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-SEPTEMBER, 1999-
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09/30/1999 Taiwan-Ally Panama Sends Former President To Beijing For Talks
09/30/1999 Chinese Premier Warns U.S. Over Taiwan
09/30/1999 China Facing Wrath Of Human Rights Groups On Anniversary
09/30/1999 Jiang To Be Enthroned As China's Third Generation Leader
09/30/1999 Hong Kong Celebrates 50 Years Of Communism -- Half-Heartedly
09/30/1999 Taiwan Asks Beijing To Stop Politics-Laced Condolences
09/30/1999 Taiwan To Continue Military Buildup As China Shows Off Muscle
09/30/1999 50 Years On, No End In Sight For Stalemate In Taiwan Strait
09/30/1999 Barshefsky Sees No Slowdown In China WTO Talks
09/27/1999 KASHGAR: On the Restless Perimeter, 1997
Resentment and Rebellion Fester On the Silk Road
09/17/1999 China's Reaction On Timor Aimed At Boosting Role Of UN
09/17/1999 Court Rejects Appeal From Jailed Dissidents
09/13/1999 Ice Broken In U.S.-China Relations, But WTO Still Out Of Reach
09/13/1999 U.S. Support For 'One China' Policy Seen As Crucial
09/13/1999 China Upgrades Highway Linking Lhasa To Outside World
09/09/1999 China Cold On U.S. Demand For More WTO Concessions
09/09/1999 Clinton Should Press China On Human Rights, Group Says
09/09/1999 Jiang Protesters Making Their Presence Known
09/09/1999 U.S. To Resolve Differences With China On WTO Bid
09/09/1999 U.S. Should Punish Belgrade Embassy Bombers, China Says
09/09/1999 Sri Lanka Says No To Dalai Lama Visit, Yes To Peace Drive
09/09/1999 Group Says Tibet Crackdown Has Widened Into Adjacent Provinces
09/09/1999 Taiwan Says China Envoy Welcome, Conditions Aren't
09/08/1999 China Reaffirms Force Is An Option Against Taiwan, Blasts U.S.
09/08/1999 Kissinger Criticizes Deterioration Of U.S.-Chinese Relations
09/08/1999 Asia Pacific Officials Side-Step China-Taiwan Row
09/08/1999 Group Says Tibetan Monk Had Died From Torture In Lhasa Prison
09/08/1999 U.S. Seeks More Concessions From China On WTO
09/08/1999 Government Orders Increase In Circulation Of Unpopular People's Daily
09/08/1999 Economic Ties With Taiwan To Remain Untouched, China Says
09/08/1999 U.S., China In Agreement On New Ambassador
09/08/1999 Jiang Urges Peaceful Solution To Timor
09/08/1999 Howard Tells Jiang To Avoid Using Force On Taiwan

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Taiwan-Ally Panama Sends Former President To Beijing For Talks

BEIJING, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The former president of Panama, one of just a handful of countries that holds diplomatic relations with Taiwan, is in Beijing to discuss "bilateral relations" with top leaders, state media reported Thursday.

Former president Jorge Enrique Illueca and his party held talks Thursday with Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen, the Xinhua news agency said.

"The two sides exchanged views on bilateral relations as well as world and regional issues of common concern," the report said, adding the Panamanians were here at the invitation of the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs.

Panama is one of 29 countries -- mainly in Latin American, the South Pacific and Africa -- that have established diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a renegade province.

Beijing's strict 'one China policy' mandates that all potential allies steer clear of formal ties with Taipei, which split from the mainland after a bitter civil war in 1949.

In August, Panama's Vice-President Arturo Vallarino paid an unofficial visit to Beijing where he met with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, giving rise to speculation that Panama was preparing to switch recognition to the mainland.

Taiwan, in a statement released after Vallarino's visit, insisted that bilateral ties remained "unchanged."

By Agence France Presse

From Inside China Today

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Chinese Premier Warns U.S. Over Taiwan

BEIJING, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Reuters) Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was quoted as telling foreign businessmen on Thursday an armed resolution of a dispute with Taipei was inevitable unless the United States abandoned an implied commitment to defend Taiwan.

"Sooner or later it will lead to an armed resolution of the question because the Chinese people will become impatient," one participant quoted Zhu as saying of U.S. policy during a meeting with dozens of leading Western businessmen.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said Zhu told the meeting U.S. policy had encouraged Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui to announce in July that ties with Beijing should be conducted on a "special state-to-state" basis.

"We got to the end and Zhu went into a long and somewhat passionate tirade about Taiwan and he said the United States has to quit emphasizing that it must be settled by peaceful means and implying that it would help defend Taiwan," said the participant.

"He said it with a bit of passion. He was making a point of clearly having a prepared thing to say about Taiwan and when nobody asked him a question, to deliver it afterwards."

China, a bitter rival of Nationalist-ruled Taiwan since the end of a civil war in 1949, saw Lee's declaration as a "dangerous" lurch towards independence. Washington recognizes Beijing as the sole government of China but continues to sell arms to Taipei and advocate peaceful reunification.

By Reuters

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China Facing Wrath Of Human Rights Groups On Anniversary

BEIJING, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Human rights groups have given Communist China a withering report on the eve of its 50th birthday, but Beijing has come out fighting with a fierce justification of its values.

Human rights organizations have been queuing up to pour scorn on the congratulatory celebrations being planned to mark Friday's anniversary of Communist rule.

They have accused the government of using the anniversary to crack down on opponents, and charge China with a litany of abuses during its first 50 years.

"The People's Republic of China is preparing for its 50th anniversary. But there's little for the Chinese people to celebrate," said the US-based Human Rights in China (HRIC).

"Despite recent economic reform, the Chinese people have endured the denial of their basic human rights for the past five decades," HRIC said.

Amnesty International said the October 1 anniversary "should be the occasion for the government to review the legacy of the past and deepen the process of reform, ensuring the rights of the Chinese people are respected in future."

In an open letter to the Chinese leadership, London-based Amnesty said crackdowns this year on democracy campaigners and the Falungong mystical sect had "turned the clock backwards."

The letter urged the leadership "to stop arbitrary detention, torture and executions and take radical action to reform the law enforcement and justice system in China."

Amnesty on Thursday also issued a strong condemnation of a campaign of mass executions, which China is carrying out ahead of the anniversary.

The group warned that the Guangdong Provincial High People's Court was expected to confirm death penalties on 238 prisoners who could be executed within hours.

"The death penalty continues to be used extensively, arbitrarily, and frequently as a result of political interference," said the group.

China has launched a security clampdown in the run-up to the 50th anniversary, rounding up more than 100,000 escaped criminal suspects and announcing 34 executions in the past week.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch last week warned that a political crackdown was underway in Tibet, while the London-based Tibet Information Network (TIN) also said Thursday that Tibetans were feeling the heat ahead of the anniversary.

"Tibetans in Lhasa have been told that their pay or pension will be cut if they fail to take part in rehearsals for celebrations of the 50th anniversary," said TIN.

The cost of the huge celebrations in Beijing -- involving a parade in Tiananmen Square with 500,000 people -- has also come under fire.

"Over 50 billion yuan ($6 billion) has been spent nationwide on celebrations marking the 50th anniversary, this waste of money could pay for one year living expenses for at least 20 million retirees," said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

But Chinese President Jiang Zemin confronted the criticism head on, telling some of the most powerful business executives in the world they should think hard before being sucked into the human rights debate.

"We must first and foremost safeguard the people's right to survival and development; otherwise we cannot begin to talk about other rights," Jiang said in keynote address to the Fortune Global Forum in Shanghai this week.

Jiang said China had made a strong contribution to human rights by ensuring the survival and development of the country's 1.2 billion people.

"We also believe that every country has the right to choose the social system and path of development that suit its national conditions," he said.

By Agence France Presse

From Inside China Today

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Jiang To Be Enthroned As China's Third Generation Leader

BEIJING, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) President Jiang Zemin will aim to cement his place in history as China's third red emperor when he follows Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping by addressing the nation from Tiananmen Gate.

In his capacity as chairman of the Central Military Commission, China's supreme military commander, Jiang will copy paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and Great Helmsman Mao Zedong in front of a worldwide television audience in what has come to resemble a coronation rite.

Following a flag raising ceremony on the refurbished Tiananmen Square, Jiang will descend the Tiananmen Gate rostrum and get into a limousine to review the troops of the People's Liberation Army, organizers said.

Jiang is then expected to re-mount the rostrum and address the nation to detail China's achievements over the last 50 years.

In 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China from the same rostrum.

Mao also used the rostrum during the Cultural Revolution when he addressed and reviewed contingents of Red Guards in front of huge rallies of zealous Chinese youth.

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the People's Republic, Deng stood up in a Red Flag sedan and reviewed the troops and addressed the nation from the rostrum, showing the world he had ascended the throne as the "core" of China's second generation of communist leaders.

At that time, Deng was fresh from masterminding China's reform program, and officially only held the offices of vice premier and chairman of the party's Central Military Commission.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands of invited guests, soldiers and participants are expected to witness and parade around Tiananmen Square following Jiang's speech, and the PLA's newest and latest weapons will be on display both in the parade and in an air force flyover.

During his speech, Jiang is expected to pay homage to both his predecessors.

Mao will be praised for reunifying China and ending a century of foreign invasion and semi-colonization, while Deng will be remembered for putting China on the road to economic reform and opening to the outside world, sources said.

Jiang will announce that China will unswervingly adhere to the policies of economic reform and opening to the outside world, while also calling for national unity.

He will not mention the issue of Taiwan, as Deng did in 1984, they said.

No mention will be made of past communist atrocities, while Jiang will indicate that only the Cultural Revolution 1966-1976, known as the 10 years of chaos, has marred China's past 50 years.

"The last 21 years of economic reform and opening up has been another period of economic construction for our nation," Jiang is expected to say, indicating that the first decade and a half of new China also experienced successful economic development, the sources said.

Born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province in 1926, Jiang's rise to the top of China's murky political world has been partially attributed to his father's death as a revolutionary martyr in the early 1930s, a death which insured Jiang a revolutionary pedigree.

Most of Jiang's luck, however, has been attributed to the fall of previous party secretary Zhao Ziyang who was removed by Deng in the bloody aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.

China's political dissidents and a wealth of intellectuals have all along harbored criticism for the non-democratic method in which Jiang was selected as China's "core" leader, saying the president had previously done little to prove that he deserved such a a position.

It was only in 1989 after choosing Jiang as his successor, did Deng announce the existence of the CCP's system of "core" generational leaders.

All of China's "core" leaders have been chairmen of the Central Military Commission, although neither China's constitution nor the CCP's Party Charter contain any reference to the position.

By Agence France Presse

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Hong Kong Celebrates 50 Years Of Communism -- Half-Heartedly

HONG KONG, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Hong Kong will hold celebrations to mark 50 years of communist rule in China Friday, but many in the former British colony feel little in common with the values of the mainland.

The Hong Kong government has been vying to promote better understanding of mainland China, pushing a campaign aimed at turning the hearts and minds of Hong Kong people towards Beijing.

"The government has spared no effort to promote the civic awareness of the Hong Kong people," said Home Affairs Secretary David Lan.

"This civic education program urges the public, in particular the youth, to learn more about our motherland, which in turn will foster a stronger sense of belonging to Hong Kong."

Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in July 1997 under a special "one country, two systems" formula ensuring the territory a high degree of autonomy, will hold a series of events to mark the October 1 anniversary -- including a spectacular fireworks display in Victoria Harbor.

But analysts say Hong Kong's 6.5 million people have yet to be won over by the mainland.

Sonny Lo, a director of the independent Hong Kong Transition Project research group, said: "The Hong Kong government's political will to induce a sense of patriotism is understandable, but it will not be successful.

"At lot of people in Hong Kong still want to be identified as Hong Kongers, rather than Chinese."

Lo pointed to a survey in July by his group which found 46 percent of the 850 respondents wanted to be identified as Hong Kong people and 44 percent as Hong Kong British. Only 21 percent considered themselves Chinese and 27 percent thought of themselves as Hong Kong Chinese.

"Economic integration does not mean psychological integration," said Lo.

Under British rule of Hong Kong, the sense of Chinese patriotism was eroded, said analysts.

Hong Kong prospered from the vast influx of capital from entrepreneurs fleeing the political and social upheaval on the communist-ruled mainland before 1978.

When the mainland embarked on a series of economic reforms in the late 1970s, many in Hong Kong, especially refugees from the mainland, began to look forward to reunification with the "motherland."

But that optimism was given a rude awakening when the Chinese leadership sent tanks into Beijing's Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, to crush pro-democracy protests.

A million people took to the streets of the territory to protest the brutal crackdown, which left hundreds and perhaps thousands dead, as Hong Kong was rocked by uncertainty over its future.

Joseph Cheng, a political commentator at Hong Kong City University, said: "The promotion of patriotism is sure to come, but it should not be carried artificially. Otherwise, it will be counter-productive.

"I think the Hong Konger is quite adaptable. We know we are part of China. We know that our economy is more integrated with China, and share a similar destiny."

Hong Kong has invested heavily in the mainland since late patriarch Deng Xiaoping began opening up the economy 20 years ago, and now analysts fear Hong Kong's competitive edges has been blunted.

"We're seeing China more as our competitor," said Cheng, adding China initially saw Hong Kong as a model for its richest special economic zone of Shenzhen and for the rest of the economy.

"But now the professionals in Beijing and Shanghai will rather see the United States as the role model," he added.

By Agence France Presse

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Taiwan Asks Beijing To Stop Politics-Laced Condolences

TAIPEI, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Taiwanese newspapers and politicians Thursday lashed out at Beijing saying it was exploiting a killer earthquake here last week to assert its sovereignty over Taiwan.

They also warned Beijing's reaction to the quake, which left more than 2,000 people dead and 100,000 homeless, could end up alienating Taiwanese.

"China has coldly exploited our tragedy ... in an attempt to assert territorial sovereignty over Taiwan," Annette Lu, Taoyuan county magistrate, said in a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan Thursday.

Lu said she would also publish adverts in US newspaper in New York and Washington Friday saying "China will never become a leading nation in the modern world by bullying Taiwan and exploiting her tragedy."

The widely circulated China Times Express said in a commentary Thursday the Taiwan government had scrapped National Day celebrations slated for later this month because of the quake, but Beijing was going ahead with 50th anniversary celebrations.

"They did not show any gesture of concern ... although they did pay lip service expressing condolences over the disaster in 'China's Taiwan Province,'" the paper said.

Noting the anniversary might be a crucial event for the Chinese government, it said "at least what the mainland can do right now is not invite Taiwan's pro-unification groups to Beijing."

"It would be loathsome to see the groups sitting in Tiananmen Square (in Beijing) for celebrations while the government and people here are embarking on uphill rehabilitation programs," the paper said.

The quake, with a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck on Sepmber 21.

By Agence France Presse

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Taiwan To Continue Military Buildup As China Shows Off Muscle

TAIPEI, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Reuters) As China prepares to unveil its latest military hardware in a show of strength to mark five decades of communist rule, Taiwan is continuing to build up its defenses to deter any mainland attack.

A glittering array of weaponry, 95 percent of it new according to a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, will be on display when the People's Republic of China celebrates its 50th birthday on October 1.

A vast parade including Chinese-made tanks and C-300 ground-to-air missiles will trundle through Beijing's Tiananmen Square, as Russian-made Su-27 fighter planes roar overhead.

Also on display will be medium-range ground-to-ground missiles, similar to the ones lobbed into the shipping routes off Taiwan in a show of aggression by China in 1996.

With relations between the fractious cross-strait rivals at their lowest point since the crisis three years ago, Taiwanese authorities are aware the October 1 celebration will in part be a reminder to them not to stray too far down the road to independence.

"As a matter of fact their threat has been looming for decades," a Taiwan defense ministry spokesman said.

"That's why we must not stop our efforts in upgrading military capability, or the two sides will be off-balance militarily."

But the spokesman insisted China's military chest-thumping was "aimed not only at Taiwan but at the world's major powers" to show its emerging presence on the international stage.

A brief hint of cross-strait rapprochement following Taiwan's devastating earthquake last week has evaporated as Beijing and Taipei resume trading barbs. China remains furious with Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's declaration in July that the island amounted to a state.

On August 2 China announced it had successfully tested the ground-to-ground Dongfeng-31 ballistic missile with a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles).

Chinese affairs analyst Liao Wen-chung commented here that the Dongfeng-31 and the possible introduction of a barrage of more advanced Russia-made weaponry, including Kilo-class submarines, Su-30 fighters and Modern-class navy destroyers armed with cruise missiles, should worry more countries than Taiwan.

"China is emerging as a massive threat to the region," he said.

But it is in Taiwan, which communist China sees as a breakaway province to be retaken by force if necessary, that the threat is being taken most seriously.

Defense Minister Tang Fei said last month that defense spending needed to be increased by billions of dollars to "at least 3.0-3.5 percent of the gross domestic product." The ratio now stands at around 2.6 percent.

For now Taiwan's military maintains a technological edge over China thanks to increasing supplies of F-16 fighters and state-of-the-art radar defense systems from the United States, its leading arms provider.

But Andrew Yang, a China observer here, warned that at current rates of spending the Chinese People's Liberation Army, strong in numbers but weak in technology, could supercede the Taiwan military in 10 years.

"The PLA may break the military balance in the Taiwan Strait sometime between 2005 and 2010 with the aid of precision-striking weaponry," he said.

Yang cited US evaluation reports as saying China had made "impressive progress" in improving the precision of its ballistic missiles and in the development of spy satellites.

In an attempt to stay ahead, Taiwan's government approved a draft report in August calling for the island to join a US-Japan missile defense system.

China, with an eye on Taiwan, has berated the planned theatre missile shield.

By Reuters

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50 Years On, No End In Sight For Stalemate In Taiwan Strait

XIAMEN, CHINA, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Reuters) The tense stalemate in the Taiwan strait is still Asia's top defense worry 50 years after the conflict started with the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Mao Zedong's declaration of the communist state on October 1, 1949 ended the mainland chapter of the Chinese civil war, but the dark waves off this southeastern port are still the unresolved conflict's frontline in 1999.

Separatist moves in Taiwan -- perceived or real -- keep the militaries of both sides eyeing each other warily across the patch of water, as China repeatedly insists on its right to use force to prevent independence.

Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's call for "state-to-state" relations with Beijing in July set off the latest round of saber-rattling.

A furious People's Liberation Army declared in a propaganda blitz it would "sacrifice 1,000 soldiers rather than give up one inch of territory."

But residents of Xiamen, separated from Taiwan-controlled Jinmen island by only about three kilometers (two miles), are largely unfazed by the heightened tensions after seeing the hostility alternate with détente for decades.

"They won't fight now," one dock worker said.

Lee, who is reviled in Beijing as the number-one separatist plotter, must step down after elections in six months. The docker and other residents said that fact combined with the communist regime's desire for stability on its symbolic 50th anniversary ruled out any action.

While a few unused bunkers can still be found on its beaches -- today filled with pleasure pavilions and recreation areas -- Xiamen has largely put its past as a battle zone behind.

Ironically, it is at the vanguard of China's effort to woo Taiwan back into the fold through economic links. Xiamen's special economic zone has successfully pulled in large amounts of investment from Taiwan since 1987, when Taipei began to tolerate cross-strait indirect trade and investment.

In addition to cheap land and labor, ancestral and dialect ties have drawn Taiwan businessmen, as the majority of the island's families are from the surrounding coastal province of Fujian.

But the past is far from forgotten.

Xiamen University historian Chen Kongli was a student on the campus in October 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces were using the city as the last evacuation point in their retreat to Taiwan.

The generalissimo himself inspected the city as late as October 7 -- just 10 days before the PLA troops finally took control of the port, he told AFP.

"Until the last day before Xiamen was liberated, the (nationalist-controlled) newspapers were still urging the city to hold out," he said.

Chen said only the most rich and well-connected went over to Taiwan, with most ordinary Xiamen residents staying behind. Most of the stalwarts of the Chiang regime had fled earlier from Shanghai with their property.

The years that followed were bitter for the city's residents, with aerial bombing by Kuomintang planes a constant occurrence until 1952, he said.

Militia training was required for extraordinary numbers of local people, he said, adding that ordinary movement was restricted by army checkpoints for years.

Xiamen was also pounded by artillery shells during the military crises of 1954 and 1958, when China bombarded Jinmen with thousands of shells and brought retaliatory fire from the Taiwan side.

In 1962, when Chiang was preparing to launch an all-out invasion of the mainland following China's break with the Soviet Union, "people didn't have a deep understanding ... but they knew," Chen said.

Taipei eventually had to drop the plan after failing to win support from U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

From an economic perspective, Xiamen lagged behind for 30 years, the historian said. "Basically there was no change, because it was a frontline."

Today as in the past, it also remains a frontline for propaganda.

Looming over the beaches where tourists on jet-skis frolic, a giant sign facing Jinmen calls for Taiwan's reunification by "one country, two systems" -- the formula used for Beijing's resumption of sovereignty over Hong Kong.

Opposite, a sign in Jinmen readable by binoculars proclaims the "three principles of the people," the democracy-oriented official ideology of the Taipei regime.

By Reuters

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Barshefsky Sees No Slowdown In China WTO Talks

WASHINGTON, Sep 30, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky said Wednesday she does not sense any slowdown in the bilateral talks on bringing China into the WTO.

"They (China) have always proceeded very deliberately. I don't perceive this as a slowdown," Barshefsky told reporters after testifying to the Senate Finance Committee.

On Monday, Barshefsky met for two hours with China's Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Shi Guangsheng. No further meetings have been scheduled at this time, Barshefsky said, noting that there are a "lot of logistics to work out."

Barshefsky said that while she could not point to any specific progress made in the talks so far, the two sides have reestablished contact in a "meaningful way."

"That in and of itself is progress," she added.

Asked if she still expects a deal by the November WTO Ministerial in Seattle, Barshefsky said "it is up to China."

By Agence France Presse

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KASHGAR: On the Restless Perimeter, 1997
Resentment and Rebellion Fester On the Silk Road

By TERRY McCARTHY

SEPTEMBER 27, 1999 VOL. 154 NO. 12

Kashgar is an ageless town, hewn out of legend and peopled by faces as weathered as the surrounding mountains. An oasis in the desert where China, Central Asia and India converge, Kashgar has been fought over for centuries, and has grown accustomed to seeing invaders come and go. At the turn of this century it was the Russians and the British who used Kashgar as a base to spy on each other from their grand consulates in the town center. Now China is the overlord, but the rhythms of life for the local Uighurs owe as little to the Han ways as they do to the British or Russians before them: the mosques are full on Fridays, the script is Arabic, people eat bread instead of rice and older women cover their faces entirely when they walk the streets.

At its heart, Kashgar remains a huge bazaar, a trading point along the ancient Silk Road that even today brings in hordes--on camels, horses, donkeys and rusted old buses--for the weekend street market. By Saturday evening the bazaar around the central Aidkah mosque is crowded with men and women picking their way through stalls selling hats, knives, boots, carpets, jewelry, lamb kebabs, melons. It is a colorful spectacle, and aside from a few TVs showing action videos, the market has changed little from the days when Genghis Khan's men rode through.

The resentment at outside control has not changed much either. In a narrow alley behind the mosque in the old town, two Uighur men squat outside their homes talking--in rebellious language that they dare not use in public--about life under Chinese rule. "If there is a fight, and even if I am in the right and the Chinese is in the wrong, the police will always take his side," says a 20-something man with a small moustache. He married at 18--to a 14-year-old girl--and has two daughters: one of the few concessions to the "minorities" in China is exemption from the one-child rule. But he fears this privilege may be suspended, as China eats away at other traditions. "Already they forbid boys from 8 to 18 to go to the mosque," he claims.

Children run by, laughing as they whip their spinning tops on the uneven mud-brick paving. But the adults have sullen faces and smile rarely: unemployment is a problem for Uighur men, who complain that the state gives jobs only to ethnic Chinese. The other man talks of Uighur communities living abroad, particularly in Germany. But he despairs of ever joining, since the government won't grant him a passport to leave China. "We like countries that don't like China," he says, smiling for the first time.

Some Uighurs still dream of reviving the independent state of East Turkestan that existed briefly in the mid-1940s until the area was "liberated" by the communists in 1949. As the government pushed Chinese to relocate to Xinjiang province, Uighur rebels based in neighboring Kazakhstan carried out sporadic attacks. The response of Chinese security forces has been harsh: human rights organizations say beatings and executions of suspected "splittists" are common.

Resistance to Chinese rule received a new impetus in the mid-1990s after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the establishment of three independent Muslim-majority states--Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan--along Xinjiang's border, giving the Uighurs the idea that something similar could take place on China's fringes. The shortage of jobs and perceived discrimination against Uighurs contributed to anti-Chinese sentiment, and in early 1997 serious rioting broke out in the town of Yining near the Kazakh border. By official accounts 10 people, mostly Chinese, were lynched by Uighur demonstrators. Nine more were killed shortly thereafter, on the day of Deng Xiaoping's funeral, by three bombs planted on buses in the capital Urumqi. This was followed by widespread arrests and executions of Uighurs and even tighter surveillance of suspected "splittists" that continues to this day. In July, 18 people were jailed for up to 15 years for "attempting to split the motherland," while Amnesty International has recorded 190 executions in Xinjiang since 1997.

Most Uighurs are now resigned to Chinese control, even if they do not like it. Armed resistance is proving increasingly futile, and demographically the province has changed radically. From a mere 300,000 a half-century ago, the Han Chinese population in Xinjiang is now more than 6 million, about 38% of the province's total. As the numbers expand, fear of the Chinese security apparatus grows widespread. "I would like to speak to you of how the Chinese treat the Uighurs," says a young man sitting outside a mosque. "But I am sorry I cannot. If I do, the police will come."

Beijing has always been nervous of a large-scale Muslim uprising, and it's had some success in persuading neighboring Kazakhstan to stop offering safe haven to Uighur separatists. After Russia, China is now Kazakhstan's largest trading partner. Business contracts and plans for a potentially lucrative oil pipeline to be built across Kazakhstan into Xinjiang at China's expense have made Almaty more receptive to Beijing's requests to crack down. The separatists have nowhere to turn. Unlike Tibet, with its high international profile and charismatic leader, Xinjiang's Muslims are little known in the outside world, and their cause has not attracted much sympathy or foreign backing. For China, the aggravations of the separatists are minor compared with the perceived benefits of holding on to Xinjiang, with its vast land, mineral reserves and agricultural riches.

Much of the province has been developed by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a quasi-military organization of former Chinese soldiers, convicts and self-willed frontiersmen drawn to the province to build a new future. Their energy has been prodigious. Irrigation systems fed by melting snow from the mountains have already turned parts of the desert into rich farmland. Oil wells have been sunk, and along one stretch of the new six-lane expressway from Urumqi to Turpan huge fields of windmills are generating electrical power. A drive across the province is more reminiscent of the wide open spaces of the American West than the densely populated heartland of China. Xinjiang, which makes up one-sixth of the country's land area, is home to just 17 million people.

China's rush for development has barely touched Kashgar, which remains, as ever, a small player in a much bigger game. Once a resting post for the caravans carrying silk to the West, it is now an outpost on the edge of China's economic development to the east. Like the Plains Indians in 19th-century America or the Aborigines in Australia, the Uighurs have been given little say in the way their land is being used by their new economic masters. The merchants in the bazaar curl their lips and mutter, but they know they have to find some way of accommodating themselves to their new rulers--as their ancestors did so many times in the past.

From Time Magazine

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China's Reaction On Timor Aimed At Boosting Role Of UN

BEIJING, Sep 17, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) China's rare move to embrace foreign intervention in another country, by joining the peacekeeping effort in East Timor, underlines its insistence that international action should be taken only through the United Nations, analysts said Friday.

China Thursday announced it would send a civilian police contingent to the devastated territory, marking only the second time it has become involved in an international peacekeeping operation.

"Action on the part of the United Nations means on the part of the entire international community, not just on the part of a single country," Jia Qingguo, professor of international relations at Beijing University, told AFP.

"But even more importantly, the Indonesian government decided itself to allow the East Timorese to have a ballot, so China felt that it should respect that decision," he said.

A Chinese official told AFP in New York that five police officers had already set off for Darwin in northern Australia, where the Australian-led multinational force for East Timor is assembling.

"They are only going to help prepare for a future peacekeeping operation, not join the multinational force," a spokesperson said.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has in the past threatened to use its veto to stop international peacekeepers being sent to the world's hotspots, saying it is opposed to interference in other countries' internal affairs.

It has only once before gone along with foreign intervention in another country, sending 370 engineers to Cambodia to help rebuild a highway in 1992 ahead of UN-organized elections.

Western diplomats in Beijing said China's leaders may have been privately stunned by Jakarta's decision to allow an independence ballot and then withdraw its troops from East Timor.

But the leadership was determined to stress that China was not opposed to operations that went through proper channels and had the consent of the government concerned.

"I think they thought about this very carefully beforehand. It's a conscious decision they've taken that they can step outside the box," said one Western diplomatic source.

Issues of sovereignty and independence are always sensitive to Beijing, which faces opposition to its rule in Tibet and largely Moslem Xinjiang province, while also claiming sovereignty over Taiwan.

But China was anxious to show that its opposition to NATO action over Kosovo was because the UN was not involved, not because of its insensitivity to humanitarian issues, analysts said.

"They have managed to position themselves in quite a positive way. We see this as a positive gesture," one diplomat said.

China expressed shock at the use of human rights as a pretext for the 79-day NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia earlier this year, an event that Beijing called "new hegemonism" in a U.S.-dominated post-Cold War world.

The NATO bombing of its Belgrade embassy in May served only to harden China's opposition to the action.

The multinational force preparing to move into East Timor is acting with the authority of the Security Council. But the UN will not appoint its commander, nor finance the force, and the soldiers will not wear blue berets or helmets.

China has said it "respects the choice" of the East Timorese people who voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a UN-administered referendum two weeks ago, sparking an orgy of violence in the territory.

The liberal Beijing Youth Daily newspaper gave front-page coverage to the decision to send the Chinese police officers.

Official Chinese newspapers have until now given low-key coverage to the violence in Timor, with no mention of Indonesian military involvement in the bloodshed.

By Agence France Presse

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Court Rejects Appeal From Jailed Dissidents

HONG KONG, Sep 17, 1999 -- (Reuters) A Chinese court has turned down an appeal by two dissidents jailed for trying to set up mainland China's first opposition party, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Friday.

The Information Centre of Human Rights & Democratic Movement in China said Beijing's Municipal Higher People's Court on Wednesday rejected the appeal by dissidents Zha Jianguo and Guo Hongming, who were jailed in August for trying to set up the China Democracy Party.

Zha, 49, received a nine-year sentence and Gao, 47, was jailed for eight years.

The outlawed China Democracy Party was set up in 1998, taking advantage of an apparent political thaw in the run-up to a landmark visit to China by U.S. President Bill Clinton.

Beijing moved to crush the group at the end of last year, sending scores of members to jail or to labor camps.

By Reuters

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Ice Broken In U.S.-China Relations, But WTO Still Out Of Reach

AUCKLAND, Sep 13, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) China broke the ice in relations with the United States but made only modest gains in its campaign for WTO membership at a major Asia-Pacific gathering that concluded here Monday.

For Beijing the highlight of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit was a meeting Saturday between President Jiang Zemin and US President Bill Clinton.

The encounter appeared to draw a curtain over the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade May 7 and spurred the resumption of stalled US-China talks on Beijing's admission to the World Trade Organization.

U.S. officials said after the meeting that overall U.S.-China ties were "back on track."

But in remarks suggesting that all is not completely forgiven or forgotten, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan on Monday called on Washington to do more to remove the ill will in China caused by the bombing.

In particular he urged the United States to provide a "more satisfactory" explanation of the attack, which occurred during the Kosovo campaign.

Chinese authorities have never been comfortable with the Clinton administration's contention that the bombing, in which three Chinese nationals were killed, was an accident caused by faulty intelligence.

In a further nagging complication for China, any hopes for specific APEC backing for quick Chinese accession to the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle November 30 were dashed in Monday's final declaration.

Bickering with arch-rival Taiwan forced APEC leaders to remove specific mention of China's entry to the global trade body, leaving only a general statement of support for WTO hopefuls.

"In order to achieve universality of membership, we also seek early progress in the accession negotiations to the WTO, including for those APEC economies that are not yet WTO members," it said.

"We issue a strong call for these accession negotiations to be concluded at the earliest opportunity, if possible prior to the commencement of the new WTO negotiations."

An earlier draft, written up by APEC officials, had specifically mentioned China and Taiwan, which along with APEC partners Russia and Vietnam is also seeking to join the WTO.

But the reference to China had to be removed when Beijing demanded wording to the effect that it would enter before Taiwan.

Chief White House economics advisor Eugene Sperling nonetheless insisted that U.S.-China negotiations on the WTO -- in which an agreement is critical to open the door to Chinese membership -- would go forward.

"There remains a lot of work to do but the talks were positive and constructive in tone," Sperling said, adding that U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky and Chinese Trade Minister Shi Guangsheng were trying to iron out remaining disagreements.

"The discussions will continue and, as we speak, Barshefsky and Shi are discussing the when and where of the next meeting," the U.S. official said.

China suspended contacts with U.S. negotiators following the embassy bombing.

But the strains that bedeviled US-China ties in the aftermath of the attack showed signs of easing earlier this month when China proposed discussions on a resumption in WTO accession talks at expert level.

The two sides had come close to sealing a WTO deal during a visit to Washington in April of Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Ronji. China offered key concessions to US demands for greater market access, notably by proposing tariff cuts on automobiles, information technology and certain commodities.

But the United States sought additional measures and irked the Chinese by publishing a list of agreed-upon concessions that Beijing insisted had merely been proposals.

Despite the good feeling that prevailed at their Saturday summit, Clinton and Jiang simply restated their own policies over Taiwan.

Jiang urged Clinton to discontinue arm sales to Taiwan, with the U.S. president responding that the United States "will continue to abide by the Taiwan relations act."

The act allows for sales of defensive weapons to Taiwan under certain circumstances.

By Agence France Presse

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U.S. Support For 'One China' Policy Seen As Crucial

BEIJING, Sep 13, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Beijing Sunday praised U.S. support for the "one China policy" on Taiwan as crucial to boosting ties, while the rocky bilateral relationship appeared to be on the mend in time for China's celebrations marking 50 years of communist rule.

China's state-run press called the summit between President Jiang Zemin and his U.S. counterpart Bill Clinton in Auckland Saturday "positive and constructive," and trumpeted what it saw as U.S. support for Beijing's policy against Taiwan.

"Both presidents Jiang and Clinton believe Lee Teng-hui is a troublemaker," a Beijing Youth Daily headline screamed, while all major dailies prominently reported Clinton's remarks that Lee's two states theory "has brought a lot of trouble" to U.S.-China relations.

Lee infuriated China earlier this year when he said ties between the two rivals separated since 1949 were "special state-to-state relations."

His words sparked fury in Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and led to increased military tensions in the region amid concern China would use force to reunite with the island.

China's propaganda machine has been churning out anti-Lee rhetoric since July, but it was only Friday, as leaders from the Asian Pacific countries began arriving in Auckland, that state television showed footage of last month's full-scale military exercises in southern China.

Live fire amphibious beach landings and carpet bombings by jets were seen on television throughout the weekend, while war-like propaganda was increased with more statements from Lee that China's economic situation would not allow for a war in the Taiwan Straits.

The party-run People's Daily also began Friday running a series of editorials on Taiwan, which have characterized the reunification of Taiwan and the maintenance of state sovereignty in near biblical terms.

"The unity of the motherland is the supreme interest and a common and sacred goal of the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits," Sunday's editorial said.

"Without the backing of the motherland, Taiwan will be captured by hegemonists, and the island province, if it falls into the hands of foreign enemies or separatists, would become a springboard or stronghold for foreign invaders," it said.

Western diplomats in Beijing said they expected Clinton's statements on Taiwan to be fully played out in the Chinese press as proof that the United States opposes Lee's statements and has no aspirations to move Taiwan toward independence.

"Clinton's stance on Taiwan has offered the Chinese a ladder to climb down from their increasingly war-like rhetoric," one diplomat said.

The diplomat said Clinton's statements did not go beyond any previous U.S. pronouncements on Taiwan, despite a "well-orchestrated" propaganda campaign which appeared to be building up tensions only in order to deflate them.

"For most of the year the only thing the Chinese government has been concerned with is stability for the (October 1) 50th anniversary of party rule. Better relations with the U.S. has been understood as a force for stability," he said.

Said another diplomat: "If the Chinese leaders want to be seen riding high during the 50th anniversary celebrations, they don't want to be seen in a bickering match with the US."

Lee's statements have given the United States a reason to approach Beijing following the May 7 accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia which brought relations to another low point, he said.

"(Lee) made it possible for President Clinton to call up Jiang and tell him that the U.S. would maintain a 'one China' policy," the envoy said.

"The Chinese loved that, they put it in all the papers ... Without Lee, (Sino-U.S. ties) could still be mired in the embassy bombing."

By Agence France Presse

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China Upgrades Highway Linking Lhasa To Outside World

BEIJING, Sep 13, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The main road linking the remote Tibetan capital Lhasa to the rest of the world via the northwestern city of Xining has been widened and upgraded, official media said Monday.

"The roadbase of the highway has been deepened, 13 bridges have been added, and road surfaces on dangerous parts have been widened," a local official told Xinhua news agency.

Cars could now run at speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 miles per hour) on the highway, double the original figure, the agency said.

Work on the highway started in 1991. The total cost reached 1.3 billion yuan ($156.6 million), it said.

The highway -- first built in 1954 -- is one of the four roads linking Tibet to inland China, but it receives more than 85 percent of the total transport volume.

China seized full control of Tibet after an abortive anti-Communist uprising in March 1959, heralding a steady progression of Han Chinese settlers in the remote Himalayan region.

In the aftermath, the Dalai Lama -- Tibet's spiritual leader -- fled to India and set up a government-in-exile in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala.

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China Cold On U.S. Demand For More WTO Concessions

BEIJING, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Reuters) China shrugged off U.S. demands that it make additional concessions to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday, insisting that it be admitted on the easier terms accorded developing nations.

"President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji have repeatedly stressed that China join the WTO under given conditions," a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation said.

"That is accession to the WTO as a developing nation and balancing rights with obligations," the spokesman said when asked to comment on U.S demands that China make additional concessions to win support from Washington for its WTO bid.

"China will insist on its own stand," he said, adding that U.S. demands "cannot exceed the conditions set by China."

Washington and other industrialized nations have been insistent that China enter the WTO under the tougher terms of a developed nation.

U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley said in Auckland on Wednesday that China must go beyond the market-opening terms it proposed in April if it hoped to complete a deal with President Bill Clinton and get it through the U.S. Congress this year.

If China refused "it would be very difficult to expect that that deal would survive," he told Reuters in an interview.

To become a member of the WTO, which sets global trading rules, China must complete a series of trade agreements with individual countries, including the United States.

U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky warned China on Thursday it was running out of time if it hoped to join the WTO this year.

Barshefsky, who is also in Auckland, said the onus was on Beijing to "re-engage" with Washington, which holds the key to its accession into the 134-member trade body.

Barshefsky was due to meet with her Chinese counterpart later on Thursday on WTO and other issues, hoping to lay the groundwork for talks on Saturday between Jiang and Clinton on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

U.S. officials hope the summit could lead to the formal resumption of WTO negotiations, which stalled in May after NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.

Barshefsky said the package proposed by China in April was a "starting point" for renewed negotiations.

"That package has never been taken off the table, and we would expect to essentially pick up where we left off."

She played down expectations that Washington and Beijing would settle their differences in negotiations this week.

Beijing and Washington came close to clinching a WTO deal in April during Premier Zhu's visit to the United States.

China agreed to reduce tariffs, open markets and increase access to such areas as agriculture, telecommunications and financial services.

But Clinton backed away from a final deal to try to win more concessions on textiles, banking and anti-dumping issues. Clinton also wanted more time to convince skeptical lawmakers that a trade pact with China would benefit the United States.

That upset some American business leaders and free-trade supporters in Congress, who accused Clinton of bowing to political pressure. They argued that China had offered enough tariff cuts and market access in April, and urged Clinton to conclude a deal at APEC or shortly thereafter.

Daley said WTO negotiations could be finalised in as little as two weeks, clearing the way for China to join the trade body by year's end, as planned.

WTO ministers will launch a new round of global trade talks in Seattle in late November, and China had high hopes of participating as a full-fledged member of the trade body.

By Reuters

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Clinton Should Press China On Human Rights, Group Says

BEIJING, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) President Bill Clinton should press Chinese President Jiang Zemin for human rights improvements as a precondition for granting it permanent normal trading status, a New York-based rights groups said Thursday.

Improvements should include ratification of one of the two UN human rights treaties China has signed and steps towards abolishing the administrative punishment of reeducation through labor, Human Rights Watch said in a statement forwarded to Beijing.

The group said Clinton should urge China to agree to a UN convention against forced labor and open all legal trials to outside observers.

Clinton is expected to meet Jiang Saturday in New Zealand during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.

Their talks are expected to focus among other things on China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

China's successful accession to the WTO will effectively require Clinton to ask the U.S. Congress to end the annual renewal process for China for what used to be called Most Favored Nation status and is now referred to as Normal Trade Relations (NTR).

"President Clinton can't talk trade and ignore the ongoing crackdown in China," said Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights. "The point is that China needs to meet international standards, in the fields of both world trade and human rights."

As the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic approaches on October 1, authorities have stepped up their crackdown on dissent, Human Rights Watch said.

The crackdown has included an official ban on the Falungong spiritual movement on July 22, which the group called a clear violation of the rights of freedom of belief and association.

It has also detained dozens of Falungong members without charging them. Chinese authorities have announced that some will be put on trial for subversion, the group said.

China has also imposed harsh prison sentences, ranging from eight to 13 years, on China Democracy Party activists, including Liu Xianbin, She Wanbao, Zha Jianguo and Gao Hongming, it said.

Police also detained Tsering Dorje, a Tibetan translator, on August 15 and Uighur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer on August 11 in the western Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the group said.

Dorje is apparently being held for his role in translating for two foreigners who were independently assessing a World Bank project in the western Qinghai Autonomous Region, it said. China has called the assessment illegal.

Kadeer was detained while meeting Americans in Urumqi and was being charged with leaking state secrets to foreigners, it said.

By Agence France Presse

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Jiang Protesters Making Their Presence Known

SYDNEY, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Pro-Tibetan protesters claimed success Thursday in getting their message across to visiting China President Jiang Zemin despite security efforts to shield him from their noisy demonstrations.

The claim came after another day of heckling Jiang in which the protest leader was arrested by police.

The Chinese leader attended his final official function in Sydney at a state dinner hosted by New South Wales Premier Bob Carr at the Hotel Intercontinental.

At one stage more than 300 protesters joined forces and loudly promoted pro-Tibet, Taiwan and East Turkistan slogans across the street from the hotel, separated by a cordon of police.

They chanted "Democracy for China" and "Free Tibet", among other slogans with the help of megaphones, waved placards and Tibetan flags, blew Tibetan horns and played amplified messages from the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Despite efforts by police and security officers to shield Jiang from sight or sound of the protests, Australia Tibet Council executive director Paul Bourke claimed the message had reached the Chinese leader.

"The government here has gone to extraordinary lengths to shield him from any view of the expression of opinion on Tibet from the Australian people," Bourke said.

"But we believe we have got a message to him and it's happening everywhere he goes.

"Our people have been in front of his car. We've seen him. He's seen us."

The council's campaign director Paul McGurk was arrested at the Art Gallery of NSW during a protest coinciding with Jiang's visit there Thursday.

Prime Minister John Howard met Jiang on Thursday for an hour during which Howard reaffirmed Australia's one-China policy and its longstanding policy towards Taiwan.

Human rights took a low profile, with Howard reporting that both Australia and China were satisfied with the progress of the human rights dialogue.

By Agence France Presse

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U.S. To Resolve Differences With China On WTO Bid

AUCKLAND, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Reuters) The United States said on Thursday it had agreed with China to resolve differences over China's bid to joint the World Trade Organization.

U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky told reporters after a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Shi Guangsheng that the talks "underscored the desire to re-engage in substantive discussion."

After more than three hours of talks with Shi, Barshefsky said the United States reiterated its hope of bringing China into the 134-member trade body on "commercially meaningful terms."

"Minister Shi and I agreed to work jointly to resolve outstanding issues as soon as possible, recognizing, however, that these issues that are outstanding must be resolved on a mutually satisfactorily basis," Barshefsky told reporters.

Beijing put negotiations with Washington on hold in May after NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Thursday's talks were the highest level since the bombing.

Barshefsky said the United States and China had not set any "specific timeline" to resolve their differences but added: "both sides will be working to resolve issues in a mutually agreeable manor."

Barshefsky's announcement bodes well for this weekend’s talks between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

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U.S. Should Punish Belgrade Embassy Bombers, China Says

BEIJING, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Reuters) China renewed its demands on Thursday for the United States to punish those responsible for NATO's bombing of Beijing's embassy in Belgrade and come up with a satisfactory explanation for the attack.

The renewed call for punishment -- one of four Chinese demands following the May 7 bombing -- came two days before President Jiang Zemin was due to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton in New Zealand amid signs that shattered Sino-U.S. ties were healing.

China received the apology for the bombing it demanded, but rebuffed a senior U.S. official who flew to Beijing to explain that intelligence errors had led to an attack on the wrong building.

Beijing also demanded a thorough investigation and publication of its results, but it had not renewed its insistence on punishment for some time.

"We still hope the United States can do more to resolve problems arising from the bombing of the Chinese embassy," Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi told reporters.

"The United States should take responsibility for this and handle the matter according to China's demands and take concrete steps including punishing those responsible and giving a satisfactory explanation to the Chinese people," Sun said.

The bombing sent ties between Washington and Beijing plunging to their lowest level since diplomatic contacts were established in 1971 and prompted a furious Beijing to break off negotiations on its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

On Wednesday, Jiang said he would discuss China's WTO bid with Clinton and indicated the political atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to allow agreement, calling Clinton "my old friend."

Jiang said he was reluctant to talk about the bombing.

Washington has apologized for the bombing and agreed to pay $4.5 million in compensation to families of three Chinese journalists killed.

The two countries are still negotiating U.S. compensation for damage to the Belgrade embassy building and U.S. demands for compensation for damage to its Beijing embassy during angry anti-U.S. protests after the bombing.

One factor in improving Sino-U.S. relations has been Washington's critical response to a July declaration by Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui that relations with Beijing should now be considered "special state-to-state" ties.

Asked whether China hoped Clinton would publicly criticize Lee's call, Sun said Taiwan was the most important and sensitive issue in bilateral ties.

"We hope the United States can honor its commitments. This is a very important factor for the maintenance of stable bilateral relations," he said.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has threatened to use force if the island declares independence. Washington agrees Taiwan is a part of China but insists the problem be resolved peacefully.

Sun reiterated China's position that Taiwan could join the WTO as a separate region once China had entered.

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Sri Lanka Says No To Dalai Lama Visit, Yes To Peace Drive

COLOMBO, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Sri Lanka will not allow Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit the island despite the government responding to a peace drive endorsed by the Buddhist leader, officials here said.

"Sri Lanka does not encourage the Dalai Lama to visit us," foreign ministry spokesman Ravinath Aryasinha told reporters as a United Nations agency announced plans to launch the drive next week.

Colombo is backing the UNESCO move to declare the country's northeastern town of Trincomalee as a "City of Peace" in line with a global call made by Nobel peace laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.

UNESCO local official Premadasa Udagama said he had no control over permitting the Dalai Lama to visit the country. The UNESCO peace plan involved obtaining one million pledges for peace in the world.

Sri Lankan Buddhist leaders last month asked the Colombo government to grant a visa for the Dalai Lama to visit the island.

However, the request had been vetoed by the foreign ministry amid pressure from China.

Buddhist leaders complain that Sri Lanka is the only Buddhist nation that has prevented a visit by the Dalai Lama.

Buddhist official and journalist Nemsiri Mutukumara said the issue of denying a visa to the Dalai Lama went back since a request for a visa was made nearly 25 years ago.

"I met the Dalai Lama in India last year and he said he was very keen to visit Sri Lanka on a pilgrimage," Mutukumara said. "The Dalai Lama told me it was his ambition to visit the Temple of the Tooth and the Sri Mahabodi."

The Temple of the Tooth in Sri Lanka's central town of Kandy is one of the most sacred shrines of Buddhists all over the world. A tooth relic of the Buddha is believed to be enshrined there.

Sri Mahabodi, a tree, is revered in the north-central town of Anuradhapura and the centuries old tree is believed to be a sapling from the original tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment over 2,500 years ago.

Mutukumara said that the Lama wept recently when he was shown photographs of the Temple of the Tooth which was bombed by suspected Tamil Tiger guerrillas in January 1998. The temple has since been restored.

Buddhist leaders here point out that was no justification for a country which has nearly 70 percent of its 18.5 million population following Buddhism to bar the Dalai Lama but allow other religious leaders to visit the country.

Pope John Paul II visited Colombo in January 1995 and was warmly received by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The pope conducted a well-attended mass at a seafront promenade here.

Diplomatic sources said that successive governments in Colombo were keen not to upset Beijing by inviting the Dalai Lama.

Sri Lanka also depends on the China for the purchase of small arms to fight Tamil Tiger guerrillas in the island's northeast.

"What is called for is to allow the Dalai Lama to visit Sri Lanka on a pilgrimage," Mutukumara said. "He just wants to worship the Temple of the Tooth and the Sri Mahabodi and that's all."

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Group Says Tibet Crackdown Has Widened Into Adjacent Provinces

NEW YORK, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) A Chinese crackdown on political activity in Tibet extends beyond the borders of the region into neighboring provinces of China, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Highlighting human rights violations targeting Tibetan activists in Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan and Qinghai provinces, the New York-based rights group demanded that United Nations human rights monitors gain access to the region.

Sidney Jones, Asia director of the rights group, said the recent detention of an American and an Australian in the region had focused international attention there "because foreigners were involved."

"But arrests of local activists in these eastern Tibetan regions deserve the same scrutiny -- and the same condemnation," she added.

Australian Gabriel Lafitte, 50, his fellow Tibet specialist, American Daja Meston, 29, and their Tibetan guide, Tsering Dorje, were detained for several days last month while conducting research in a part of Qinghai province targeted for a controversial World Bank aid project.

Meston was badly injured leaping from a building in an apparent attempt to escape detention. Lafitte was released unharmed physically. Dorje is apparently still being held.

China said the men were conducting illegal investigations into the project in which 60,000 Chinese will be relocated to the remote north-western province bordering Tibet.

"Human rights violations in 'eastern Tibet' were simply off the world's radar screen until two foreigners and their Tibetan translator were detained there," said Jones.

"The lesson of their detention and our new report is that it's absolutely essential for foreign correspondents, UN human rights monitors, and international humanitarian agencies to have regular access to the region."

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Taiwan Says China Envoy Welcome, Conditions Aren't

TAIPEI, Sep 9, 1999 -- (Reuters) Taipei said on Thursday it welcomed a proposed visit by China's top Taiwan-affairs envoy but flatly rejected its Communist rival's condition that Taiwan back down from a call for political parity.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin said in Australia on Wednesday that Wang Daohan's landmark visit was possible only if Taipei retracted its insistence that ties across the Taiwan strait be conducted on a "special state to state" basis.

Jiang also insisted that Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui meet Wang only in his capacity as head of the ruling Nationalist Party, not president of the island's exiled Republic of China, which Beijing maintains was vanquished in 1949.

Standing firm, Taiwan officials rejected Jiang's call to scrap the equality demand as "unreasonable" and "inappropriate", saying Beijing wanted to scuttle a visit that Taiwan welcomed.

"These are human obstacles set by the Chinese Communists to postpone Wang Daohan's autumn visit," said Su Chi, chairman of the cabinet's Mainland Affairs Council, which formulates Taipei's policies toward the rival mainland.

Su said Lee's July 9 assertion of political equality between the Republic of China and Beijing's People's Republic of China was a mere statement of fact and did not imply a policy shift.

Su said it would be wrong to paint Lee's comment as an assertion of independence for Taiwan, something the mainland vows to prevent -- by force if necessary.

"This political statement neither changes the status quo, nor signals a push for Taiwan independence. The Chinese Communists have misinterpreted President Lee's special state to state comments," Su said.

"There is no need to withdraw the statement."

Beijing, regarding Taiwan as an insubordinate province whose sole destiny is "reunification with the motherland", has attacked Lee's assertion as a dangerous lurch towards independence.

The sides have been estranged since 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government and troops were defeated by Mao Zedong's communist forces and fled to Taiwan.

Beijing has stopped short of canceling Wang's visit, but said Lee's move has left no basis for talks.

Lee's gambit also startled the United States and other Pacific Rim powers, which have institutionalized a "one China" policy that in effect supports the notion of eventual union. For two decades, the diplomatic fiction that there is but one Chinese state has underpinned regional security and even fostered a wary, unofficial engagement between Taiwan and the mainland.

Su said the conditions laid by Jiang ahead of his weekend summit with U.S. President Bill Clinton at a Pacific Rim forum in New Zealand aimed to build international pressure on Taiwan.

Dialogue would be preferable, he said.

"We hope Taiwan and the mainland can sit down to seek solutions like neighbors or friends," Su said. "But I won't be surprised if Wang Daohan cannot come this autumn as scheduled."

Wang, head of China's semi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, had agreed to visit Taiwan in September or October, reciprocating a breakthrough mainland tour a year ago by Koo Chen-fu, who, as head of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation, is Wang's political equal.

As for which hat Lee would wear if Wang visits, Su said this was not a problem, noting that when Jiang received Koo in Beijing, he did so in his capacity as secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party, not state president.

"We never raised the question of how Jiang Zemin would receive Koo Chen-fu," Su said.

By Reuters

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China Reaffirms Force Is An Option Against Taiwan, Blasts U.S.

CANBERRA, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese President Jiang Zemin reaffirmed Wednesday that force was an option against Taiwan and criticized the United States for supplying arms to Taipei.

"The Taiwan question is purely internal," he said at an unscheduled press conference here. "Our policy has always been peaceful reunification but we reserve the right to use force."

He said there had been positive momentum in cross-strait relations until Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui challenged the 'One China' policy by calling for state-to-state relations in July.

"China cannot accept this," Jiang said, adding that he could not understand Washington's actions since then.

"The Taiwan question is a sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations," he said.

"Clinton reaffirms his policy and meanwhile we see the U.S. selling weapons to Taiwan.

"The Chinese people find it hard to understand."

The U.S. broke-off diplomatic ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing in 1979, but has never stated whether it would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack and continues to sell it defensive weapons.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he discussed Taiwan with Jiang in bilateral talks and reaffirmed Canberra's One China policy but told him the two sides must settle their differences without resorting to military force.

By Agence France Presse

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Kissinger Criticizes Deterioration Of U.S.-Chinese Relations

WASHINGTON, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in an editorial Tuesday that the United States and China should calm tensions that are putting the two nations on a crash course to confrontation.

"The prospects of world peace, stability and progress will be hazarded if the current unnecessary rush toward confrontation is not reversed by both sides," Kissinger said in a Washington Post editorial.

Kissinger, secretary of state under former president Richard Nixon, said that President Bill Clinton and his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin, at their next meeting, should "try to defuse the immediate crisis and begin to place Sino-American relations on a solid basis."

The two are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit being held Auckland on September 12-13.

Kissinger said some are "fatalistic about this drift toward confrontation," which he called the "greatest strain in Sino-American relations since diplomatic contact was reestablished in 1971."

The former senior U.S. official identified the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the war in Kosovo, the entry of China into the World Trade Organization and the situation in Taiwan as problematic issues that could push the two into direct conflict.

"Taiwan's sudden and unilateral challenge to the existing political understandings in the Taiwan Strait ... is interpreted in Beijing as the culmination of an American plot to divide China," Kissinger said.

"Were Taiwan to achieve formal American recognition of a separate status, as its president (Lee Teng-hui) now seems to seek, this would surely lead to some kind of military clash that, whatever its outcome, would permanently rupture Sino-American relations and isolate America in Asia and probably the world," he added.

On Tuesday, Taiwan sought international support for its claim to equal status with China.

Kissinger said "for us to imagine that we can prevent China's natural growth and emergence as a major power is to commit us to an unprecedented domineering role.

"Over time, this would drain our physical and psychological resources, be opposed by the rest of the world, and in the end by the American people," he said.

The United States and China, Kissinger added, should work to address existing issues where they can have a "permanent geopolitical dialogue," saying that those talks would be indispensable to world peace.

By Agence France Presse

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Asia Pacific Officials Side-Step China-Taiwan Row

AUCKLAND, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Reuters) Asia Pacific officials have side-stepped a row over China-Taiwan relations by deleting reference to them in a document to be approved this week, senior trade officials said on Wednesday.

Officials of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in New Zealand had intended to recommend that both China and Taiwan join the World Trade Organization (WTO) before the launch of global trade talks in Seattle in November.

But a final discussion paper, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday, shows this proposal has been removed.

Officials said they had agreed to change the paper after objections by both Chinese and Taiwanese diplomats who feared their own countries' positions would be compromised by the recommendation.

"China said that the wording should be changed to make clear that Taipei could only join the WTO after Beijing. Taiwan could not agree, so the whole paragraph has been removed," said one senior APEC delegate, who declined to be identified.

The final paper, to be submitted to ministers of the 21-economy Asia Pacific grouping on Thursday, now says it would "encourage an acceleration in the accession negotiations of non-WTO APEC members."

The earlier draft had talked merely of "other APEC members" getting faster access to the free-trade body.

Senior officials said the final paper was intended to be inclusive and also embrace calls for the entry of Russia and Vietnam to the WTO.

While avoiding offense to either Beijing or Taipei, it clearly supported both candidates claims to WTO membership, they insisted.

The APEC officials have also suggested a framework for the next round of global trade talks under the auspices of the WTO.

Their paper recommends that the trade talks take three years and culminate in a single package of agreements. The officials' earlier draft had used a slightly different wording, calling for a "single undertaking."

The APEC officials' paper says the forthcoming global trade talks should be "balanced and sufficiently broad-based" to respond to the interests of all economies.

They call for a flexible approach to developing economies when dealing with progress towards free trade.

By Reuters

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Group Says Tibetan Monk Had Died From Torture In Lhasa Prison

BEIJING, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) A 31-year-old Tibetan monk has died from injuries sustained from being tortured while incarcerated at Lhasa's most notorious prison, a human rights group reported Wednesday.

Lobsang Dawa, also known by his religious name of Ngawang Jinpa, died after serving three years of a 12-year sentence at Drapchi prison for "counter-revolutionary activities," the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement received by AFP.

He died on May 20, two months after his release on medical parole, at his family home in Phenpo County, Tibet.

Authorities had in March diagnosed the monk with brain damage and attempted to extract fluid from his spine in order to treat a condition which can result from repeated blows to the head.

Lobsang Dawa and 43 other monks were arrested in May 1996 during a raid by Chinese authorities at the Ganden Monastery after hundreds of monks attempted to expel Chinese officials who had ordered the removal of all photos of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Chinese soldiers had fired warning shots into the crowd, which struck five monks and killed one, the rights group said.

The statement named another 16 monks arrested in the 1996 Ganden Monastery raid who remained behind bars serving sentences ranging from three to 15 years.

By Agence France Presse

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U.S. Seeks More Concessions From China On WTO

AUCKLAND, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Reuters) U.S. Commerce Secretary William Daley said on Wednesday that China must make additional market-opening concessions to win U.S. support for Beijing's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

Daley said China must go beyond the terms it proposed in April if Beijing hoped to conclude a deal with President Bill Clinton and get it through the U.S. Congress this year. If China refused, "it would be very difficult to expect that that deal would survive," Daley told Reuters on the sidelines of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

The United States and China were close to a WTO agreement in April, but President Bill Clinton backed away from a deal in hope of winning additional concessions from the Chinese on textiles, banking and anti-dumping issues.

That upset some business leaders and free-trade supporters in Congress, who accused Clinton of passing on the best possible deal. They urged him not to make the same "mistake" at APEC, where U.S. and Chinese negotiators are due to meet.

But Daley said the United States would not rush into a deal, and would insist that China go beyond the April terms. "We can't just give in," Daley said. "In order for it to pass Congress it has to be the right deal."

The Republican-controlled Congress would not vote on China's WTO entry. But as part of the pact, Clinton must convince lawmakers to grant Beijing permanent most-favored nation status, what the United States now refers to as Normal Trade Relations or NTR.

By Reuters

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Government Orders Increase In Circulation Of Unpopular People's Daily

BEIJING, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The Chinese Communist Party Wednesday called on all state and party institutions and enterprises to continue subscriptions of the party-controlled People's Daily and ensure circulation increases next year.

"Party committees at all levels must place high importance on the distribution work of the People's Daily," a circular issued by the general office of the central committee and carried by the paper said.

Ordinary Chinese rarely read the stuffy official paper which is full of policy articles and ideological theories.

Touted as the "mouthpiece of the party," the paper is rarely sold in street stalls around China, which today are full of racy commercial publications.

An official at the People's Daily told AFP that circulation was around 3 million in 1999, down from the all time high of 8 million, but above the all time low circulation of 2 million.

"Since the opening and reform, a lot of new newspapers have appeared and made competition difficult for the official party papers," he said.

According to official statistics, China in 1998 had more than 2,000 media publications, up from about 100 in 1978.

The circular said: "The party committee of every province, autonomous region and city must correctly handle the relationship between the central party newpapers and the local party newspapers and earnestly place distribution work of the People's Daily in the most prominent position."

All party organs from the village level up must order the paper, as well as all government organs above the county level, military and police units, collectives, enterprises and universities and schools above the middle school level, it said.

Airlines, railroads and hotels were also told to order a quantity of the paper so travellers and tourist could remain informed of the latest party pronouncements, it said.

By Agence France Presse

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Economic Ties With Taiwan To Remain Untouched, China Says

BEIJING, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Cross-strait economic relations will remain unscathed despite deteriorating relations between the mainland and Taiwan, a senior Chinese official said Wednesday.

"We'll stick to what (Chinese) President Jiang Zemin said, that economic exchanges across the Strait should not be affected by any differences," Wen Zaixing, a spokesman for the China Investment and Trade Fair, told the official Xinhua news agency.

Wen said China would take "practical measures" to protect the legal rights and interests of Taiwan investors on the mainland.

China-Taiwan relations took a nosedive in July after Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui said cross-strait relations should be seen on a "state-to-state" basis.

The mainland sees Taiwan as a renegade province and takes every opportunity to insist its allies strictly adhere to a 'one-China policy' and break ties with the nationalist island.

"Lee's remark has caused tense relations between the two sides of the strait and jeopardized both Taiwan's economy and cross-strait economic and trade ties," Wen said.

"However, cross-strait economic and trade exchanges will keep on progressing as long as the Chinese on both sides join hands in these efforts."

By Agence France Presse

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U.S., China In Agreement On New Ambassador

WASHINGTON, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) President Bill Clinton said on Tuesday he planned to nominate retired Navy Adm. Joseph Prueher as U.S. ambassador to China after Beijing agreed to the choice.

The Chinese government's acceptance, announced in Beijing earlier on Tuesday, appeared to mark a new step toward repairing relations badly damaged by NATO's May 7 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo conflict.

Clinton bypassed the diplomatic corps in selecting Prueher, who capped his 35-year military career with more than three years as the top U.S. military commander in the Pacific.

The admiral, who developed deep contacts with the Chinese military during his time as commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, left that post in February and retired from the Navy in May.

If his nomination is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Prueher will replace James Sasser, whose term ended soon after he was besieged in his Beijing Embassy compound in May by thousands of rock-throwing demonstrators infuriated by NATO's bombing of Beijing's mission in Belgrade.

The bombing prompted China to suspend talks with the United States about joining the World Trade Organization. However U.S. and Chinese officials resumed discussions on China's WTO bid in Beijing this week.

If the talks go well, the issue is likely to receive top-level attention when Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin meet in Auckland, New Zealand, on Saturday on the fringes of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

By Agence France Presse

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Jiang Urges Peaceful Solution To Timor

CANBERRA, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) The deteriorating situation in East Timor should be resolved through dialogue, not force, Chinese President Jiang Zemin said here Wednesday.

"I can understand the concern of Australia over the East Timor situation," he said in an unscheduled press conference in Canberra.

"But I think as there are so many hot spots in the world these hot spots should be resolved through peaceful negotiations and dialogue."

China is Asia's permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is deciding what to do about Timor's descent into anarchy.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned Jakarta to control the pro-independence militias or other steps would be considered. But no decision on international troops has been taken by the 15-member Security Council.

China has a veto on the security council and has traditionally been wary of any intervention it sees as undermining the principle of national sovereignty.

On Tuesday Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng said he feared China would block moves for international intervention on the province.

He said China saw Indonesia, a fellow "autocracy", as a friend.

"The Chinese government thinks the democratization of the Asia-Pacific region will threaten its own rule," he said.

Jiang did not elaborate on his position Wednesday but said he had been following the situation closely.

"I've been following closely the developments in East Timor and Prime Minister John Howard also briefed me on the position of Australia in this regard," he said.

"And I think the question should be discussed by the UN Security Council. I think that the Security Council will find a solution according to the development of the situation."

In an open letter to Howard, Amnesty International national director Kate Gilmore said China should be urged to provide positive leadership within the UN Security Council and support any international initiative.

"We ask you to seek President Jiang's assurance that China will not do anything to block moves for strong international intervention on East Timor," she said.

By Agence France Presse

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Howard Tells Jiang To Avoid Using Force On Taiwan

CANBERRA, Sep 8, 1999 -- (Reuters) Australian Prime Minister John Howard said he had urged Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a meeting on Wednesday not to use force against Taiwan, and had raised the issue of East Timor.

Howard also said he had reconfirmed Australia's commitment to a "One China" policy, which maintains that Taiwan is a part of China.

On Taiwan, Howard said he told Jiang "we would encourage all involved to resolve differences without a resort to any military force."

China has threatened to invade Taiwan if the island declared independence.

Lately it has been rattling its sabers after Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui said dealings with China should be on a "special state-to-state basis".

Howard gave no details of his discussions with Jiang on East Timor. Australia is pushing a plan for a peacekeeping force to stop murder and mayhem by militia gangs on the Indonesian island, but needs the support of China as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

On Taiwan, Howard said he told Jiang "we would encourage all involved to resolve differences without a resort to any military force."

China has threatened to invade Taiwan if the island declared independence.

Lately it has been rattling its sabers after Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui said dealings with China should be on a "special state-to-state basis."

Howard gave no details of his discussions with Jiang on East Timor. Australia is pushing a plan for a peacekeeping force to stop murder and mayhem by militia gangs on the Indonesian island, but needs the support of China as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

By Reuters

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