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CHINA E-LOBBY UPDATE: MARCH 3, 2004
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Dragon in the Dark: How and Why Communist China Helps Our Enemies in the War on Terror is now available: here, at Amazon, or call 1-888-280-7715.
TOP STORY: COMMUNIST CHINA HOLDS HONG KONG RESIDENTS FOR SPYING
DETAINEES INCLUDE BRITISH CITIZENS; �ANTI-SUBVERSION� LAW COULD GET A BOOST
Communist China is currently holding �a group of Hong Kong residents, including at least three British citizens, and begun to prosecute them on espionage charges� (Washington Post). The exact number of those being held is still unknown, but the majority worked for the People�s Republic�s diplomatic office in the city while it was still a British colony.
One detainee, Chan Yu-lam, �has been accused of spying for Britain between 1988 and 1995,� which particularly raises eyebrows because Hong Kong was still British territory until 1997, and thus the Communists had no real jurisdiction there. Chan, whose wife noted the obvious possibility of �political motives,� is one of the three naturalized Britons, at least.
In this case, however, the motives appear to be quite specific: pro-Communist politicos are using the arrests to resurrect the hideous �anti-subversion� bill, which would effectively give the Communist-appointed regime in the city the same �state secrets� and �subversion� excuses the Party uses on the mainland to arrest anyone who talks out of turn.
The bill was on the fast-track to becoming law in the Legislative Council, still controlled by a Communist-appointed majority, until 500,000 took to the streets to protest its passage (see 7/2, 7/9, and 7/16 Update). Some of those held by the Communists � including Chan � worked for a cadre in Hong Kong who defected to the U.S. after the Tiananmen massacre.
OTHER HONG KONG NEWS
U.S. SENATE INVITES TWO HONG KONG DEMOCRATS; COMMUNISTS LIVID
Meanwhile, the United States Senate invited Martin Lee and James To, two prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy legislators, to Washington �to brief the United States Senate about political developments in the territory� (Voice of America via Epoch Times, HK). Communist China claimed the fate of Hong Kong was �not Washington's concern.�
REPUBLIC OF CHINA (TAIWAN) NEWS
COMMUNIST MISSILES AIMED AT TAIWAN COULD HIT 600 BY NEXT YEAR
Review of National Defense Policies, a Taiwanese quarterly publication, predicted that the number of missiles Communist China has pointed at the island democracy will reach 600 next year. The magazine noted that Communist Chinese missiles �increased at least 11-fold� from 1995 to 2003. Report: Central News Agency (Taiwan) via Epoch Times
OVER ONE MILLION TAIWANESE TAKE TO THE STREETS TO PROTEST PRC MISSILES
One million Taiwanese joined in a human chain to protest Communist Chinese missiles pointed at them, and to support President Chen Shui-bian�s referendum demanding the People�s Republic take them down. The human chain, all but certain to boost Chen�s re-election bid, stretched �almost 500 kilometers� (Voice of America via Epoch Times, HK).
Chen, a Democratic Progressive, is running against Lien Chan, a Nationalist who is much preferred by Communist China. The PRC and Lien have blasted the referendum which will be held on the same day as the presidential election � on March 20. Also reporting were the BBC and the China Support Network.
PRO-TAIWAN REGIME IN HAITI BOUNCED
Whatever one may say about Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and many are saying much, under his rule, Haiti was one of the few nations �supporting Taiwan's membership� (Newsmax) into the United Nations, which naturally enraged Communist China. How Haiti�s future government will treat the island democracy is unclear.
TIBET NEWS
COMMUNIST CHINA FREES LAST NUN ARRESTED
Communist China released Phuntsog Nyidron, the last of a group of Tibetan nuns arrested �in the 1980s and early 1990s� (BBC). Most of the nuns escaped from the PRC after they were set free. Whether Phuntsog Nyidron can do the same is not clear, as she is almost certainly �under police surveillance.� Also reporting: Washington Post, VOA via Epoch Times
NEWS ON COMMUNIST CHINA, EAST TURKESTAN, AND THE TERRORIST WAR
Check out the Communist China and the Terrorist War page.
COMMUNISTS SLICE A YEAR OFF REBIYA KADEER�S SENTENCE
Communist China took one year off the jail time for Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer, moving up her scheduled release to August of 2006. The PRC jailed Kadeer for passing newspaper articles on the treatment of her people to her husband, anti-Communist activist Sidik Rouzi. The Communists called the articles �state secrets� (see 7/26/00 Update). Report: BBC
Communist China has claimed the Uighurs, who inhabit East Turkestan, are bin Ladenites; numerous reports have found them, in point of fact to be arguably the most pro-American Muslims on the planet (see 10/17/01, 12/21/01, 10/23/02, and 11/5/03 Updates). The Communists occupied East Turkestan in 1949, and renamed it �Xinjiang.�
NORTH KOREA NEWS
For more on Communist China�s Stalinist ally, sign up for Monday�s North Korea Report.
TALKS END WITHOUT A DEAL, BUT LOWER-LEVEL TALKS TO GO ON
The six-way talks in Beijing on North Korea�s nuclear weapons ended without a deal Saturday. Lower-level talks will continue, and another round of high-level talks is slated for sometime before July 1. This was apparently enough for Secretary of State Colin Powell to say the talks saw �unprecedented cooperation� (CNN).
Given that North Korea flatly denied they had a uranium-based nuclear weapons program, again trying to erase the admission made in October 2002, and that they can now continue to develop nuclear weapons with impunity while freezing the U.S. into talks, one has to ask Secretary Powell: if this is cooperation, what�s confrontation?
FEMALE REFUGEES SUFFER MORE HORRORS ON PRC SIDE OF BORDER
For North Korean refugees escaping to Communist China �some nightmares don't go away � they merely change dimensions� (Washington Post). This is especially true of women, many of whom �are sold into temporary or long-term service as sexual slaves or suffer other kinds of sexual or physical abuse, often inside entertainment clubs.�
How can this happen? In large part, it is due to Communist China�s policy of sending back every North Korean refugee it can find � despite the fact that repatriation usually means death for the refugees. As a result, North Korean refugees are basically nonpersons in the PRC, at the mercy of unscrupulous locals.
OTHER AMERICAN-RELATED NEWS
Sign the petition for an American boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
U.S. AND TAIWAN MAKING �REMARKABLE PROGRESS� ON LATTER�S DEFENSES
The United States military�s cooperation with Taiwan on improving the latter�s defenses against Communist China has made �remarkable progress� (Bill Gertz, Washington Times), according to former official Michael Pillsbury. While Pillsbury admitted problems in Taiwan�s defense remain, he called them �not insurmountable.� For more news on Taiwan, see Republic of China (Taiwan) News.
U.S. SHEELING OUT MILLIONS FOR �DEMOCRACY� IN COMMUNIST CHINA
Over the last five years, the United States has handed Communist China $39 million to �promote democracy� (Washington Times, fourth item). The money �flowed to grass-roots democracy projects and financed some joint initiatives with arms of the Chinese government and judicial authorities.� This begs the question: What were they thinking?!
U.S. BLASTS COMMUNIST CHINA ON HUMAN RIGHTS; PRC TRIES TO RETURN THE FAVOR
The U.S. State Department ripped at Communist China for violations on human rights. Among the PRC actions criticized were �arrests of democracy activists and Internet essayists, repression of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and a continuing crackdown on Muslim Uighurs in the name of fighting terrorism� (VOA via Epoch Times).
Assistant Secretary Lorne Craner, State�s top human rights official, said the abuses cited in the report were moving the U.S. closer to bringing a resolution to the United Nations Commission of Human Rights condemning the Communist China.
The PRC, naturally, blasted the report (United Press International via Washington Times, BBC). The Communists also continued their ever-more creative attempt at moral equivalence with its own �2003 US Rights Violation Record� report (Cybercast News). Also reporting: World Net Daily
MCDONALDS PLANS MAJOR EXPANSION IN COMMUNIST CHINA
I�m not lovin� this. McDonalds �is planning almost to double its outlets in China ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics� (BBC). The fast-food chain also signed �a fresh eight-year deal to sponsor the games for an unrevealed sum.�
PERLE RESIGNS FROM DEFENSE POLICY BOARD
Richard Perle has resigned from the advisory Defense Policy Board (Washington Post). Perle had been chairman of the group; during that tenure he was briefly on retainer from Global Crossing, which was trying to win approval for its sale to Hutchison Whampoa. The pro-PRC firm backed out of the deal last May (see 3/19/03, 3/26/03, and 5/7/03 Updates).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
COMMUNIST CHINA TRYING TO END EU ARMS BAN, BUT EU NOT GOING ALONG
Communist China is making another push to lift the arms embargo imposed by the European Union in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. France has been a strong supporter of the PRC on this issue, but Germany is backing away from the idea, and for everyone else it �went over like a lead balloon� (Radio Free Asia via Epoch Times).
INDIAN ELECTIONS SET FOR APRIL-MAY
India will go to the polls over a three-week interval from April 20 to May 10. The Bharatiya Janata Party, who reoriented India�s foreign policy in a more anti-Communist, pro-American direction, is likely to win re-election in a landslide. Report: CNN
ISRAELI CABINET APPROVES PHALCON SALE TO INDIA
The Israeli cabinet approved the sale of three PHALCON air radar systems to India, totaling over $1 billion in revenue for Israel. It was another sign of the growing relationship between Israel and India, which is documented in the Washington Times. The two agreed to the sale in October (see 10/15/03 Update).
NEWS FROM THE FALUN GONG WAR
PRACTITIONER RAPED; THOSE WHO EXPOSED THE OUTRAGE ARE SENT TO JAIL
Communist police arrested Falun Gong practitioner Wei Xingyan in March of 2003. Two days into her imprisonment, she was raped by a policeman. Five practitioners exposed this outrage � they are now all in jail. As for Wei, she was force-fed despite being on a hunger strike, and has now disappeared � still in Communist police custody. Report: Epoch Times
Spearheading the �investigation� for the Communists was the infamous �6-10� office, a secret bureau created in 1999 by then-PRC President Jiang Zemin. Jiang still retains power furtively as Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
OTHER HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS NEWS
YANG JIANLI BEGINS HUNGER STRIKE
In protest of his treatment by Communist China, imprisoned activist Yang Jianli began a hunger strike this week. Yang returned to the PRC from exile in the U.S. two years ago to help activists during the 2002 labor protests (see 3/13/02, 3/20/02, 5/1/02, and 7/3/02 Updates). He�s been in prison ever since. Report: China Support Network
CORRUPTION NEWS
FORMER TOP BEIJING CADRE SENT TO PRISON FOR 16 YEARS
A Communist court sentenced former Beijing Party boss Chen Xitong to 16 years for taking bribes. However, this sentence generated more questions than answers: Chen, a prot�g� of Tiananmen butcher Li Peng, was involved in �a major corruption scandal that has yet to be exposed� (Epoch Times), involving at least 70 high-ranking, but still unknown, cadres.
COMMUNIST CHINA RESTRICTING CADRES� USE OF CARS
The Communist �company car� is now a target of the Party�s effort to clean up its image. The Communists are writing �new rules . . . to stop officials using the vehicles for private purposes� (BBC). Whether or not those rules, once written, will be followed is another question entirely.
OTHER MAINLAND NEWS
RURAL RESIDENTS EARNED A THIRD OF WHAT URBAN RESIDENTS EARN
A report by Communist Chinese officials admitted �that in 2002 urban residents earned three times more than their rural counterparts� (BBC). That was the good news � thanks to illegal fees rural cadres impose of their provinces in health care and education, the residents� net earnings �are a sixth of China's urban residents.�
Communist China continues to be deeply worried, and with good reason, about the growing anger in the impoverished rural interior at the regime�s tilt in favor of urbanites.
COMMUNIST POLICE PUT OUT LAUGHABLE CRIME FIGURES
According to the Communist police, violent crimes have fallen steeply in the PRC this year. However, at least one former high-ranking official at Shenzhen�s Public Security Bureau (police force) told RFA (via Epoch Times) that the statistics are clearly false, and only for public consumption �to maintain so-called social stability.�
COMMUNISTS WORRIED ABOUT �BUBBLE,� �OVERHEATING ECONOMY�
Guo Shuqing, the cadre largely in charge of Communist China�s deliberate currency devaluation, is now worried about an �asset bubble problem� caused by massive foreign investment of recent years. The Washington Post took the words as evidence the PRC may increase the value of its currency, which has made it the second largest exporter to the U.S.
However, even as PRC central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan talked of �over-investment and inflation� (VOA via Epoch Times), Communist Premier Wen Jiabao hinted that the currency �would not likely be changed any time soon.�
COMMUNIST CHINA DESTROYING THE GREAT WALL
The Great Wall of China has finally met its match � Communist roads and energy projects. The hallmarks of rampant overdevelopment, of the kind no free market would allow, have led to several gaps in the Wall. Report: CNN
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