![]() |
-AUGUST, 1998- |
![]() |
Click on the calendar date in the chart below to see articles posted for that day.
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
31 |
Click on the article title below to view the article. Follow the 'Back to Top' links to return here. Follow the 'Back to Article Index' links to return to the group of articles corresponding to that article's post- date.
240 million Chinese affected by Yangtze
flooding
Government bans logging in western Sichuan
August 23, 1998 Web posted at: 1:14 p.m. EDT (1714 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- Water levels upstream on the Yangtze River rose Sunday to their highest of the year, threatening more flooding downstream where soggy dikes have begun to crack.
The government, meanwhile, announced a ban on logging in western Sichuan province along the upper reaches of the river to curb severe soil erosion.
Excessive logging of hillsides is partly to blame for the worst floods on the Yangtze in 44 years. Heavy rains this summer have washed off the denuded hills instead of soaking in, causing rivers to choke with silt and rise.
New crest expected
River levels dropped slowly on the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze Sunday after another crest passed. But the river was expected to crest again in flood danger zones by Tuesday, state radio reported.
It said the Yangtze on Sunday was at its highest level yet upstream at Chongqing, a main industrial hub in southwestern China.
Downriver in the city of Jiujiang, in south China's Jiangzi province, 300,000 soldiers and armed police patched up embankments. A sixth flood crest was expected to reach the waterlogged city, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Officials warned that dikes protecting Jiujiang and other cities were softening and cracking after weeks of pressure from high water levels.
Erosion hurts river basin
The heavily populated Yangtze River basin has been hardest hit by the summer's floods in China. Flooding along the river has affected 240 million people, about one-fifth of China's population, according to government estimates.
At least 2,000 have died nationwide, but that figure is expected to rise. The government, reluctant to report bad news, has not updated the death toll in more than two weeks. Since then, floods in the northeast have washed out villages and threatened major industrial centers and the country's main oil field.
Xinhua on Sunday reported "thousands" have died in the floods, but gave no updated figure. The agency reported at least 19 people died in Sichuan recently in flooding caused by torrential rains.
The ban on logging in Sichuan, effective September 1, was ordered in the Chuanxi Forest Area, 4.63 million hectares (11 million acres) spanning 54 counties, Xinhua reported.
Because of heavy logging, the area in western Sichuan where soil erosion is a problem has nearly doubled from 60,000 square kilometers (24,000 square miles) in the 1950s to 110,000 square kilometers (44,000 square miles), the report said.
Songhua at historic high
A mass troop mobilization helped the city of Harbin, in northeastern Heilongjiang province, to stave off the churning Songhua River, where a flood crest of 120.89 meters (yards) set an historic high as it passed the city on Saturday, Xinhua reported.
While the city of 9 million avoided catastrophe, waters were not receding and there was no break for 400,000 troops and civilians working around the clock to shore up levees, Xinhua said.
The river remained at record levels Sunday, state media said.
The army sent reinforcements to Harbin over the weekend to strengthen the 24-km (15-mile) levee protecting the center of the city from the Songhua.
Peasants hardest hit
But the government allowed villages on the opposite shore to be engulfed by a brown sea of river water to divert the flow away from Harbin. Throughout flooded regions, farms have been allowed to be inundated to protect cities.
While urban dwellers have survived the floods almost unscathed and food prices remained stable, peasants across vast swathes of rural China are holing up in tent cities and other temporary shelters, state media have reported.
In the backward eastern province of Anhui, 822,000 people had been evacuated from flooded areas. Some 60 percent of the victims had sought refuge with relatives and the rest were living in temporary shelters, Xinhua said.
In central Hunan province, where 1 million peasants were driven from their homes, half were living in tents, 200,000 in schools and government buildings, and the rest with relatives, Xinhua said.
Xinhua tallied 280,000 evacuees in northern Jilin province and said that 8.5 million people in Heilongjiang province were affected by floods. It warned of new health dangers as temperatures plunged in those far northern regions.
Flooded regions were short of medicines, and stomach illnesses, dysentery, hepatitis and diseases carried by waterborne parasites were on the rise, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang warned. Deadly snail fever, a waterborne disease, has already infected 400 flood fighters.
Zhang said the health problems could get worse in the next three months, a period that usually is the peak for the spread of epidemics in China.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Hong Kong journalist injured in brutal attack
August 19, 1998 Web posted at: 7:17 p.m. EDT (2317 GMT)
HONG KONG (CNN) -- Controversial Hong Kong radio personality Albert Cheng suffered severe injuries Wednesday when he was savagely attacked as he arrived for his morning talk show.
Two men -- one armed with a meat cleaver -- ambushed the 52-year-old journalist as he walked from a parking lot to Commercial Radio, which broadcasts his "Teapot in a Tempest" program. The program is Hong Kong's most popular.
"This is a challenge to ... our freedom and the rule of law," said James To, chairman of the Hong Kong legislature's security panel.
Legislator Martin Lee, a friend of Cheng's, called the attack "a very shameful and cowardly act."
Anson Chan, Hong Kong's chief secretary, said the territory would not tolerate such violence.
"Hong Kong is a society in which the rule of law prevails," he said.
Police had no motive or suspects for the attack, although the method -- Chinese-style meat cleavers -- is often favored by the Triads, Chinese gangs.
Fiery host
For three hours every weekday morning, Cheng and partner Lam Yuk-wah offer outspoken commentary and criticism on the issues of the day and take calls from listeners. From taxi drivers to shopkeepers, Cheng has become known as the voice of the common people of Hong Kong.
The list of those he's attacked -- and offended -- is long, but last year he was named one of Hong Kong's most influential people by Time magazine.
Despite the attack, Lam said he will carry on the show's format and style.
"I think we should have faith in the police and go on with what we have been doing," he said.
Cheng was listed in critical condition at a nearby hospital following emergency surgery. He suffered a fractured left arm and multiple cuts. Government radio said he was expected to remain in intensive care for at least two days.
Hong Kong Bureau Chief Mike Chinoy, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China floods surge toward record levels
August 19, 1998 Web posted at: 9:39 p.m. EDT (0139 GMT)
HARBIN, China (CNN) -- The raging waters of the Songhua River ripped through two 100-foot-long dikes on the northern edge of Harbin Wednesday, chasing away workers who toiled to protect the water barriers and cutting off traffic on a highway bridge.
Officials said the floodwaters had not yet reached the industrial city, home to about 3 million people, but a new surge was expected to roll down the river Friday and raise the river's depth to a record 120.6 meters (395 feet), the China Daily said.
The official Xinhua news agency reported that efforts to plug the breaches in the secondary dikes fell to the terrific strength of the river water.
"Local transport departments used two trucks to try to plug the rifts," the agency said, "but did not seem to have much effect, and water kept seeping in at many spots of the Songhua river dike."
Unusually heavy seasonal rains may yet feed the worst flooding in 50 years in China's northeast provinces, and floods along central China's Yangtze River are already the worst since 1954, when more than 30,000 people were killed. Over 2,000 people have lost their lives across the nation, and economic losses have reached at least $24.1 billion.
Tens of millions of people have been left homeless, and drinking waters have been poisoned.
"The incidence of intestinal disease is on the increase in flooded areas, but major epidemic diseases have not yet appeared," said Health Minister Zhang Wenkang in the China Daily.
Oil fields threatened
Fifty kilometers (30 miles) from Harbin at Qunli township, soldiers and residents tried to plug dike breaches with sandbags, rocks and planks, but the river forced them to abandon their efforts. In Jilin province, floods have forced nearly a million people to abandon their homes in Baicheng city, and nearly half of Zhenlai County's 17 townships are under water.
The Nen River is posing one of the gravest threats to China's economic future -- the river is approaching the Daqing oil filed, which accounts for a third of the country's production. Workers were wearing life jackets as they labored to keep partially submerged wells pumping. Nearly 2,000 of the field's 25,000-plus wells have been shut down.
China's central government has called on local governments to stabilize prices and curb hoarding of necessities.
"Severe punishment will be dealt to those units and individuals engaged in hoarding and speculation and to those who randomly raise products and traffic prices and charge arbitrary fees," the State Development and Planning Commission said in a circular quoted by Xinhua.
Over 2 million soldiers, paramilitary police and reservists have been called to action across the country, where they are rescuing civilians and reinforcing levees. Gen. Zhang Wannian told Xinhua the effort was "the largest military deployment" along the Yangtze River since the 1945-1949 civil war that put the communists in power.
China's devastating floods:
LOCATION: Along the Yangtze, the world's third-longest river, and on rivers in northeastern, north-central and southern provinces.
CASUALTIES: Unknown. An August 6 government report indicated "more than 2,000" deaths.
EVACUATIONS: About 14 million people. Some 240 million people affected by flooding in some manner.
DAMAGE: More than 17 million homes and 21.5 million hectares (53 million acres) of farmland have been flooded, according to official estimates.
Source: The Associated Press
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Floods threaten China's largest oil
field; last defense falls
Australia, Bangladesh also drenched
August 17, 1998 Web posted at: 6:09 p.m. EDT (2209 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- Raging river waters threatened to flood China's largest oil field Monday, despite 'round-the-clock sandbagging by soldiers.
A gap in the embankment, punched Sunday by the rain-swollen Nen River, widened Monday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The dike was the third and last line of defense for the Daqing oil field, Xinhua said.
The city of Daqing, with 2.3 million people, also is threatened by the river. The nation's northwestern regional commander doubled the number of troops fighting the floods by sending 10,000 more soldiers to the area, Xinhua said.
Near the Daqing oil field, 600 miles northeast of Beijing, 2,000 soldiers piled sandbags 6 feet high along a 3-mile embankment, Xinhua said. But their efforts fell short.
A 'life and death' defense
Although Xinhua said the Nen had yet to reach the Daqing wells, the third dike marked a "life-and-death defense" for Daqing, the China Daily quoted Wang Yang, an army captain in charge of the dike, as saying.
Flooding at Daqing closed 527 oil wells, reducing output by more than 2 million gallons last week. Daqing has 25,000 wells that produced 17.9 billion gallons of oil last year, about a third of the nation's total.
In central China to the south, the Yangtze River reached a new record height of 149.2 feet Monday at the city of Shashi in the province of Hubei. The city's population is 500,000.
Previously, Chinese officials warned that if the river rose past 148.5 feet, dikes might have to be dynamited south of Shashi to avoid flooding other cities downriver. But water levels in the Yangtze began dropping later on Monday.
"There's been a turn for the better," said a flood control official who gave only his surname, Xu. He predicted the water would not rise high enough to make destroying dikes necessary.
Other reports weren't as optimistic. Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, the senior government official in charge of flood control, told state television that dikes downstream were undergoing "a great historic trial."
Water levels on the Yangtze's mid-reaches have been above the danger mark for 50 days, Xinhua said. Upstream, in Sichuan province, more heavy rains last week brought landslides that buried 20 people in the city of Suining, the news agency said.
Australian rains strand commuters
In Australia, mudslides and floods triggered by heavy rains stranded thousands of commuters south of Sydney.
The rains cut Sydney off from the city of Wollongong to the south, stranding more than 2,000 train commuters at peak hour.
The rains also forced the evacuation of homes in Wollongong suburbs 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Sydney.
All roads and the railway line from Sydney to Wollongong were closed, and the State Emergency Services headquarters was flooded, disrupting communications.
Late Monday, a 14-year-old girl was rescued after being swept at least 2 miles (3 kilometers) down the Nepean River near Camden.
The girl was hospitalized in serious condition after she was finally plucked from the water by a CareFlight helicopter.
Rains soak Bangladesh
Flooding also continued to wreak havoc in Bangladesh, where fresh rains dashed recovery hopes.
Seven people drowned in floodwaters around the country and three others were killed in a building collapse in Dhaka, the capital, on Monday. Those deaths pushed the death toll from rains and flooding to 346.
The country has been pounded by rains for five weeks, and more is predicted.
"Every drop of water now brings increased misery to the people caught in the floods," one official said.
Sajedur Rahman, a senior meteorologist, said the floods would be on and off until September. All rivers, some of which were receding Sunday, began rising again.
In some areas, there is no dry ground in which to bury the dead. Waterborne disease also is causing problems.
Health officials said nearly 50,000 people have contracted diarrhea by drinking polluted water or eating rotten food, and at least 40 people have died.
So far, nearly 25 million people have been affected by the floods, which have been the worst in 10 years. Government officials estimate that more than 1 million acres of rice and other crops have been destroyed.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Major Chinese city threatened with worst flood in half-century
August 15, 1998 Web posted at: 11:11 p.m. EDT (0311 GMT)
BEIJING (CNN) -- Swollen rivers crushed levees in China Saturday as flooding threatened a major industrial city with its worst disaster in almost 50 years.
Heavy rains in northwestern Heilongjiang province have pushed water levels to record highs in the Nen and Songhua rivers and are expected to bring the worst floods since 1949 to the provincial capital of Harbin, a city of 2.4 million, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
No casualties were reported from a dike collapse Saturday near Daqing, northwest of Harbin, which forced the evacuation of about 3,850 people, Xinhua said.
So far, the summer floods have killed more than 2,000 people and left millions homeless, affecting one-fifth of the nation's population. Damage has been estimated at $24 billion by official Chinese media.
Flooding began along the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which runs across north-central China. The Yellow River has been the source of disastrous floods over the centuries.
The Yangtze River, farther to the south, also has caused floods. Over the next few days, Chinese meteorologists have forecast light to torrential rains for the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze and its tributaries.
Jiang says flood reaching 'crucial stage'
President Jiang Zemin toured the Yangtze earlier this week and urged the nation to rally together in the fight against the summer's floods. He warned that after more than six weeks of flooding, the disaster was reaching a "crucial stage."
State television showed the normally staid Jiang shouting into a bullhorn, urging soldiers in camouflage and bright orange life vests to persevere.
"The People's Liberation Army should play the role of shock troops, overcoming fatigue and sharpening vigilance to make new contributions," Jiang said.
Millions of people have been stranded on sweltering dikes along the raging Yangtze with minimal shelter, clean water or food. Jiang urged relief workers to ensure social order and guard against the spread of diseases, Xinhua said.
Warning issued over disease prevention
China's Cabinet, the State Council, issued an urgent order Saturday warning that more needed to be done to prevent outbreaks of disease.
"Historical experience tells us that major disasters often lead to epidemics," said the order carried by Xinhua.
Government officials say that only a few outbreaks of infectious diseases have occurred in the flooded areas.
Thousands of medical teams are handing out food, water purification tablets and medical supplies. But shortages of funds are delaying relief efforts, the Red Cross said.
Meanwhile, state radio reported that Li Peng, chairman of the National People's Congress and former premier, had traveled to Heilongjiang province to observe the flood fight along the Nen and Songhua rivers in China's industrial heartland.
At Daqing, which produced about half of China's oil last year, 355 of the oil field's 20,000 wells were waterlogged, Xinhua reported.
Soldiers and residents had abandoned efforts to repair dikes that burst Friday and Saturday and were concentrating on shoring up other levees protecting the oil field.
While the government has largely blamed the floods on La Niņa, a spell of cold temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can trigger rains over Asia, some officials have pointed fingers at deforestation along rivers as a major factor in the severity of this year's disaster.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China floods spread, oil field levee bursts
08/14/98- Updated 10:55 AM ET
BEIJING - A major levee protecting China's largest oil field gave way Friday, prompting the evacuation of thousands of residents as devastating floods spread to the country's northeast, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Heilongjiang, an industrial and agricultural province that borders Russia, mobilized 1 million civilians and soldiers for a "round-the-clock fight" against the flooded Nen and Songhua rivers, Xinhua said.
More than 200,000 people were fighting flooding in Daqing, where the oil field is located. Residents were safely evacuated and no casualties were reported from the breach in the dike, Xinhua said.
Rescue workers also were evacuating more than 20,000 people stranded after floods washed out railway tracks in Heilongjiang, state media said.
More than 2,000 people have been killed and millions have been left homeless in the worst floods in 44 years.
A flood near Aksu, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, killed four people and left dozens missing Thursday, inundating an area inhabited by about 100,000 people, the official Workers Daily reported.
Floods and landslides also forced the closure of a major rail line in the northwest, between Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, and the city of Lanzhou, the reports said.
With a rain belt stretching across central China, floods were predicted to continue and to worsen in the northeast and along the Yellow River, which was expected to become dangerously swollen in the next few weeks, the official China Daily reported.
Meanwhile, residents and soldiers worked feverishly to fortify levees along the turbulent Yangtze, bracing for yet another flood crest forecast to sweep downriver within the next few days.
Experts warned that as flood waters recede, dikes might weaken further. Diseases also threaten, with skin infections already on the rise because people have been immersed in polluted water for weeks.
"People must wade through waist high water to go about their daily life," the Red Cross reported from one flood-hit province.
Ten thousand medical teams are handing out food, water purification tablets, medical supplies, and evacuating people in flooded areas.
But shortages of funds are delaying relief efforts, the Red Cross said. It appealed urgently for help.
More than 20,000 people had been stranded for six days along the Harbin-Manzhouli railway line, northwest of Harbin. Evacuation began Thursday after the line was reopened.
State-run television showed rails that had been cobbled together with boards and wire after embankments and bridges were washed away. Vast areas surrounding the line remained inundated.
By The Associated Press
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China floods a growing tale of economic disaster
By Scott Hillis
BEIJING, Aug 13 (Reuters) - From soaked oil fields in the northeast to washed-out rice paddies in its fertile central plains, China's worst floods in more than 60 years are delivering a hammer blow to its faltering economy.
Although China has said damage from flooding may top 200 billion yuan ($24 billion) and chop 0.5 of a percentage point off economic growth this year, specifics are just now emerging more than a month after the disaster hit.
Floods this summer have killed more than 2,000 people, affected 240 million and submerged 21.53 million hectares (54.2 million acres) of farmland, according to week-old official statistics. Officials and state media on Thursday painted in the latest details of widespread economic disruption.
An official with the Daqing oil fields in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang said more than 1,000 wells had been shut down by recent flooding.
"The wells had become waterlogged after 10 days of constant heavy rains," the official told Reuters. The official declined to say what impact the closures would have on Daqing, which pumps out more than 50 million tones of crude oil a year, making it China's biggest producer.
To the south, devastating floods in the Yangtze River valley have inundated some of the area's best rice fields, the State Meteorological Bureau said.
The river, its waters swollen to record levels by torrential rains in its upper reaches, had burst its dikes in Hubei and Jiangxi provinces, inundating fertile rice-growing lands, the bureau said in its report for the first 10 days of August.
Grain traders in Hong Kong estimated the floods would trim China's rice crop by five to 20 percent.
"The rice crop has been hurt, that's for sure," one trader said. "I would say the damage is probably around 10 percent, but no one has got an exact figure."
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Agriculture warned the floods would make it difficult to reach the national grain production target for this year. A target of 492.5 million tones was announced in March. China has blamed the flooding for slashing summer grain output by 11 million tones compared with last year's harvest.
Shortages of grain, vegetables and other commodities have sprung up in flooded areas, prompting Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily to call for measures to stabilize prices.
"Price bureaus at all levels should actively take measures to stabilize market prices, strengthen supervision and checks of market prices and strike at illegal actions that disrupt market order,'' the newspaper said.
The floods could hardly have hit at a worse time for China, which is struggling to revive faltering growth amid the Asian financial crisis and its own drive to overhaul creaking state firms and a shaky banking system.
Industrial output growth continued to slide in July, falling to a year-on-year 7.6 percent from 7.9 percent in June.
The figure casts doubt on whether Beijing will be able to meet its target of 11 percent growth in output for the year, which it says is essential to achieve its eight percent economic growth target and soak up droves of laid-off state workers.
It is not clear how many factories have been shuttered by the floods, but one listed company, Hubei Axles Stock Co Ltd, came forward on Thursday and said it had stopped production at two facilities near the Yangtze.
"The plants are in a flood diversion zone and under government orders we were required to move them away after the water level reached a certain point," company spokesman Li Fangping said.
The factories had not been flooded and Hubei Axles would return as soon as the waters subsided, Li said.
The company, which makes agricultural equipment, has A shares for domestic investors listed in Shenzhen.
The Xinhua news agency tried to cast a positive light on the floods, saying the widespread destruction of houses would boost demand and spur the economy.
"The floods delayed some infrastructure projects and weakened consumer spending in rural areas, but the large-scale home rebuilding activity after the floods is expected to stimulate consumer spending," it said.
But China's flood disaster story is far from over.
New floods in northeastern China are threatening millions of people in the country's industrial heartland, while in the south a fresh flood peak is rushing down the Yangtze River, officials and state media said on Thursday.
The swollen Songhua River is posing a threat to a million people near Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province and a major industrial center and grain production base,'' the China Daily said.
Deeper north in Heilongjiang province on the Nen River, which merges with the Songhua before passing Harbin, the heavy waters were weakening dikes protecting the industrial city of Qiqihaer, it said.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China's propagandists spin flood story
An Associated Press news analysis
08/12/98- Updated 05:32 PM ET
BEIJING - Even by the skewed standards of Chinese government propaganda, the story of the soldiers, the hornets and a young villager's breast milk was bizarre.
State-run television aired footage of Xu Hongping baring her breasts to squirt milk onto the soldiers' hornet stings, cleaning the sores of the men fighting China's worst flooding since 1954.
The story is typical of how state-run media are glorifying flood rescue efforts while underplaying the misery of a disaster that has affected almost a fifth of China's population and killed more than 2,000 people.
The ruling Communist Party has seized on the floods to showcase the sacrifices of the People's Liberation Army - reviled by many after they shot at pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989. The soldiers are often shown plugging breaches, manning vital levees and rescuing victims clinging to trees and rooftops.
For state media - the only source of news for most Chinese - and their government censors, the theme of the floods has been of officials, soldiers and common people toiling together against the raging torrents.
Deaths are skirted over or ignored; setbacks in anti-flood efforts, if reported, often are given a positive spin; the true number of casualties is unknown. The government says "more than" 2,000 dead, but provides no specifics.
In official reports, tales of heroism and sacrifice drown out the protests of farmers whose houses and land deliberately were flooded to safeguard cities downstream.
In a country as big and as heavily populated as China, counting casualties does take time, particularly when the devastation is as widespread as this year, with more than 17 million homes and tens of thousands of miles of farmland inundated.
But the government has actively sought to keep bad news under wraps, heavily policing badly hit areas and turning away foreign and even some Chinese reporters. One Chinese reporter said police stopped him from filming hundreds of bodies he saw bobbing on floodwaters.
Chinese reporters are not expected to go out and get the most newsworthy stories. Rather, they are under government orders to provide uplifting coverage for the millions of people exhausted, made homeless or left grieving by the weeks of floods.
"Reporting too many negative things could create panic. ...It's not beneficial to social stability," explained Guo Qingguang, deputy director of the journalism school at Beijing's elite People's University.
So, stories are plentiful such as the China Daily's "Hero becomes human sandbag," telling how Wang Zhangcheng, a physically disabled man in his 60s, used his body to block a 3-foot hole in a levee in Wuhan.
His bravery "virtually saved the city," the official newspaper said.
Or "Zhu Rongji cries in Jiujiang," a Yangcheng Evening News report about how China's usually impassive premier shed tears after giving a pep talk to troops repairing a breached dike in Jiujiang, a southeastern city of 500,000.
And the tale of Xu and her milk, with its message of a maternal bond between ordinary Chinese and the army.
"The soldiers have come to protect us," Xu told the TV crew. "What I did was nothing."
New coverage of the 2.9-million-member army saving civilians is useful at a time when the military has been embarrassed by a government crackdown on smuggling that has singled out its illegal activities.
"The first to arrive at the front line are the soldiers. This is a fact," said Guo, the journalism professor. "On the other hand, this is also used to strengthen the relationship between the army and the people."
By The Associated Press
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China's floods are most destructive in decades
BEIJING, Aug 10 (Reuters) - With no end in sight to flooding along China's Yangtze river, an official said on Monday that the devastation has far exceeded that caused by floods in 1954, still remembered as the worst in the country's modern history.
"This year's floods seem to have already surpassed the 1954 floods in terms of destruction," an official at the Ministry of the Interior said
Whereas 18.88 million people were affected by the 1954 floods, 240 million have been directly affected by this summer's high waters -- a figure roughly equal to the population of the United States, Ministry of Civil Affairs figures showed.
In addition, farmland covering 21.53 million hectares (83,100 square miles) -- the combined areas of England and Ireland -- is currently underwater, versus 3.17 million hectares (12,200 square miles) in 1954.
This year's floods have so far damaged or destroyed 17.63 million houses, compared with 4.28 million in 1954, according to ministry figures.
And the official price tag on flooding damage stood at more than $4,800,000,000 as of mid-July, four times the amount in 1954.
Only in terms of the number of people killed does the current disaster weigh favorably over 1954's floods.
In 1954, 33,000 people died according to official statistics.
This year's official death toll stands at 2,000, though it could still rise.
Other recent catastrophic floods along the Yangtze River occurred in 1949, 1935, 1931 and 1870 and claimed millions of lives.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
U.S. grants flood relief to China
SHANGHAI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - The United States has pledged to rush relief supplies and $250,000 in humanitarian aid to help China recover from massive flood damage, a U.S. embassy official said on Monday.
Ambassador James Sasser, speaking at a ceremony in the southern city of Changsha, said $250,000 would be turned over to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to provide water purification and sanitation services, an embassy official said.
Two transport planes were scheduled to arrive in Changsha this week to deliver tents, blankets and drinking water containers.
Flooding along the Yangtze has claimed at least 2,000 lives this summer, inundating homes and factories and forcing residents to flee.
Changsha is capital of Hunan province, one of several provinces hit hard by this year's flooding.
Neighboring Hubei province has also seen extensive damage.
Officials in Hubei destroyed secondary dikes along the Yangtze River on Sunday to try to avert killer floods threatening seven million people in the provincial capital of Wuhan, state media reported.
Dikes were blown up in Jianli county, 150 km (90 miles) upstream from Wuhan, after about 50,000 residents were evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Chinese petition Indonesia over riots
By Matt Pottinger
BEIJING, Aug 10 (Reuters) - More than 200 Chinese citizens petitioned the Indonesian embassy in Beijing on Monday over atrocities committed against ethnic Chinese during rioting in Jakarta last May.
The petition, containing the signatures of 232 Chinese people, compared Indonesian violence against ethnic Chinese to Nazi Germany's crimes against Jews.
"The brutality is an insult to the dignity of the world's 1.3 billion Chinese people," the petition said.
Jiang Qisheng, a pro-democracy activist, Zhao Xin, a businessman, and Wu Pei, a teacher, submitted the strongly worded letter to an embassy official.
Chinese plainclothes police video-taped the scene in front of the Indonesian embassy, but did not take action against the petitioners. The signatories included several well known activists and their relatives.
The petition called on international groups such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund to push Jakarta in its investigation of the racial crimes.
It also called for the establishment of democratic reforms in exchange for international aid for Indonesia's recovery from economic turmoil.
"The Indonesian riots tell us only a democratic system of government can guarantee that the basic human rights of citizens, and especially minorities, can be guaranteed."
Much of the two-page text was also aimed at Beijing, which dissident Jiang said was "too weak on this issue."
Specifically, the letter called for China's government to increase direct diplomatic pressure for Indonesia to punish perpetrators and to compensate victims.
It also appealed to Beijing to create special havens on Chinese soil where Chinese-Indonesians could seek sanctuary.
"We should set up a refuge in (southern) Hainan island for those Chinese who don't want to continue living in Indonesia," dissident Jiang said.
Indonesia's deputy chief of mission in Beijing, Ibrahim Yusuf, met with the three for about half an hour.
"We accept their concerns and will send them to the government," Yusuf said afterwards.
"But we explained to them that the government of Indonesia condemns the May violence and has established a fact-finding committee. The results of the fact finding will be announced here," he said.
For their part, the petitioners said they were pleased with Yusuf's "sincerity."
But Zhao, the businessman, added: "If action doesn't follow his words, we will be back, and with greater intensity."
"China is their ancestral home. China should stand with ethnic Chinese," Wu, the teacher, said.
China began making bolder statements on the plight of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia in mid-July when the Chinese foreign ministry called on Jakarta to investigate the atrocities.
Indonesian human rights groups estimate that 1,200 people were killed and more than 150 women were raped, most of them of Chinese descent, in the May 13-15 chaos.
The Indonesian violence, which ended the 32-year reign of President Suharto, saw the destruction of thousands of shops owned by Chinese-Indonesians.
China has rarely criticized other authoritarian governments.
Beijing rejects criticism of its policies on pro-separatist minorities in the far-flung regions of Tibet and Xinjiang as interference in its internal affairs.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China battles to plug breach in key Yangtze River dike
Disaster teams battle floodwaters
BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese soldiers and civilian volunteers struggled to plug a major breach along a key Yangtze River dike Sunday as the flood-swollen waterway continued to rise.
A lack of expertise and proper equipment were slowing efforts to fill a hole in the dike that has flooded a 4-square-kilometer (1.6-square-mile) area of Jiujiang city since bursting on Friday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Eight river boats have been sunk in the breach to try to block it, along with several truck loads of stone, soybeans, rice and various other materials, the agency said.
Residents have constructed a 90 meter-(297 foot-) long temporary levee behind the breached dike to contain the flooding, with another 3,000-meter- (9,900-foot-) long dike raised behind it as an extra precaution, Xinhua said.
The Jiujiang hole is one of the most serious breaches so far in the approximately 30,000 kilometers (18,600 miles) of dikes in the Yangtze region that authorities worry could collapse after weeks of rain and flooding.
A flood crest, the fourth this year, was heading towards Jiujiang after roaring through upstream sections of the river in Hubei province on Saturday, Xinhua said. Water levels at Wuhan, an industrial center in Hubei with 7 million inhabitants, have been rising slowly since Saturday, it said.
If those waters rise too high, authorities plan to open sluice gates and possibly dynamite dikes to divert water into a flood plain in central Hubei province in order to relieve pressure on waterlogged dikes and save cities further downstream.
Millions made homeless by flooding
About 330,000 people have been evacuated from the Jingjiang area, leaving behind homes that will be covered by water if the last-ditch order to flood from China's Cabinet is given.
For that to happen, water levels on the Yangtze would have to reach the record high of 45 meters (148.5 feet) at Shashi city, north of the flood diversion area, Xinhua reported. Waters were within centimeters (inches) of the level, Xinhua said.
The area was last used to divert the Yangtze in 1954, when floods killed more than 30,000 people. A curfew has been thrown over the area, and security forces have been ordered to remove residents reluctant to leave behind their homes and belongings.
In Jiujiang, a center of industry and tourism in Jiangxi province, army engineers plan to drive a dozen steel pipes into in the gap in an attempt to block it, Xinhua said.
Thousands of residents have been evacuated from areas of the city where flood waters reportedly rose as high as 2 meters (6.6 feet), and families living on the ground floor of apartment buildings have been ordered to move. Jiujiang has an urban population of about 500,000.
More than 2,000 persons have died nationwide in floods caused by seasonal rains that arrived a month early and fell much harder than usual. Millions more have been made homeless, while flood damage and the relief effort are expected to be a major drag on the Chinese economy in the second half of 1998.
By The Associated Press
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China dissident faces charges over opposition party
BEIJING, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A student leader of the ill-fated 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations has been formally arrested for trying to register an opposition political party, his wife said on Saturday.
Wang Youcai, 32, would almost certainly be charged with and convicted of "inciting the overthrow of the government," a Hong Kong-based human rights group said in a statement.
Wang, 32, detained since July 10, was one of 13 dissidents rounded up in the eastern city of Hangzhou for trying to register the Chinese Democratic Party on June 25, the first day of U.S. President Bill Clinton's nine-day state visit to China.
All except Wang have been released. Hangzhou police informed Wang's wife Hu Jiangxia by telephone on Saturday that the pro-democracy campaigner was formally arrested the day earlier on charges of inciting to overthrow the government, the wife said.
"I don't understand this," Hu told Reuters. "This result should not be like this," she said. "They should not have charged him with inciting the overthrow of the government."
The wife said police also told her that they had sent her a letter informing her of Wang's formal arrest.
She wrote an open letter to President Jiang Zemin this month, urging that her husband receive "open and fair treatment."
Police have refused to comment on Wang's case. If charged and convicted, Wang could be sentenced to life in prison, according to Chinese law.
"The formal arrest implies Wang Youcai will certainly be convicted," said the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democracy Movement in China.
"In China, no dissident has ever escaped conviction after being formally arrested. Hence, it is certain Wang Youcai will be sentenced," said the center, which monitors human rights abuses in China.
After trying and failing to register the party, the Hangzhou dissidents had dropped their plan before Clinton left China, saying the challenge to Communist Party supremacy was too risky.
Washington has urged Beijing to release the Hangzhou dissidents, but China has dismissed this as interference in its internal affairs and said most of the dissidents were criminals.
During his visit, Clinton argued for human rights and greater freedom in China, raising hopes that the world's most populous nation would be more open.
Wang was paroled in 1991 after serving two years in prison for his role in student-led demonstrations for democracy centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Those protests were brutally crushed by the army on June 4, 1989 with heavy loss of life.
Wang, a physics graduate student at the prestigious Peking University in 1989, had been sentenced to three years in prison. He was on the government's list of 21 most wanted student leaders.
Fellow dissidents have applied to police to march through Hangzhou's streets on August 12 to call for Wang's immediate release. Police were expected to reject their application.
A group of 23 dissidents has written an open letter to President Jiang saying they are willing to accompany Wang and go to jail if he were convicted.
By Reuters
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China 'summer camp' hides difficulty of floods
By Scott Hillis
NANJING, China, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Children tanned from weeks in the hot Yangtze river valley sun skip through the yard of the China Professional Education Center playing games.
In the evenings they watch movies and later sleep crowded together on straw mats on the floor.
But the blue lettering on an indoor chalk board reading "Flood Period Summer Camp" tells the visitor this is not a typical vacation getaway.
It is a shelter for more than 300 people -- including some 90 children -- evacuated last month from nearby Jiangxin island in eastern Jiangsu province amid China's worst floods in more than four decades.
As heavy rains swelled the Yangtze past the danger level authorities on Jiangxin -- literally meaning "River's Heart" -- ordered the evacuation of the island's elderly and children to the camp about 12 km (7 miles) away.
While dump trucks loaded with dirt rumbled into Jiangxin to shore up the island's defences against the rising waters, buses ferried people to safety in a scene repeated across Jiangsu, where 27,000 villagers have been evacuated.
"The floods this year came earlier and were bigger than usual," Huang Lixin, deputy director of the Jiangsu Hydrology Office, told Reuters on Friday.
Nationwide some 13.8 million people have been forced to flee their homes, civil affairs officials have said. Jiangsu has mobilized 800,000 civilians, soldiers and police to reinforce and monitor dikes along the 420 km (260 miles) stretch of the Yangtze that snakes through the province, Huang said.
On Jiangxin, thick cement and earthen dikes guard
the island's 12,000 inhabitants.
Ironically, though the stout embankments hold the river at bay, they
caused flooding of Jiangxin's rice paddies and vineyards this month by trapping
the buckets of rain dumped on the area.
"The water was up to here," one middle-aged woman at the relocation center said, holding a hand level with her waist.
"Our crops were flooded and people's houses were submerged, she said before walking away nervously as a curious crowd gathered to listen.
But by Friday, apart from a few low-lying plots of corn, rice and fruit trees still partially submerged, life on Jiangxin appeared to be carrying on as usual.
With the official nationwide death toll standing at more than 2,000 people and economic damage assessed at more than $4.8 billion, Jiangsu - one of China's richest provinces - claims to have gotten off lightly.
"We have had no breaking dikes, no breached embankments and not a single death," stated Huang.
"The Yangtze's waters have been roiling but there has not been much effect on the lives of average people," she said.
But flood control workers remained vigilant against the expected August 12-13 arrival of a massive crest of water sent rushing downstream by heavy rains in the upper reaches.
"It will have a big impact. We've had floods for a month and the dikes are soggy and have weakened in some places," Huang said.
Still, like most other Yangtze cities, Nanjing is well-fortified against the river's assaults and officials said they were confident dikes were tall enough and thick enough to withstand nature's fury.
Flood monitors posted around the perimeter of Jiangxin napped in their tents, escaping the summer sun, apparently unconcerned by the lapping of the Yangtze's muddy yellow water some two meters (7 ft) below.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
BEIJING (CNN) -- Flood workers in China's central Hubei province said Saturday they may be forced to blow up dikes in a desperate bid to spare cities downstream of the massive Yangtze River from flooding that has killed more than 2,000 people since it began in June.
To take the pressure off the Yangtze embankments, preparations were in place to dynamite the dikes and open floodgates to divert waters into Hubei's Jingjiang flood plain, thereby protecting weakened embankments downstream.
About 330,000 people were to have been evacuated from the area, although there were conflicting reports about whether the evacuation was complete. Dynamiting the dike will require the approval of China's State Council, or Cabinet.
Meanwhile, emergency teams in Jiujian city -- about 370 kilometers (230 miles) to the east, in Jiangxi province -- were trying to plug a major breach in a dike, caused when a levee partially collapsed. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians were trying to fill a 40-meter (131-foot) hole in an embankment that occurred Friday, releasing a deluge of water. The water flooded parts of the city of 500,000 to a depth of 2 meters (nearly 7 feet), forcing many residents to evacuate.
Emergency teams sank eight boats to try to plug the breach, the Xinhua state-run news agency said. Among the materials used were coal, rice, sand and soybeans.
More than 30,000 soldiers and civilians were building dams to hold back the water, Xinhua reported.
Waiting for blast orders
The Jingjiang flood diversion area has not been used since 1954, when floods killed more than 30,000 people.
"We're prepared," said Chen Zhichao, director of the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Management Bureau. "When the order comes, we are ready to carry it out."
For the order to be given, water levels on the Yangtze would have to reach a record high of 45 meters (149 feet) at Shashi city, just north of the area that would be flooded, Xinhua reported.
Officials said Saturday the water level was just 6 centimeters (2 inches) below that level, but there were contradictory reports as to whether the water level was still rising or had begun to fall.
"The flooding situation remains severe," Xinhua reported Saturday.
There also were contradictory reports about the status of the evacuation ordered in the flood-diversion area. Officials, when pressed for details, gave different accounts to Reuters news service.
One official said the evacuation was "complete," then added: "We are currently, according to orders, still evacuating residents."
A second official said: "All residents in Gong'an county have been transferred to the city of Jingzhou."
"If we explode the dike, more than 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of land will be submerged [and] 27,000 to 33,000 hectares (68,000 to 82,000 acres) of farmland will be under water," he said.
The emergency flooding is aimed at protecting rich farmland and key cities, including Wuhan, the principal industrial, commercial and transportation center of central China.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China evacuates 520,000 before blowing dikes
By Paul Eckert
BEIJING, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Authorities in central China are evacuating more than half a million people as they prepare to blow up dikes to divert a crest of water raging down the Yangtze River, officials and state media said on Friday.
"We are preparing to blow up dikes to ease flood pressure on Wuhan," said a flood prevention official in Gongan county, 200 km (124 miles) west of Hubei province's capital, Wuhan.
Gongan was expected to bear the brunt of flooding if waters were diverted.
A swell of water, which surged through Hubei's Yichang city on Thursday afternoon, was expected to hit Shashi city, 150 km (94 miles) upstream of Gongan, by Friday afternoon, the official said.
"If water levels in Shashi rise to 45.5 metres from the current 44.8 metres, we will blow up dikes," the official said by telephone.
Hubei declared a state of emergency on Thursday as the tide threatened to burst dikes at hundreds of points and inundate areas battered by floods for over a month, state media said.
"The worst moment of the year's flood-control efforts is probably coming on the middle reaches of the Yangtze," state media quoted an official from the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Commission as saying.
Torrential rains have lashed central and eastern China for weeks, pushing rivers and lakes to their highest levels since 1954 and triggering devastating floods that have killed more than 2,000 people, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has said.
The floods have affected 240 million people -- a fifth of China's population and roughly equal to that of the United States -- of whom some 13.8 million have fled to safer areas, the ministry has said.
An official at the Jingjiang Flood Control
Headquarters said about 520,000 people would be evacuated from around Gongan
county, adding that 335,000 had alread been moved.
"We have been moving people since last night and will move all
people to safe areas before midday," the Gongan official said.
Flood-control workers have allowed some dikes to collapse to channel waters away from major cities, officials have said.
Authorities abandoned five dikes near Hubei's Jinzhou city on Thursday and Friday, evacuating 100,000 people from the area, a Hubei flood control official said.
The China Daily said the bodies of five soldiers and eight civilians had been recovered after a dike burst in Hubei's Jiayu county on Saturday, washing away 200 people.
Two people died and 40,000 were stranded when another levee collapsed in Jiujiang city in eastern Jiangxi province on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Meanwhile, central Anhui province braced for an onslaught of water from two sides as the Yangtze swell closed in from the west and Typhoon Otto roared in from the east, The China Daily said.
In central Hunan province, 2.3 million soldiers and civilians were reinforcing flood defenses to prepare for the arrival of the Yangtze flood peak and the typhoon, it said.
Xinhua quoted meteorologists as saying Typhoon Otto had lost some of its force and was unlikely to cause strong winds and rains in China over the next few days.
But they forecast five to seven typhoons will hit China in the next three months, Xinhua said.
Summer floods, an annual scourge, have this year destroyed 5.58 million houses and damaged 4.78 million hectares (11.8 million acres) of crops, causing at least $4.8 billion in damage, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has said.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
China: Flooding death toll tops 2,000
BEIJING (CNN) -- More than 2,000 people have died in China's long season of summer flooding, Chinese officials said Thursday, raising the previously death toll estimate by 700.
Officials said that floods, landslides and mudflows have affected some 240 million people -- one-fifth of China's population and roughly equal to that of the United States.
Landslides and mudflows are responsible for more than 90 percent of the deaths between June and August 3, said China's Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The death toll could go higher, as the battle against China's swollen waterways, particularly the Yangtze River, is expected to drag on for weeks, officials said.
After weeks of rain, dikes along the Yangtze, now at its highest level since 1954, are saturated. Thousands of weak points threaten to give way at any time.
Millions of residents and soldiers are patrolling the swollen river around the clock to find and fix cracks, and to shore up levees with sandbags, stones and wooden stakes.
More than 13 million forced to relocate
Officials in central Hubei province, the area worst hit by the flooding, declared a state of emergency on Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Expecting water levels to rise further, Hubei officials ordered local residents to help shore up levees and safeguard major cities, Xinhua said.
There is also serious flood damage in northeastern China, in central Shaanxi province and in southern Guangdong and Guangxi, officials said.
On Wednesday, a levee protecting 35,000 people in Jiujiang, on the Yangtze, gave way. Fearing the levee could burst, officials had already ordered 20,000 people out of the area. Another 14,000 were moved after the breach, a Jiujiang official told The Associated Press.
Vice Minister of Civil Affairs Fan Baojun said a total of 13.8 million Chinese had been relocated to safer areas. The flooding has destroyed 5.58 million homes and damaged 12.05 million more, Fan said.
Torrential rains triggered floods and landslides in Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, killing at least 58 people, leaving at least 30 others missing and submerging thousands of homes, officials said.
Officials have urged some 200,000 people living in low-lying areas to move to higher ground.
Since last weekend, heavy rains and floods have left 184 people in South Korea dead or missing.
The water has also uprooted land mines in the demilitarized zone, an official said.
The floodwaters have swamped 53.2 million acres of farmland (21.28 million hectares) and destroyed 11.8 million acres (4.72 million hectares) of crops, he said.
This season's death toll is the highest since 1991, officials said.
Seasonal rains fell earlier and heavier this year. The Yangtze is at its highest level since 1954, when 30,000 people died during devastating flooding.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Hundreds killed as flood dikes collapse in China
Hunan province, China (CNN) -- China's worst flooding in decades claimed hundreds of new victims when the Yangtze River broke a dike in central Hubei province, washing away a company of soldiers sent to shore up the levee, officials said on Tuesday.
"About 200 people -- including soldiers, farmers, laborers and local leaders -- were working to protect the dike when it collapsed," said a local official in Hubei's Jiayu county.
The dike broke on Saturday, but the Hubei provincial government imposed a news blackout on flood reports from the county, which is home to more than half a million people, a second local official said.
The Flood Information Center said floodwaters had receded in the 37 affected administrative districts, but may rise again in northern and northwestern areas due to heavy rains.
Major rivers were still above danger levels.
The meteorological department said the monsoon was again active, with 170 millimeters (6.8 inches) of rain recorded in northern Dinajpur district on Monday.
The official toll from a month of flooding was 256, but the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, claimed three more lives.
A senior government doctor has warned of a rise in the number of people falling ill from intestinal diseases due to a shortage of drinking water.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Levees along Yangtze collapse; death toll reported massive
BEIJING (AP) -- Waterlogged levees along China's flood-swollen Yangtze River have started to collapse, wreaking death and destruction on a massive scale, state media said Tuesday without providing any casualty figures.
With a tropical storm and another flood tide expected, the threat mounted of further breaches along the already weakened levees that protect millions of people and rich farmland from the world's third-longest river.
Main Yangtze dikes remain intact but secondary levees were breached in at least two counties and a city in central China's Hubei province, "causing huge loss of life and property," the official China Youth Daily reported.
The newspaper gave no casualty figures. But a human rights group said 150 soldiers and hundreds of villagers were swept away when a levee suddenly collapsed Saturday in Hubei's Jiayu county, about 43 miles (70 km) upriver from the industrial center of Wuhan.
As of Monday, the bodies of nine soldiers had been recovered, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
Local officials have barred international journalists from visiting the worst affected flood areas, and state-controlled media tend to provide delayed or conflicting accounts and downplay casualties.
The official newspaper Yangcheng Evening News said about 400 soldiers were swept away when the levee that had been protecting an estimated 56,000 people in two towns collapsed. Soldiers and police pulled nearly 20,000 people from the water, the newspaper said.
More than 100,000 people lost their homes when a levee burst in Anxiang, in neighboring Hunan province, on July 24, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Victims were living in tents, "without adequate food and drinking water," Xinhua said.
There were 3,200 places on levees along the Yangtze that were prone to burst, Xinhua said.
"The flood control situation along the Yangtze remains extremely serious and will remain so for the foreseeable future," it reported.
Millions of soldiers and civilians have been manning the dikes, watching for signs of collapse and plugging leaks, as waters on the Yangtze reached levels unseen since floods in 1954 killed more than 30,000 people.
So far, at least 1,268 people have been reported killed in this year's floods caused by summer rains that fell earlier and heavier than usual. The death toll is likely to rise as reports of further flooding reach Beijing.
A flood peak, the fourth this year, was forming on the upper reaches of the 3,900-mile (6,300-km) long Yangtze, the China Youth Daily said.
A tropical storm also was expected to hit land in southeast China in the next two days, bringing strong winds and heavy rains that could complicate flood control efforts.
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Back to Top
Back to Article Index
Out of Business
Jiang orders the army to get back to the barracks
BY NISID HAJARI
AUGUST 3, 1998 VOL. 152 NO. 4
In the 1980s, management gurus cribbed from Sun Tzu's Art of War. The People's Liberation Army learned the art of business instead, branching out into more than 15,000 enterprises that ranged from hotels to pharmaceutical companies to pro basketball teams.
Last week Chinese President Jiang Zemin read the PLA the riot act. The military, he ordered at an anti-smuggling conference, "must earnestly carry out checks on all kinds of commercial companies set up by subsidiary units, and without exception from today must not engage in their operation." The decree technically bans an empire that generates revenues estimated at $10 billion and accounts for at least a third of the bloated army's operating expenses. Although authorities have ordered lighter curbs in the past without much conviction, the problem has become much more acute in these straitened times. Smuggling--made easier for the PLA because their trucks are not subject to border checks--costs the government as much as $12 billion a year in lost revenues; known cases were up 10% in the first five months of the year. At the same time, Jiang needs to push ahead with plans to streamline the military if he is to find the money for much-needed modernization.
Reformers are taking heart from the fact that the government last week also revealed an investigation into improprieties at J&A Securities--China's most profitable brokerage--which the PLA partly owns. But few apparently believe that Jiang's announcement--which lacked a deadline, or a plan for the military to divest its many companies--will produce immediate results. For now the decree may simply be a warning to the PLA to cut back on its smuggling activities. Curbing the generals' mercenary instincts could take years.
Reported by Mia Turner/Beijing
Back to Top
Back to Article Index