Subject: Part II, CND Follow-up Report on IFCSS 2nd Congress

From: Bo Xiong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Jul 90 06:37:12 -0500

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+-+-+-+-+-+  C h i n a   N e w s   D i g e s t,  US Section (NDUS) +-+-+-+-+-+

              CND Follow-up Report on IFCSS 2nd Congress, Part II

                                July 14, 1990

Foreword by the editor:

    This is the last issue of eight CND reports on IFCSS 2nd Congress (July 6
through July 8, 1990, Columbus, Ohio).  CND thanks IFCSS officers and Chinese
students and scholars in Ohio State University who hosted the 2nd Congress,
for their generous help which enabled CND report the 2nd Congress news timely
and accurately.  CND also thanks our readers for their encouragement and
support to our activities.  Finally, many thanks go to my CND co-workers who
provided great efforts in info collecting, article writing and news packages
distributing.  CND will again bring Live Report to you in next IFCSS Congress.

                                                           Bo Xiong in Chicago

---------------------------- Table of Contents ---------------------------
No. Subject                                                     # of Lines

1. The Climax: Final Campaign for IFCSS President on July 7, 1990.......75

2. A Delegate's Impression about the IFCSS 2nd Congress.................75

3. "Don't Forget China, Keep Hope Alive"
   --The 1st Concert by the US Chinese Students Arts Ensemble, July 6...45
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. The Climax: Final Campaign for IFCSS President on July 7, 1990
====================================================================(75 lines)
    In the evening of July 7, 1990, the IFCSS 2nd Congress moved into its
climax -- final campaign and election of IFCSS president.  The session started
with the introduction of the condidates for the President and Vice-president.

    The final campaign opened up between Dr. Chen, Xingyu (Univ. of Wisconsin
at Madison) paired with Mr. Chen, Shizhong (Univ. of California at San Diego)
and Dr. Zhao, Haiqing (Harvard Univ.) paired with Mr. Yang, Lixing (Columbia
Univ.).

    Obviously, the competition was very keen.  Both Chen, Xingyu and Zhao,
Haiqing have done excellent job for IFCSS since 1st Congress, Chen leads IFCSS
working committee in charge of Outcry (IFCSS offical publication) and June
4th Radio Station.  Zhao, even much more famous, leads the lobbying activities
in the US Congress that virtually solve passport and visa problem for most
of Chinese students and scholars in the US.

    Chen & Chen's campaign mamager Liu, Yadong, assistant manager Ding, Jian
first gave out impressive introduction of their candidates then Zhao & Yang's
campaign assistants Lou, Zhexi and Hu, Tiefeng actively promoted Zhao & Yang.

    During the self-introduction session, Zhao moved the audience by his deep
love of IFCSS: "IFCSS is like an one year old little baby, I am willing to
sacrifice my everything for her".   Chen, Xingyu impressed the delegates by
simple and clear campaign slogans: "Strengthen IFCSS, Serve Students&Scholars,
Uphold Independency and Promot Human Rights".

    Both parties delivered quite a few nice yet interesting pieces in the
following Q & A session.

Q: How will you deal with the triangle relationship among IFCSS, Chinese
   Liberty & Democracy Party (CLDP, newly founded) and CCP?

A: (By Chen, Xingyu) Stand for IFCSS, support CLDP and oppose CCP.
-- -- -- --

Q:  How to handle the factions within IFCSS?

A: (By Zhao, Haiqing) We are all in the same faction, i.e., IFCSS.  Even if
   there are different factions, as long as each faction fights against any
   unconstitutional behaviours of other factions, IFCSS will end up with a
   better organization only.

    The debate between Chen, Xingyu and Zhao was full of humor and witticism.

Chen: I suggest you to hire a couple of competent secretaries to make up for
      your mindlessness on daily life details such as paying credit card bill
      and handle phone bill to avoid your credit card being cancelled again.

Zhao: I don't need any secretary, but just a good wife like yours (Zhao's
      other half is so far still missing :-)
-- -- -- --

Zhao: How could you keep such broad and wide connections with people from
      various categories?

Chen: Read more books and make more friends (Duo1 Du2 Su1, Guang3 Jiao1 You3).

    The final voting began at around 12:00 midnight.  Among 118 votes, 66 went
to Chen & Chen, 46 to Zhao & Yang, with 6 abstained.  Dr. Chen, Xingyu was
elected IFCSS new president.

    Surrounded by load applause, Chen and Zhao warmly embraced, tied and
raised their hands making V signs.

    Still in a simple and clear tone, Chen, Xingyu told everyone "please
watch what I do, and I'll also watch you all do".

    Zhao appealed to his supporter sincerely, "please support Xingyu as you
did to me".

    The IFCSS president election ended in the jubilation of "Long Live IFCSS".

(  Written by: CND editors  Bo Xiong [email-masked];  Weihe Guan
	       [email-masked]  and  Gang Xu  [email-masked]		    )
==============================================================================

2. A Delegate's Impression about the IFCSS 2nd Congress
====================================================================(75 lines)
>From: A delegate of IFCSS 2nd Congress

    Hi, this is just my own impression of the event. Just for your reference.

    Attendance: About 200 deligates from 110 schools showed up, compared with
about 400 from some 180 schools in the Chicago meeting (1st Congress). Most of
the large schools showed up, however, so that it was still a big event. I saw
many familiar faces there, the people who are active this year were mostly
those who had been active last year in 1st congress.

    Media Coverage: Much low key, compared with last year in Chicago. Only
local TV crew showed up in the opening ceremony.  World Journal reporter
followed the Congress through the end.

    General mood of the deligates: I could feel the decline in the enthusiasm,
but I was glad to see that a lot of people there were those who are running a
specific project, such as CND, say PFH, 'Freedom Forum', and so on.  Those
people were very motivated in advertising their publications. Also there was a
'Human Right' group.

    Candidates for the president position: Both Zhao, Haiqing and Chen, Xingyu
earned their credit through hard work in the past year, compared with the
candidates last year, Ding, Jian and Liu, Yongchuan, both had experiences in
TAM Square during the movement. However, for the most of 'undecided' deligates,
the debating performance was still the determining factor of their votes.

    Chen did a much better job than Zhao in the question/debating session,
appeared to be strong, confident, determined and in conmmand of the situation.
Also Chen got two very good campaign managers, Ding, Jian and Liu, Yadong,
while Zhao's managers didn't do as close to Chen's, this could be one of their
fatal mistakes.

    Comparison: Both candidates emphasised on pushing for the real things
(Shi2 Gan4). But Chen put organization reconstruction first, while Zhao put
service for the students first. Zhao also point out his ability for getting
donations from the US public. Both tried to avoid going to one of the
extremes, i.e., either make IFCSS to be a political party, or to degrade it
to be a student club only. But still I could feel that Chen sounded a little
bit more 'radical' than Zhao.

    Confrontation: between the 'radicals' and the 'conservatives'. It appeared
that the 'radicals' were fewer in number, but had a louder voice in the speech
session, since their stance was easy to define. While I saw no 'conservatives'
go to the stage and defend their position with strong vigor. The 'radicals'
thought that the present danger is for IFCSS to decress its political tune and
degrade into another 'Quan2 Mei3 Xue2 Lian2', while the 'conservatives'
thought that the real danger is for IFCSS to lose the mass students it
represents, and become another political party.

    Issues: But in the real issues and bills being discussed, those
conservatives had kind of upper hand. Most of proposals were related to the
strengthing of the organization and more service to the students. Also the
bill of the 'China Affair Committee' got passed and it calls for more
exchanges and interactions with people at home, and also to try to 'dialogue'
with the government, holding the political stance of IFCSS on the essential
issues, like June 4th. In the revision of the General Articale of IFCSS
Constitution, the proposal of adding 'to promote the development of science,
technology, culture and education in China' to the goal of IFCSS was passed
after hot debates and confrontations. You must have already read CND's report
about it, so there is no need for me to repeat it here.

    On the whole, I think that this conference was a success. And the result
need to be seen by the operation of the headquaters and the working
committees. One of the problem I felt was that there were not enough dedicated
people to run the working committees. A lot of people who initiateed the bills
hoped that others would come up to run the committees, while themselves were
too busy for other things. So a lot of people just offered ideas, and couldn't
put themselves to get the work done. I am not blaming them. Most activists had
exhausted themselves in the last year.

    One bill I am very interested in is the one about 'Human Right Committee'.
By associating with 40,000 chinese students in US, IFCSS can do a lot in
collecting info of Human right violations in China.

    OK, so much for tonight. This is just my personal note and it is certainly
biased by my peronal point of view.
==============================================================================

3. "Don't Forget China, Keep Hope Alive"
   -- The 1st Concert by the US Chinese Students Arts Ensemble, July 6
====================================================================(45 lines)
    Last Friday (July 6) evening, delegates to the IFCSS second Congress were
treated to a very special event.

    Congress organizers have arranged a large array of artists to perform for
the delegates and called it "the first concert by the U.S. Chinese students
arts ensemble in 1990."

    Some of the artists have been familiar to the audience before. Like famous
singer Zheng Xulan, formerly of the Dongfang Song and Dance Troupe, whose
outstanding performances was interrupted by repeated applauses. "As an artist,
it is most moving to see this kind of scenes", she said. She ended up singing
two more songs than was originally scheduled, with musical accompaniment
hastily arranged for the last song.

    The evening was filled with this kind of close exchange of understanding
and encouragements between the artists and the delegates. When one singer said
his performance on the first IFCSS congress has lead to troubles with his boss
in China, the delegates gave him a long and encouraging applause.

    Many of the artists have driven long distance to participated in the
event. Some had come inspite of fever or other sickness.

    The most noteworthy performance of the evening, however, was a sculpture
play, titled "The Square", by an amateur troupe from the University of
Michigan. A "sculpture play", which might not be familiar to many readers,
involved actors/actresses acting in accompany with poetry, music, slide shows,
etc.. The term "sculpture" probably comes from the fact that the actors/
actresses frequently remain in a fixed posture for prolonged periods of time,
x which gave unique effects of 3-D photographs.

    Combined with the slide show of photographs from last year's events in
Beijing, the poetry in both English and Chinese, the music, the stage light,
and the heart-breaking sounds of gun fire, the students and citizens on
Tiananmen Square last year were revived and vividly brought back to meet the
audience. The performance was exceptional and very fitting to the occassion.
Several times it brought tears to the eyes of this member of the audience.
At the end of the sculpture play, slide shows "Don't forget China, Keep
Hope Alive".

    The evening was concluded by an all-sing-along of the song "The Wounds
of History", led by a Congress delegate from Rutgers University. The song was
written by Taiwan writers in memorial of the Beijing Massacre.

(Written by CND editor Yagui Wei, [email-masked])
==============================================================================

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