing would drop off sharply.

    The  embassy experienced similarly chilly relations with many
Chinese  government  units  in  the first months after the army's
June 3-4 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing.

    Asked  to  give  examples  of  material in the report that is
based  on  rumor or lies, Li told journalists to read the Chinese
press for the truth.

    Li  refused  to  say  how  many people are being held without
trial in connection with the protests.

    Thousands  were arrested in Beijing alone after the crackdown
began, and many haven't yet been formally charged.

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3. Hong Kong School Strives to Keep Democracy Spirit Alive
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From: Fangzhen Lin <lin@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Source: (AP) News 21 Feb 90
By JOHN POMFRET
Associated Press Writer

    HONG  KONG  (AP)  - Down a narrow street patrolled by scrawny
alley  cats,  beside a chicken market and up a flight of tenement
stairs,  a  little school with a big name is striving to keep the
spirit of democracy alive in Hong Kong.

    It's  the  Overseas  Campus of Tiananmen Democracy University
and  it looks ahead to 1997, when China takes over Hong Kong from
the British.

    ''It's  a  struggle  to interest people in the future of Hong
Kong,''  says  Lau  Kin Chi, one of the half-dozen lecturers from
Hong  Kong's  colleges  who  banded  together to form the school.
''Most  have  no  hope.  They'd rather spend the time applying to
emigrate.''

    The  plight of the school encapsulates the peculiar situation
of this bustling colony of 5.7 million people. Many realize their
fate  is tied to Beijing in seven years, but few believe they can
do anything to change the increasingly hardline regime in China.

    But  a month after the school's opening it is falling on hard
times.
    Only  170 people enrolled in January for the first two months
of  courses  on  democracy, Chinese politics and the the historic
changes  in  Eastern  Europe and the Soviet Union. Even fewer are
expected for the next session.

    On  a  recent  night,  a  dozen  students sat in the school's
sparse classroom as the sounds of vegetable hawkers echoed in the
alley below.

    University students, computer programmers, workers and teach-
ers,  all  of  them  praised  the  little school but bemoaned its
shrinking enrollment.

    ''Most  of  my friends are too busy making money or trying to
leave  Hong  Kong  to  think  about China,'' said Andrew Yeung, a
27-year-old  computer programmer who comes every Tuesday night to
learn  about  Chinese  political movements. ''But I don't want to
leave Hong Kong.  It's my home.''

    ''Call  us  'economic  animals',''  said  his classmate Cheng
Yeung,  a  35-year-old construction foreman. ''But I have no hope
of  leaving  so  I  must  learn  about  China. Today's Beijing is
tomorrow's Hong Kong.''

    One  high  school  teacher said she came to class because her
students  were  asking  questions about China and she didn't know
the  answers.  A  church worker said she needed the class because
she wanted to understand why the Communist Chinese arrested Roman

Catholics.

    ''I don't worry about the future,'' she said. ''My fate is in
God's hands.''

    The  school  takes  its name from Tiananmen Democracy Univer-
sity,  founded by Chinese students and intellectuals in Tiananmen
Square just hours before the bloody June 4 crackdown on the move-
ment for freedom in Beijing.

    Lau  and her colleagues decided to borrow the name and rented
out  two cramped rooms in a five-story, run-down tenement on bus-
tling Stone Nullah Lane. Friends renovated and painted the rooms,
built  plywood  desks and a printing shop donated mimeograph ser-
vices.

    The  school's  purpose  is to teach about modern China, demo-
cracy  and political change, topics that are generally ignored by
the colony's government-run educational system. For 100 Hong Kong
dollars ($12.80) students can enroll in a two-month course.

    ''We  want  to  raise people's consciousness,'' said Ms. Lau,
who  teaches  and translates modern Chinese literature at a local
college.

    Indeed, modern Chinese history after the 1949 communist revo-
lution  is  not taught in Hong Kong's secondary schools. In addi-
tion,  an  education ordinance bans discussion of all politics in
high school.

    Political  activism  in  general  also  has a bad name in the
colony where many are refugees from war and communism.

    ''We  have a culture of apathy,'' said Yueng Sum, a Hong Kong
politician  and  a  leader  in  the small pro-democracy movement.
chaos, not freedom.''

    Changes  in  this perspective began last June and Lau and her
colleagues hope this bodes well for the school.

    China's  movement  for freedom sparked millions to flood Hong
Kong's  streets  in  an unprecedented show of solidarity with the
student  democracy movement on the mainland. But Beijing's crack-
down also convinced many that China could not be trusted to main-
tain  Hong  Kong's free-wheeling economic and social system after
it  assumes control of the territory. China has promised to allow
Hong  Kong  to  maintain it's current economic and social systems
for 50 years beyond 1997.

    Since  June  4, the rush to emigrate, which already hovers at
around  1,000 people a week, appears to have accelerated. But the
crackdown  in Beijing also sparked increased awareness of Chinese
affairs.

    Several  informal  surveys of young people in Hong Kong after
June  found them increasingly interested in politics and ready to
participate  in  movements, said Stephen L.W. Tang, a sociologist
at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

    ''For  the  first  time words like democracy and freedom were
more common than salary and benefits,'' Tang said.

    Back  on Stone Nullah Lane, there's little to do but wait and
see.

    ''It's  frustrating,'' said Cheng Yuk-shing, another lecturer
at  the school. ''But our neighbors only talk to us when we don't
shut the gate.''

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4. CBC TV Special Report "Eight Months After June 4th"
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CBC TV reporter Tom Kennedy has been collecting stories in China.
A  special  report titled "Eight months after June 4th" which was
sent  out  by  Kennedy will be aired on CBC TV "The Journal" in a
few days.  Please stay tuned.

--- A Student at UBC, Feb. 22, 90

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Have a Nice Weekend!
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|  China News Digest Executive Editor: (Bo Chi)   chi@vlsi.uwaterloo.edu  |
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Fri Feb 23 11:49:35 EST 1990