/'_/\ /'_/| | \ `\ | | | ______ | `\ `\ | | | ______ /'______/\ | |\ `\ `| | | /______/\ | ___ \/| | | |\ `\| | | | ___ \ \ | /'/ \_|/ | | | `\ | | | | | \ \/| | | | __ |_|/' `\__|/' | | | | | | | | \__/_/| | | |__| | | | \/___| |/ China News Digest | |/__/ |/ \_______/(InfoBase June 4 Collection)|_______/ May 12, 1993 **The CND InfoBase Project collects, among other China-related information, materials and/or bibliographical reference to matericals about the Beijing Massacre on June 4, 1989. Please refer to the trailer for more information. No. Subject june3-89.05t # of Lines --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: .......................................................... 102 2. HEADLINE: Beijing residents repel troops Mobs block military's 1st use of force ............................. 130 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. HEADLINE: .......................................................... 102 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chicago Tribune, June 3, 1989, Saturday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION BYLINE: From Chicago Tribune wires Soviet-Chinese lessons The Tulsa (Okla.) Tribune: Temporarily, at least, the air has gone out of the balloons in Beijing and Moscow. China's leaders outwaited student demonstrators and Soviet conservatives outvoted reformers. Disappointment runs deep in both capitals, but the world got a glimpse of the future and it looked encouraging. It appears that the entrenched party members in both China and the Soviet Union are safe for now. Still, the power of 1 million demonstrators in Beijing and the outspoken opposition in Moscow to the status quo had its effect. Fear remains, but now it is mostly in high places. Baker's Middle East speech The Hackensack Record: Secretary of State James A. Baker III . . . had a remarkably no-nonsense warning (for Israel): Give up the dream of annexing the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip, and "reach out to Palestinians as neighbors who deserve political rights." For Palestinians and the Arab world, Baker had a plea to let Israel live in peace and security, and to respond constructively to Israeli proposals for elections in the occupied territories. To some friends of Israel, this good-neighbor policy sounds naive and dangerous. Criticism of Israel, and the kind of balance Baker showed in his speech, do not mean any lessening of America's commitment to Israel. What it does mean is a change from the style of the Reagan years, when a speech as bluntly critical as Baker's would have been out of the question. Preserving Hatch Act Kansas City Star: (The Hatch Act) should be preserved, though efforts have been renewed this year to weaken (it). The motivation is clear. If the federal bureaucracy of some 3 million could be shaped into a political force, it would be a formidable factor in campaigns. The revisionists espouse the line that the law can be written to allow some participation without compromising public service. Not so. A drive on dropouts The Tacoma Morning News Tribune: West Virginia, not generally considered to be a state at the forefront of bold, educational experiments, has worked a minor miracle: It's come up with a way to cut its high school dropout rate by almost a third. The state has cut its annual dropout figure from 5,000 to 3,400 by threatening dropouts with loss of the most valuable commodity in their young lives: their driver's license. Under a law enacted last year, a student who drops out at 16 loses his license and doesn't become eligible to get it again until 18. Students with special situations have the right to appeal the decision, but the state has not granted many exemptions. . . . With an estimated one out of four students failing to graduate in the United States, here's a new idea with a real impact. Energy Department blunder Deseret News, Salt Lake City: Someone needs to take Energy Secretary James Watkins aside and explain the problems that arise when the fox guards the hen house. Billed by a DOE spokesman as a move to improve "line management efficiency," Watkins has ordered that the same assistant who is responsible for nuclear weapons production should now assume responsibility for safety at the nation's 16 weapons plants. He has also eliminated any safety oversight and monitoring at the plants by another office within his department. Production schedules and proper safety procedures are both important components in the weapons production program, but the two functions are diametrically opposed, and each should be overseen by someone without a built-in conflict of interest. Unfair traders The Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune: No one who understands the benefits of an open world trading system can be pleased by President Bush's designation last week of Japan, India and Brazil as unfair trading nations, but he had no good alternative to that risky action. Japan, which ran a $55 billion trade surplus with the United States last year, was the main target. But Bush did not want to cite it alone, fearing an irrational reaction by Tokyo, so Brazil and India, less flagrant offenders, were added as cover. Japan has to change. It cannot expect to sell cars and consumer electronics to Americans and refuse to buy what they make best. One hopes Americans will have the patience and Japanese will develop the maturity to prevent a tit-for-tat trade war that will harm everybody. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. HEADLINE: Beijing residents repel troops Mobs block military's 1st use of force ............................. 130 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BYLINE: By Uli Schmetzer and Ronald E. Yates, Chicago Tribune DATELINE: BEIJING Unarmed troops marched toward Tiananmen Square on Saturday morning but were turned back by angry residents and students who engaged the soldiers in hand-to-hand scuffles. As daylight came over the capital, knots of straggling troops, some with torn shirts, others limping shoeless, made their way back to their barracks escorted by residents on bicycles who scolded them. The action by an estimated 10,000 soldiers may have been a probe to gauge the resistance of a student movement whose public support appeared to have dwindled over the last week. It was the first time the government used force in an attempt to take back China's most sacrosanct site. In a bizarre spectacle, the young soldiers ran into a wall of citizens, some dressed in pajamas, others in shorts. The protesters were alerted by Paul Revere-like alarms shouted by motorcyclists who patrol the Avenue of Eternal Peace leading to the square. "Come out, come out, the soldiers are coming," one youth cried as he roared into the middle of the square where students have camped since May 13 in their efforts to force the government to institute democratic reforms. It was 2:30 in the morning when the first mile-long column of troops was sighted double-timing its way down Jinguomenwei Avenue toward the square. "It was a motley mob," a Western diplomat said of the soldiers. "They wore beige shirts, olive-drab trousers and hats. Most of them carried school-type satchels and cardboard cartons strapped on their backs." In what appeared to be a three-pronged probe of the square's defenses and the readiness of tens of thousands of citizens who had pledged to protect the students, the soldiers got as far as the Beijing Hotel, half a mile from the square, when they were met head-on. "We pulled off their hats, we ripped their shirts and we wrestled away their weapons. They didn't realize Beijing people never sleep," said Chen, a young worker brandishing one of the "weapons." This "weapon" was a simple wire noose encased in plastic. It could be slipped around the neck and twisted to immobilize an opponent. By dawn the victorious crowds were handing out their captured "arsenal" as souvenirs. As more and more people poured into the streets, cursing the bewildered young soldiers, the troops backed away. Within minutes, barricades were being erected across main avenues: huge dump trucks filled with coal and sand, buses quickly requisitioned and even a construction crane. Remnants of the scattered force were cornered and harangued by crowds. One group of 200 soldiers was backed against a brick wall surrounding the Beijing Hotel. "We're all Chinese, we speak the same language and you were told wrong," a middle-aged man said, berating the soldiers. "They told you some rotten people are troublemakers. But the truth is it's the leadership that is rotten." A woman interjected: "Why did you come here?" "We were ordered," replied a timid soldier. "Can't you think for yourself?" the woman retorted. "I know now. I've seen the situation here. I want to go back and sleep," said the young soldier. Many of the soldiers said they came from provincial military commands, some near Beijing, others as far as Beidai-He, in Shangxi province, the beach resort famous as a summer rendezvous for China's Communist Party hierarchy. Their bizarre night action on Tiananmen Square seemed poorly coordinated and planned. Troop contingents came from north, west and east, but at different times and by different modes of travel. Some troops came in trucks, others on foot. They found the crowd already belligerent after a report that two bicyclists had been killed by a speeding police jeep on the outskirts of the city in an apparently unrelated incident. Many soldiers jogging up Jinguomenwei Avenue had no idea where they were or where they were headed. Most were surprised to find an irate mob of workers and residents confronting them a few hundred yards from the world's largest public square. One officer, however, said he had orders "to surround the square" with his recruits. (According to Reuters news agency, a Western diplomat quoted a Chinese military source as saying the plan had been for the troops to encircle Tiananmen, and that then the People's Armed Police, a special unit, would enter the square to remove students. ) It was obvious even to euphoric residents who boasted they had fought the "invaders" off that none of the troops had come prepared for battle and most of the scuffles occurred when the troops tried to extricate themselves from the angry mobs. "I thought we were on a morning exercise run," said one soldier. For three hours after the clashes, clusters of sheepish soldiers, heads down, eyes averted, shuffled along city avenues like an army in retreat after a trouncing. Some showed obvious signs of the battle as they hobbled away, supported by comrades who walked bareheaded and often shirtless. Some soldiers had apparently lost their shoes and walked in their stocking feet, others had one shoe tied to their knapsacks. "This just shows what the government thinks of its people by sending in troops in the middle of the night," said one angry student leader. And many young workers, the first in the front line against the troops, proudly told anyone willing to listen that they had kept nocturnal vigils on the students in Tiananmen Square for days. "The people of China have arisen," said one resident, a Russian language teacher at a Beijing University. GRAPHIC: PHOTO (color): AP Laserphoto. A soldier scuffles with Beijing residents Saturday morning. "We wrestled away their weapons," one student said (page 1, Chicagoland North). PHOTO: AP Laserphoto. Despite the threat of a machine gun resting on the dashboard, Beijing residents surround a carload of soldiers trying to make their way to Tiananmen Square early Saturday. TERMS: CHINA; RIGHTS; PROTEST; MILITARY; REACTION +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor: Bing Wen in Ottawa, Canada | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest (CND) InfoBase covers the following areas: | | History : WWII, Cultural Revolution, June 4, Olympics | | Service : visa/PR, PRC-doc, tax, insurance, travel/living | | Academics : job, conference/workshop, societies, projects | | Other : org intro, book review, community activities | | ------ * ------ * ------ | | To contribute, please send to CND-IB@CND.ORG | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+